The Pantry That Makes From-Scratch Cooking Look Easy

Our pantry and spice drawer are run like Panama in the ’80s—it’s a quietly effective partnership, where ingredients get smuggled into the pantry effectively, and it works for all parties involved—no military presence needed. We treasure our decades-old clove and nutmeg, stuff we’re certain never goes bad, that we’ll never actually worry about procuring. If and when they run dry, we know those are the items worth splurging on. Saffron on the other hand… anyone know who’s got quality supply these days? Cheap?

Our vinegars and sauces are easy enough to come by, except for that one brand of liquid smoke—oops—they shouldn’t make glass bottles that fragile. We keep these four vinegars in constant rotation: rice wine, sherry wine, champagne citrus, and apple cider, and all are available in bulk. That nicely rounds out our acid supply. Acid is one of the essential flavor bases, along with fats, aromatics, and sweet/umami flavors, needed to round out any recipe. A good cook stocks as many of those as possible.

Mysterious and novel appearances do happen sometimes. One came in a box with camping gear and borrowed cookbooks, snuck in undercover by my father-in-law no doubt, camouflaged inside a ‘whole black peppercorns’ container, a rich, dark, savory fluid. It was labeled conspicuously on the red lid in Sharpie: OystER SaucE. My father-in-law is sometimes the smuggler, but other times his son is my spice dealer.

I’ve come home to find baggies of dried green herb and thought to ask, “Do we smoke it or eat it?” jokingly, I assure you. “Oh, that’s Mexican oregano. It’s a lot stronger than Penzey’s stuff. It came from la tienda over on Jordan Lane.” Okay, my sweet, so long as you keep me in good supply for making homemade taco seasoning. We are all fiends keeping a close eye on our ever-dwindling pantry stashes in this household.

The flours and dairy products get auto-replenished as if Alexa devoutly listened to our pantry refill wishes, but we have no Alexa. The grocery store clerks know our faces though. It’s mostly because I love a bechamel sauce on anything, and one of our kids is a baking addict, which creates a lot of baking chocolate, baking soda and powder, flours, and eggs being necessary all the time please! Pasta and beans, Royal brand basmati bought in bulk from BJ’s, where the cashiers know us as well. We also have an ancient grains dealer: ancientgrains.com … because sometimes it’s just fun to make oldschool bread. We’ve exchanged Anasazi beans for pinto beans in our red beans and rice recipe. Crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce, both canned? Absolute necessity around here. Always on the shelf.

He has his blind spots around the house—he’ll never know what that bleach-smelling brush in its own bungalow behind the toilet is for—but my dear husband knows how to stock a pantry well. It’s been his ongoing life pursuit to perfect the ebb and flow of kitchen essentials—in versus out—and never see a pantry item expire. His list of essentials versus mine differs vastly. I tend more towards foldable meats and Diet Coke. He appreciates at least one stick of butter, softened, plus a pound in the fridge, as garlic toast with bread that needs to be eaten is often impromptu lunch around here.

But I digress, again. We are here to issue a statement on what a well-stocked pantry looks like, to explain what can go by the wayside, for now, and to map out a path towards democracy for your cabinets and spice racks, where every spice and every oil gets its way into this food society we’re building. Stock as you please, but stock well, fellow cook.

Absolute Essentials — and How to Build Upon Them

1. Salt and Pepper. The non-negotiables. Everything starts here.
2. Butter, Olive Oil, and One Other Good Oil of your choosing. We currently stock sesame oil, peanut oil, vegetable oil, and… does oyster sauce count as an oil?
3. Milk, Eggs, and Heavy Cream. A classic bechamel is made with milk and we’ll introduce it quickly. A proper cream sauce uses cream—just semantics on sauces here.
4. Chicken Broth, boxed, and both jarred beef and chicken bouillons. Please save yourself hours in the kitchen by not slow-cooking a stock unless it’s already your thing.
5. Actual Garlic and Onion—the real deal, please. Both are cheap enough and root-cellar-worthy enough to keep on hand. Store them separately. Yellow onion and plain old garlic is what we mean.
6. Garlic and Onion Powder for convenience mostly, but there are times you need these to start building your spice mixtures. Doesn’t everyone build their own dry taco seasoning?
7. Some other Dried Herbs—and this mostly depends on your cuisine preferences. Hankering for French Provençal? Then dried thyme, tarragon, and lavender may be your first picks. But if you’re leaning heavily towards taco Tuesdays, go with paprika, oregano, coriander, cumin, and varieties of ground peppers such as ancho chile and red pepper flakes.
8. Flour, Cornmeal, White Rice, and Dried Beans fill out the shelves. These are all starter items and you’ll level up to Anasazi and pinto beans, three kinds of flour for your baker kiddo, three different cornmeal varieties, and each cuisine’s own rice: sushi, jasmine, basmati, and wild.

That’s it—these core essentials. You don’t need eighty ingredients to cook well, but you do need these to bring home any meat and veggie combo and cook them well. Pair them with a good vinegar rotation and you’ve covered all your flavor bases: acids, fats, aromatics, and a touch of sweet or umami.

Please find our pantry starter checklist below, and we’ll see you with more dinner recipes soon. I tucked in a Chocolate Mousse with Crème Anglaise recipe to tide over y’all swoonish folks. Pair with a full glass of ice cold whole milk. Enjoy!