The $50 Pantry

The reason people order food is not laziness. It is opening a cabinet at 7pm and finding nothing that combines into a meal. This list fixes that. Buy it once, spend about fifty dollars, and you can make most of the recipes on this site without another trip.

Cans and jars, about $18

• 4 cans black beans or chickpeas
• 2 cans diced tomatoes
• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 can condensed tomato soup
• 1 jar salsa
• 1 jar marinara
• 1 small can tomato paste
• 1 jar minced garlic

Canned beans are the backbone here. They cost about a dollar, need no cooking, and turn a plate of carbs into an actual meal.

Dry goods, about $14

• 2 lb rice, whichever kind you like
• 2 lb pasta, one short shape
• 1 lb dried red lentils
• 1 container old fashioned rolled oats
• 1 package flour tortillas, which live in the freezer

Freezer, about $12

• 2 bags mixed vegetables or stir fry blend
• 1 bag broccoli florets
• 1 bag corn
• 1 bag shelled edamame
• 1 bag diced hash brown potatoes

Frozen vegetables are picked and frozen within hours. Fresh vegetables at a discount grocery store may have been in transit for a week. For anything you are going to cook, frozen is often the better vegetable and always the cheaper one.

Flavor, about $16 and lasts months

• Soy sauce
• Vegetable oil
• Olive oil
• Rice vinegar or plain white vinegar
• Toasted sesame oil, the small bottle
• Peanut butter
• Honey
• Salt, the coarse kosher kind
• Black pepper
• Cumin
• Chili powder
• Garlic powder
• Smoked paprika
• Curry powder
• Red pepper flakes
• Cinnamon

Buy spices in bags from a Mexican, Indian, or international grocery store, not in glass jars from the spice aisle. The same amount of cumin costs about a dollar in a bag and five dollars in a jar. Same cumin.

Fridge, about $10 and refills weekly

• Eggs, if you eat them
• Block of cheddar or a bag of shredded cheese
• Milk
• Plain Greek yogurt, the big tub
• Butter
• One lemon or a bottle of lemon juice

Two rules that make a pantry work

Acid at the end. Almost every dish that tastes flat is missing acid, not salt. Lemon juice or vinegar added off the heat wakes everything up. This is the single most useful thing to know about seasoning.

Fat carries flavor. A dish cooked in water tastes thin. Oil or butter is not a health failure, it is how spices actually reach your tongue.

What this pantry makes

With this list and nothing else you can make: chickpea curry, red lentil soup, peanut noodles, fried rice, white bean pasta, black bean quesadillas, overnight oats, and tomato soup. That is a full week without another shopping trip.