How to Stock a Pantry Ready for Any Meal

Meal planning is definitely an area that I need to grow in. There are days when 5 o’clock rolls around and I say, “What should I cook for dinner?” Then, I have a moment of minor panic and I run my brain through three things; a protein, a carb, and a vegetable. If I can come up with one of each of those things, I’ve got a full-blown meal! And you know what? It always works out.  As a poor meal planner and a mom of five, our pantry is always stocked with food to prepare a delicious and nutritious meal, whether it’s last minute or planned ahead. So, here’s is a quick get-to-the-point breakdown of how we do it.

Thinking of dinner in three core pieces; the protein, the carb, and the vegetable makes whipping up a last-minute meal much easier. If I’m able to set the table with these three things together, I know we’ll end the day with satisfied bellies. That being said, here is my list of foods we almost always have on hand in order to be ready to whip up a good meal!

Our meat/protein checklist:

·      Beef: We purchase a whole cow from a local grass-fed beef farmer. Buying a whole cow simply means that we get every edible cut of meat we can get from this cow. We store it away in a deep freezer until we run out. (For our family of seven it takes about 10-12 months to run out of beef, but this all depends on how often you eat beef and how many pounds you eat per meal.) This way we always have meat on hand. Typically, you have the option of buying a quarter cow, half cow, or whole cow. Check out your local supplier and find out!

·      Chicken: We buy from Azure Standard, and store them in the freezer, as well. They have some of the most tender fryers I have ever had!

·      Eggs: We get a steady supply from our laying hens.

Mix of hard red wheat and soft white wheat.

Our carb checklist:

·      Wheat to be freshly milled: We buy hard red and soft white wheat by the buckets from a local supplier. This is a carb that we only use for planned meals or snacks so that the flour can take the time to soak and ferment properly. We use it to make all bread products; Waffles, pancakes, muffins, biscuits, loaf bread, rolls, bagels, cake, cobbler, pie, you name it.

·      Potatoes: This is our go-to last-minute-dish carb. We buy russet and golden potatoes in bulk from Azure Standard. There’s a bad potato here and there but overall, they have been in great condition and delicious. They do sprout fairly quickly so if you want to do baked potatoes, you’ll want to do it soon after receiving your potatoes. We buy 50lbs and eat it over the course of a month so it really depends on how much you buy and how long they’ll be hanging around before getting eaten.

·      Masa harina: Oh, how we love tortillas in this house! Masa harina is nixtamalized corn ground into a fine flour for making tortillas and many other Latin American foods. We buy our yellow corn and white corn masa harina from Azure Standard. It has a great flavor and a great texture. We use ours to make tortillas, arepas, and even cornbread!

·      Brown rice: While we prefer to soak it before cooking, rice also comes in handy for a last-minute meal if we have nothing else. We buy this in 5-gallon buckets.

·      Beans: small red beans and white northern beans are our favorites, but any kind of bean stores well! Once again, we buy ours from Azure Standard and store in 5-gallon buckets.

The vegetable:

·      Organic onions: Onions go well in every savory dish, right? Or is that just me? I love onion and I cook them in just about every meal I make, so we also buy them in bulk from Azure Standard. As long as you catch any bad onions and get them out quickly, 40lbs of onions does our family of seven just fine over the course of one month.

·      Winter squashes: After drying out on the vine, I store our winter squash decoratively on a shelf with minimal sunlight exposure. They sit there all pretty on the shelf ready to be peeled, cooked, and eaten any time we like!

All other vegetables we either buy or grow to eat fresh rather than buying in bulk. Some of our favorites we like to have around are zucchini, peppers, and carrots. I also like to chop up some fresh celery and freeze it so that it’s ready to be thrown into a dish at any time.

Ingredients Checklist

The foods listed above are the core pieces of a meal, so now we need to have the rest of our ingredients stocked and on-hand to complete our recipes!

Other foods:

·      Salt (we use Redmond’s)

·      Black pepper

·      Baking soda

·      Butter

·      Olive oil and/or Beef tallow

·      Milk

·      Tomato sauce (canned)

·      Mustard

·      Soy sauce

·      Apple cider vinegar

·      Spices (see list of spices here)

·      Sweeteners (Panela, raw honey, sorghum syrup, and maple syrup are what we typically have)

·      Nuts

·      apples

·      raisins

·      frozen or dried fruits

·      raw cheese

In the same way that our family has evolved over the years, so has our pantry. Your pantry is going to look different than ours. The point is to figure out what nourishing meals your family loves and likes to eat often. Then think about what foods are involved in those recipes and which ones can be bought in bulk and always kept in-stock and on-hand. This way you can minimize your grocery list for those more frequent trips to the local grocery store and save time. Don’t limit yourself to your local big chain grocery store. Shop around, compare quality and prices, and buy food in bulk if it’s at a better price and you’re able.