Pantry staple recipes with grocery list included

You can cook a full week of dinners from about 20 shelf-stable staples: canned beans, rice, pasta, canned tomatoes, oil, onions, garlic, and a short list of spices. Below is the grocery list, a simple method for turning it into meals, and eight recipes to start with tonight.

What counts as a pantry staple?

A pantry staple is anything shelf stable enough to sit in your cabinet for months and versatile enough to show up in more than one meal. Rice, dried pasta, canned beans, canned tomatoes, oil, vinegar, and a core set of spices do most of the heavy lifting. Onions and garlic are not shelf stable in the strict sense, but they last for weeks at room temperature and earn their spot on the list anyway.

You don't need to fill every shelf, just keep enough on hand that a weeknight without a grocery run still ends in a real dinner.

What's on the pantry staples grocery list?

Here is the full list, organized the way you'd shop for it, along with how long each item holds up once it's home.

A quick safety note on the canned items: a small, shallow dent is fine, but skip any can that is deeply dented, bulging, rusted through, or leaking. The date on the label is about quality, not safety. As long as the can itself is intact, the food inside is generally safe well past that date.

How do you turn the list into dinner?

1. Start with a base. Rice, pasta, or another grain you already have decides the shape of the meal.
2. Add a canned protein. A can of beans, tuna, or salmon does the job of meat without a trip to the store.
3. Build a sauce from what's canned or bottled: diced tomatoes simmered with garlic, or just oil and vinegar, both count.
4. Season like you mean it. Cumin and chili powder push a dish toward Tex-Mex. Oregano and red pepper flakes push it toward Italian.
5. Round out the plate with whatever produce is around. A wilted bell pepper or a handful of frozen peas both work.

Run through those five steps and almost any combination of staples turns into something worth eating.

8 pantry staple recipes to start with

1. Fifteen minute tomato and white bean pasta. Cook dried pasta, then simmer canned diced tomatoes with garlic, olive oil, and red pepper flakes. Stir in a drained can of white beans at the end for protein.
2. Loaded black bean and rice bowls. Warm canned black beans with cumin and chili powder, spoon over rice, and top with anything else on hand: shredded cheese, salsa, or a fried egg.
3. Pantry chickpea curry. Saute onion and garlic in oil, stir in curry powder, then simmer canned chickpeas and canned tomatoes until it thickens. Serve over rice.
4. Tuna and white bean salad. Mix canned tuna and canned white beans with olive oil, vinegar, and mustard. Eat it on its own, on toast, or over greens.
5. One pot lentil soup. Simmer dried lentils with broth, canned tomatoes, onion, garlic, and cumin until the lentils fall apart. It freezes well for later.
6. Skillet Spanish rice and beans. Cook rice with canned tomatoes and chili powder, then stir in canned black beans near the end so they stay whole.
7. Pasta aglio e olio with beans. Slow cook sliced garlic in olive oil until golden, toss with spaghetti and red pepper flakes, then fold in canned white beans for staying power.
8. Canned salmon cakes. Mix canned salmon with an egg, crushed crackers, and mustard, form into patties, and pan fry in oil until crisp.

Every recipe on that list draws from the same grocery list above, which is the whole point. Buy the staples once and you have eight dinners, not one.

How do you shop for staples without buying what you already have?

The easiest way to waste a good pantry staples grocery list is to buy a third can of diced tomatoes because you forgot the two already sitting behind the rice. If you'd rather check what's on hand before you shop, a fridge and pantry recipe finder can match recipes to what you already own. Well Stockd is an app that suggests recipes based on ingredients you have at home, so your grocery list only fills real gaps instead of duplicating what's already in the cabinet.

For more ways to turn odds and ends into dinner, see our guide to what to cook with what you have. The idea behind telling an app what is in your fridge starts from the same place this list does: cook from what you already own, then shop for whatever's missing.

Frequently asked questions

How long do pantry staples really last? Most canned goods are safe indefinitely as long as the can has no rust, dents, or swelling. Rice and dried pasta hold up well for about two years unopened, and opened pasta is best used within about a year for texture.

Can you really cook a full week of dinners from pantry staples alone? Yes, for most of the week. Canned beans, rice, pasta, and canned tomatoes cover the base of five or six dinners easily. Fresh produce, eggs, or a bag of frozen vegetables round things out, but they are not required for every meal.

What is the one pantry staple worth always having two of? Canned beans. They're cheap, they keep for years, and they work as the protein in nearly every recipe on this list, from bean and tomato pasta to a simple bowl of rice and beans.

Sources: Shelf-Stable Food Safety, USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, Is it safe to use food from dented cans?, USDA