Pantry meals are meals you can make out of the stuff you have in your pantry or fridge right now. Stuff you always have on hand, or at the very least, will keep a long time so you can buy it and forget about it until you need it. These are things you can make when you just can’t make it to the store. Ideally, they should also be pretty quick and easy, since you’ll want to pull them out when you are short on time or just plain tired.
I always keep frozen chicken in the freezer, and this recipe is great because I don’t even need to thaw it, first. (I add about 10 more minutes to the cooking time). Add some microwave rice (and a salad or something if I’m being good) and dinner is done in less than an hour with only about 5 minutes actual hands-on time.
Plus, according to my husband, it really is Man Pleasing (and it feels like a real meal, not something I’ve just scrounged together)
Also Spam & beans. I always keep frozen meatballs on hand for when the wife’s away, and they can go in beans, pasta sauce, a sandwich, or cooked up with a mess of chopped onions and peppers and BBQ sauce.
Today I made a One Skillet meal - hamburger, taco mix, chopped onion, chopped bell pepper, some frozen corn, canned tomatoes, canned tomato sauce, and noodles.
In addition to dried rice and beans and canned staples, I usually have a bunch of Annie’s Organics macaroni cheese mixes and those pre-flavored packages of rice on hand. OK on their own, or add some random vegetables and perhaps meat and voila, a meal.
Cardiologist’s Special: 1 pound elbow mac, 1 can diced tomatoes and green chilies, 1 pound of Velveeta. Basically, Ro-Tel dip over noodles. If you’re feeling carnivorous, you can add a pound of browned ground beef, but it’s really not needed.
I almost always have the ingredients for tuna melts or grilled cheese and soup on hand; those get eaten a lot around the-day-before-payday.
Canned beans, canned or frozen corn, diced jalapeno, olive oil, cumin, salt and pepper make a yummy multipurpose dish. Sometimes we eat it as a cold salad of sorts, sometimes a side dish. It can be a salsa-like condiment for tortilla chips, or served hot on rice.
Oh, one that sounded absolutely dreadful, but came printed on the side of a box and I was so morbidly fascinated I had to try it: box of Stovetop Stuffing, box of Mac and Cheese, both made to label directions, then mixed together with sliced hotdogs and peas. Freaking fantastic, if a heck of a sodium bomb!
1 14oz can chopped tomatoes
1 6oz can tuna
8oz penne pasta
2-3oz shredded cheese
Put oven on at 350°
Heat up some salted water in a pan
Put the toms and tuna in a small oven proof saucepan and heat (throw in Italian Seasoning or dried garlic if you want to be fancy)
Throw the pasta into the boiling water
Cook for maybe 5 minutes.
Dried red bean + rice + Tony Chachere’s original Creole seasoning = a big pot of red beans and rice.
The nice thing is everything is shelf stable so you can stock up.
If I feel motivated I’ll add a small can of Ro-Tel tomatoes or some good smoked sausage or both.
We pretty much always have ingredients on hand to make spaghetti, quiche, or “jambalaya”. These aren’t among the most popular menu items, but they’ll feed the family.
The jambalaya is a Zatarains boxed rice mix, plus whatever meat and veggie scraps comprise the week’s leftovers.
As for quiche, we usually have cheese and eggs on hand. A frozen pie crust and a can of evaporated milk will hang around the kitchen for freakin’ ever. Again, add the leftover meat and veggies…voila!
Things I always have on hand include chicken stock, arborio rice, dried porcini, dry vermouth, olive oil, some form of onion or leek, saffron, nuts, some form of ham, cheese, garlic and fresh herbs. I never run out of any of these.
My go-to pantry meal is a wild mushroom, parma & saffron risotto drizzled with a fresh pesto … you Philistines!
Recipe:
Soak the porcini in warm water to reconstitute, and chop.
Also soak the saffron in a few tbs warm water.
Put a pot of stock on simmer.
In another pot, sweat 1 chopped-up onion/leek over low-med heat in olive oil for ~10 minutes until soft & translucent.
Turn up the heat, Add a knob of butter, some crushed garlic and a cup of rice and fry until the rice grains are translucent.
Add a glassful of vermouth as the first liquid the rice gets. Stir vigorously (Fuck Alton Brown!).
Add the mushrooms and the saffron.
Top off with a ladleful of stock and stir until stock is all absorbed.
Do the stir/top-off tango as per usual for risotto, until the rice is soft but still has firmness.
Take off heat, stir in a handful of grated parm cheese, and some parma ham chiffonade. Season if it needs it.
Toss some garlic, basil leaves, pine nuts and seasoning in the food processor or the big mortar, chop up/pound with some olive oil to make a fresh pesto, and drizzle that over each individual bowl
You can vary what herbs go in the pesto, what you put in instead of mushrooms (frozen peas or canned borlotti beans are good, but add at the end), different meats (even cubed Spam, you ingrates ) what’s essential is the rice, onions, oil and stock. Just by themselves they make a lovely risotto.
I had nothing defrosted for dinner the other night and had no specific taste for anything. Eventually I cobbled together a version of Julia Child’s Marco Polo Spaghetti, which involved cooked spaghetti, diced black olives, diced roasted red peppers (from a jar), a dab of ready made pesto and Parm cheese. The original recipe called for walnuts but I had only pecans (which wouldn’t taste right) and of course fresh basil.
This is very similar to by standby Oven Top Chili, which is basically your recipe minus the taco seasoning (I use chili powder, cumin, and oregano instead), tomato sauce, and I add a can of drained black beans. I usually serve it with corn bread or rice. If I use rice, the leftovers make a yummy burrito.
I have a lot of beans. Canned and dry. And flour. I make bean tacos, bean burritos, bean tostadas, and last night tried bean burgers. I always have rice and various forms of pasta and canned crushed tomatoes so I’ve made every type of simple recipe you can imagine with these basics. I cook every meal, nearly every day, from staples. We have meat maybe twice a week these days. I shop once a month for my staples: rice, pasta, beans, flours/meals. I try to catch spices when they’re reduced, then I freeze them. Maybe it’s not fresh but it’s not old dried out stuff they sell in the plastic jars. I chop onions, peppers, carrots and the like in baggies too, but I also buy a few packaged frozen stir-fry bags and several packs of spinach and frozen chopped broccoli because I find it’s less expensive and just as tasty as fresh. I get a few big blocks of basic cheeses. Mozzarella, cheddar, and Monterey Jack for the most part. With all this I make the bulk of my meals. If I find something on sale I’ll get as much of it as I can.
Last night I had a pot of black beans. I made tacos with rice and pepper/onion blend and cheese and tried a black bean burger recipe I probably won’t ever, ever try again with breadcrumbs and pepper/onion mix.
Tonight: Egg noodles with a little cream cheese and butter, peas, and a sprinkling of Parmesan (yah in a can!) and the leftover bread crumbs from last night’s meal toasted on top.
Clam chowder. I’ve always got half and half, butter, celery, and bacon in the fridge, and there are always potatoes, onions, and cans of baby clams around the pantry.
Spaghetti/pasta. Jars of spaghetti sauce. Box of breadmaker bread mix. Make the bread, cook the spaghetti, pour on the sauce. Done. All out of the pantry.
That’s okay. I have plenty of fish. And everything else.
Seriously, this question inspired me to take a quick inventory-ish. I have damned near everything in the fridge, freezer, or pantry:
Staples - about 20# of various wheat flours, 5# of corn meal, 5# of masa, 10# of sugar, 5+# of rice, about 5# of pasta, about 3 pounds of grits, a couple of pounds of salt, and virtually every spice, seasoning, or extract you can think of. A couple of gallons of cooking oils plus vegetable shortening. A few boxed cake mixes in case I need something quick.
Proteins - about 35# of various meats in the fridge or freezer. Beef roast, steaks, pork chops, sausage, bacon, chicken, three kinds of fresh/frozen fish, plus canned tuna, smoked pork and turkey for seasoning. Canned beans, dried beans, peanut butter. 2.5 dozen eggs. Lunch meat. Even a couple of cans of Vienna sausages.
Fruits and vegetables - a few cans of green beans, peas, corn, peaches, pineapple, and applesauce. Plenty of canned tomato products. Three kinds of apples, bananas, pears, cabbage, romaine lettuce, butter lettuce, Vidalia onions, celery, red and green bell peppers, carrots, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, russet potatoes, and Yukon golds, and mustard greens. Frozen corn, broccoli, stew vegetables, zucchini, greens, and blueberries. A boatload of dried fruits - from raisins to pineapple to candied ginger.
Two or three pounds each of cheese and butter. Margarine. A gallon of milk, a half-gallon of soy milk, and a half-gallon of buttermilk. Sour cream. Yogurt.
Apple juice, coffee, tea - for iced or hot, hot cocoa mix, lemonade mix, a few sodas, a couple of beers.
Bread, tortillas, taco shells, cereal (at least a half-dozen boxes,) jellies and syrups and honey. Enough catsup, mustard, mayo, salad dressing, salsa, pickles, relishes, hot sauce, etc., to stock a summer camp. A couple of random packs of ramen for a teenager who sometimes gets a yen. Some packaged sandwich crackers and a box of saltines.
This isn’t even atypical for me - I’m a little more stocked-up on meat than usual, thanks to a great sale last week, but I can usually cook 'most anything that doesn’t require lamb/mutton, non-fish seafood, wine, or liquor, without a trip to the grocery store.
(and it feels like a real meal, not something I’ve just scrounged together)