Homestead Pantry Staples

When learning to cook real food you are going to need to learn how to stock real food. I’ve made a list of my homestead pantry staples. It’s the list of things we eat regularly and keep on hand at all times. Stocking a pantry isn’t something I was ever taught, but simply figured out along the way.

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The Luxury of a Pantry

Our new house has the luxury of a pantry. Actually it was supposed to be a tiny office, but we use it as a pantry. When we moved in, it felt like the biggest room of the house because our old house didn’t have a pantry space at all. I’ve slowly been stocking it with some homestead pantry staples. Now keep in mind this is what my family eats and enjoys. Stocking a pantry with things you don’t eat or even like doesn’t make any sense at all.

Living in the country does mean we get mice from time to time. I’ve learned to put everything in glass jars with lids. It protects our food from mice and bugs, plus it looks pretty on the shelf all lined up in jars.

We use Azure Standard to buy most of our bulk goods. We keep our extra dry goods in food grade buckets with gamma lids. I’m only able to order about once a year because the pick up times are during school hours. That means when we make a purchase, it is a large amount of food.

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Homestead Pantry Staples: Dry Goods

Flour

I need flour for my sourdough starter and many of our meals. When you start making things from scratch you’ll find you go through a lot more flour. I’ve started making all of our bread and will have to order a lot more flour this year. I like the unbleached all purpose flour from Azure Standard.

Oats

Whether for oatmeal or chocolate chip oatmeal muffins, we keep some rolled oats on hand. They make for a quick easy breakfast. We also purchase our oats from Azure Standard.

Sugar

Instead of buying sweet treats at the store, I prefer to make them at home without preservatives. Because, let’s be honest, they don’t last long enough to need to be preserved. I’ve found some organic cane sugar on Azure Standard that isn’t as processed as the white sugar found at most grocery stores.

Pasta

Pasta can stretch a meal. Leftover soup? Add some pasta and there’s enough for another night. I like to stock up on spaghetti, elbow pasta, and penne when I find it on sale.

Cornmeal

There are only 2 times we use cornmeal, yet somehow we go through it rather quickly. The first is to make some cornbread to go with our ham and beans. The other is to make chicken parmesan subs.

Beans

We love Mexican food around here. Instead of constantly buying refried beans, I keep dry pinto beans on hand so that we can make our own. It’s easy and cheap to make your own refried beans. They also go into our ham and beans.

Spices & Salt

It is hard to make a good meal without some seasonings. I buy my favorite spices and salt in bulk just to keep on hand. Plus salt never goes bad, so it’s easy to store long term.

Leavening

Since I try to make all of our baked goods at home, I keep plenty of leavening in the pantry. Especially baking soda. I cook and clean with baking soda, so we go through a lot of it. A little orange box won’t do in this house.

Rice

Rice is a lot like pasta. It can be used to stretch a meal or eaten as a side dish. Since sweet and sour chicken is a regular on the menu we need plenty of rice to go with it.

Dry Milk

I know this homestead pantry staple sounds disgusting, but hear me out. Dry milk can be used to make your own cream of soup powder. I like to use it to make a peanut butter dip for my apples too. Plus if you happen to run out of fresh milk while cooking, dry milk has your back. It has come in handy more than once in my kitchen.

Cornstarch

Although we don’t use much of this thickener, we do use it to make sweet and sour chicken. That alone is enough to convince me to keep it on hand at all times. Plus the occasional gravy.

Homestead Pantry Staples: Canned Goods

Tomato Sauce

Plain tomato sauce can become a lot of things. Pizza sauce, pasta sauce, tomato soup, and enchilada casserole just to name a few. If left unseasoned it can become whatever you need at the moment.

Jelly

We love a good peanut butter and jelly around here. So I always keep some homemade strawberry jelly on hand. It can make for an easy breakfast too when spread on an English muffin.

Beans

I know what you’re thinking. Yes, I like to keep dried beans and canned beans. I keep canned black beans and kidney beans on hand for things like chili or black beans and rice. Having canned beans makes for a quick meal if needed.

Pumpkin

During the fall and winter, I make a killer pumpkin roll. It’s what I take to every holiday event and get together. We go through a lot of pumpkin in a few short months. Also our dog Old Dan Tucker likes it in his Kong or on a lickmat. It’s good for his tummy, so he gets a spoonful everyday.

Homestead Pantry Staples: Yummy Treats

Chocolate Chips

Chocolate chips make life so much better. Cookies, waffles, pancakes, oatmeal, and muffins are all better with some chocolate chips.

Peanut Butter

Peanut butter is my all-American favorite. We use it for peanut butter dip, sandwich, carrot dip, cookies, and sometimes just right off the spoon. I also like to put it on my pancakes.

Honey

We are blessed to get local, raw honey from my mom. I use it in my tea every morning. You’ll often find me adding it as a sweetener to my homemade yogurt and my sourdough recipes. It’s so much better for you than sugar and it tastes heavenly.

Syrup

Syrup is kind of like chocolate chips. We could live without it, but why would we? If we are having waffles or pancakes there needs to be some real maple syrup on the table.