The 20 Pantry Staples That Make Weeknight Cooking Possible

The difference between cooking on a Tuesday and ordering on a Tuesday is usually not skill or time. It is whether the cupboard can carry a meal on its own. A pantry stocked with the right twenty things means fresh shopping becomes optional rather than mandatory.

The foundation: fat, acid, salt

Nearly every flavour problem in home cooking traces back to one of these three being absent or of poor quality. Spend disproportionately here.

• Extra-virgin olive oil, for dressings and finishing. Buy a decent one and use it uncooked.
• A neutral high-heat oil such as rapeseed or sunflower, for searing and roasting.
• Flaky sea salt for finishing and fine sea salt for cooking. They are not interchangeable.
• Red wine vinegar and rice vinegar, which cover most European and Asian dressings between them.
• Lemons, which are technically fresh but should be treated as a permanent staple.

Tinned and jarred goods that carry a meal

These are the items that turn into dinner without anything fresh at all.

• Whole plum tomatoes, which are better quality than pre-chopped and cost the same.
• Tomato paste, ideally in a tube so you can use a spoonful without opening a tin.
• Chickpeas and black beans, the fastest protein in the cupboard.
• Coconut milk, full fat, for curries and rice.
• Anchovies, which dissolve invisibly and make almost any savoury dish taste deeper.

Dry goods

• Dried pasta in one long shape and one ridged tube shape.
• Rice, ideally both a long-grain jasmine or basmati and a short-grain for risotto and pudding.
• Brown or green lentils, which cook from dry in half an hour with no soaking.
• Rolled oats, for breakfast and for crumble toppings.
• Plain flour, which covers baking, thickening and dredging.

The five spices worth having

A large spice rack is mostly decorative. These five appear across the widest range of cooking:

1. Ground cumin, the backbone of Mexican, Middle Eastern and Indian cooking.
2. Smoked paprika, which adds depth that tastes like it took hours.
3. Dried oregano, the most useful dried herb by a distance.
4. Chilli flakes, for heat you can control by the pinch.
5. Whole black peppercorns and a grinder. Pre-ground pepper loses its aroma within weeks.

The freezer counts as pantry

Frozen peas, frozen spinach, frozen berries and a bag of frozen prawns are all effectively shelf-stable and all turn into dinner faster than their fresh equivalents. Frozen vegetables are frozen within hours of harvest and are frequently higher in nutrients than fresh produce that has spent a week in transit.

What three cupboard dinners look like

With the list above and nothing fresh beyond an onion and some garlic, you can make a smoky tomato pasta, a lentil soup, or coconut rice with chickpeas. None takes more than forty minutes, and none requires a shop.