Any beans — like black beans, chickpeas, kidney beans, or white beans — can be used to replace meat in your meals, like in a black bean burger. Beans are also a great addition to soups , stews , and chilis.

They can be cooked with ground beef or other meats to stretch a pound to feed five or six instead of three or four. Traditional pasta sauce isn't only for spaghetti — although that's a quick and easy weeknight meal. You can use leftover marinara sauce to make stuffed peppers , chicken Parmesan , meatloaf , pizza, and so much more.

Next time you're at the store grab the multipack of sauce; it will save you extra money and provide you with multiple meals for the month. Canned meat, like chicken, salmon, and tuna, is a great alternative for fresh meats. And it's a non-perishable item that will last significantly longer than fresh meat would, even in your freezer.

Canned tuna can be used to make sandwiches, salads, and casseroles. While canned chicken can be used for soups, salads, and, of course, dips. Combine with a bit of breading, spices, and egg for fast and flavorful cakes or patties.

Stock is a common ingredient in soups, sauces, and casseroles. You can also use chicken stock to flavor your rice or other grains and sautéed vegetables.

And a bit of stock can help you stretch soups and sauces if you need a bit more for a full meal. Peanut butter is an inexpensive and versatile ingredient because it can be used in every meal of the day.

From smoothies to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to peanut butter noodles , and tons of peanut butter desserts, the jar in your pantry will certainly not go to waste. And if you have a peanut allergy, you can substitute other nut butters, like almond butter , in many recipes.

So many recipes start with oil, and for typical cooking applications, a standard olive oil is all you'll need. But buying a high-quality extra-virgin olive oil is important if you plan to make no-cook dishes, salad dressings, and sauces.

Why's that? Cheap olive oils taste like bad olives. Good oils have a bright, floral flavor that shines through what you're eating. While a higher quality oil may be a bit pricey, remember you're using teaspoons or tablespoons at a time, which stretches the cost out over dozens and dozens of meals.

Have you ever wondered why so many recipes call for garlic? It's because garlic is an aromatic ingredient it has a distinctive smell, and smell is an important factor for taste , and it's an easy way to add a ton of flavor to your meal.

There are so many ways you can add garlic to your dish based on preference and even budget — you can use fresh garlic cloves, store-bought minced garlic, or garlic powder. Serve over rice for a complete meal. Need a great pantry dish for vegans? Look no further than this sweet potato chickpea curry, which is luxurious and satisfying enough to please even the meat eaters at the table.

Serve over rice, or with naan or pita breads for sopping up all the spicy sauce. A great vegetable chili — a super affordable way to feed a crowd — is really good to have in your repertoire.

This recipe calls for fresh corn and tomatoes, but you can sub in canned versions when they are out of season or if you have them in your pantry. This Asian-inspired rice bowl pairs equal amounts of rice and tuna by weight to ensure that the one-pot meal is a perfect balance of protein and carbs.

Make a double batch and eat leftovers cold over chopped lettuce for a great lunch salad. Taco Tuesdays get an affordable pantry makeover by featuring canned black beans cooked in a rich sauce of canned green salsa and savory spices.

No time to pick up tortillas? Serve over lettuce for a taco salad, or pile into baked white or sweet potatoes. Fried rice is an ideal way to use up leftover rice, but this dish is so good, you will want to make rice fresh just to cook it!

This recipe features quick-cooking brown rice for a great texture along with plenty of vegetables in the mix, including frozen peas. If you want to up the ante with protein, stir in some scrambled eggs or strips of omelet at the end. Having canned salmon in your pantry is a wonderful and affordable way to get more fish into your diet without breaking the bank.

These patties come together start to finish in 25 minutes, making it a perfect after-work meal. You can serve with rice or potatoes, on top of a salad, or even put on buns for a version of salmon burgers.

Ask any Italian what they cook when they need something fast and easy out of the pantry, and chances are they will say spaghetti aglio e olio. Pasta in garlic-scented oil topped with Parmesan cheese can be a main dish or a side and is perfect in its simplicity.

The key is not to rush the toasting of the garlic: if it burns, the dish will taste acrid and unpleasant. We love to keep couscous in the pantry — needing only a steep in boiling water to bring it to life, it is the fastest carb to prepare. Add in some canned and frozen vegetables and a punchy lime vinaigrette and you have a salad that eats like a meal.

If you have rice, onions, and canned tomatoes in the pantry, Italian sausage in the freezer, and some bell peppers in the crisper drawer, you are a half hour away from popping some killer stuffed peppers into your oven. Have any leftovers after dinner?

Cooking at home is a great way to save money, especially as you restock the pantry. Instead, you can focus on some standard baking ingredients and build from there.

Circling back to the sales and clearance, use your freezer to build your storage and stretch your grocery dollar. This post was originally published on December 31, It has been updated for content and clarity.

For me in my freezer, I use bins. I have fruits, veggies and meat separated out. When I freeze something I label it with what it is and a date month and year.

Much of my frozen items are in vacuum seal bags so things keep longer. In my chest freezer I have 2 wire baskets they hang on the lip. One basket is leftovers or when I make a meal I do 2 and freeze one. So quick meals are here! The second basket is an assortment of things but it is things I want to use.

I check this area every week when I meal plan. In my pantry I try and rotate items and again I have a basket where I put things that I want to use up. But there is a hall closet quite large for a closet just off the kitchen. I repurposed this for my pantry.

We added shelves on three sides and bins on the floor under the shelves. It works well for us. I am a new reader who first came across your freezer cooking book, and I just want to say THANK YOU!!

I have been devouring even literally 😉 your posts and recipes these past few weeks. I also loved following your pantry challenge. As a fellow grocery bargain hunter, I love that you balance finding good deals, food that is healthy and delicious! Thank you for being such a helpful resource for a young mom who is trying to fill up her new chest freezer and find cheaper ways to make decently healthy food.

Welcome, Erika! Thank you for taking the time to say so. We are were getting ready to start our first pantry challenge, and then our refrigerator went on the fritz starting with the freezer.

Not stock up in the sense of getting ready for a storm or pandemic lockdown, but a start from scratch kind of thing. Perhaps things are bare after a vacation, a fumigation, or weather emergency that had you purposely letting things get bare. As the cupboard starts to go bare, you might feel a little like Mother Hubbard.

More importantly, you might wonder, how will I restock the pantry without going broke? You need to know yourself. If not, start a list. As you build this list, also start a checklist of the ingredients needed for those meals.

This will be the base of Your Own Grocery Staples Checklist. What ingredients from your previous stock were difficult for you to use? Are there ingredients that you want to avoid or limit their consumption?

The seven steps of the System build on one another. While only two are specifically about grocery shopping and restocking the pantry, looking at the System as a whole can be a helpful approach to restocking the pantry on a budget.

Clearly, if things have dwindled there may not be much food on hand to work from, but take stock of whatever is there so you can build from that. A good grocery store practices stock rotation all the time. When they restock the shelves, they move the current stock to the front and place new items in the back.

You should be doing this in your own kitchen. Use up things that have been there awhile. A good deal is no good deal if it rots before you can use it. Your budget will do better if you grocery shop with a plan as to how to use the ingredients you buy.

Since you may have limited food stuffs on hand before you restock the pantry, you may not have much leftover prepped food. Think about leftover ingredients or leftovers you might anticipate having once you plan your meals.

Plan meals that share some common ingredients so that your shopping is efficient and leftovers and food waste! will be limited. This is where your efforts to restock the pantry will really come into play. These are the things to look for in the sales and clearance.

Manufacturers and grocery stores offer items on sale every 6 weeks or so. Chances are good that if chicken breast is on sale this week, it will be on sale again sometime in the next 6 weeks. Good deals can be had almost all the time. Sure, some deals are better than others.

But, usually, if you shop the sales, you can refill the pantry on a budget in no time. Cooking at home is a great way to save money, especially as you restock the pantry. Instead, you can focus on some standard baking ingredients and build from there.

Circling back to the sales and clearance, use your freezer to build your storage and stretch your grocery dollar.

This post was originally published on December 31, It has been updated for content and clarity. For me in my freezer, I use bins. I have fruits, veggies and meat separated out. When I freeze something I label it with what it is and a date month and year.

Much of my frozen items are in vacuum seal bags so things keep longer. In my chest freezer I have 2 wire baskets they hang on the lip. One basket is leftovers or when I make a meal I do 2 and freeze one.

We all have a go-to stash: rice and dried pasta, dried and canned beans, canned tuna and salmon, canned vegetables, and usually plenty of potatoes, onions, and garlic. Add some pantry basics like broth, oils, and spices, and you are well on your way to a wonderful meal without hitting the grocery store.

These 15 budget-friendly pantry recipes lean hard on staples you probably already have on hand—and whatever you might be missing is easy and inexpensive to pick up. Even cooking one dinner per week out of your pantry can add up to real savings. Here's what to make out of your pantry tonight!

Stacey Ballis is a novelist, cookbook author, freelance food and lifestyle journalist, and recipe developer who specializes in culinary fiction, and empowering home cooks to create extraordinary cooking and dining experiences for themselves and their loved ones.

Dried lentils are a wonderful protein-packed legume, with the added benefit of not needing soaking before cooking. When made into soup with some simple fresh aromatics, they are hearty and satisfying. If you want your soup a bit creamier, you can puree a couple cups of the finished soup and stir it back in.

Red lentils are really a style of split pea, and since they have been hulled before drying, they cook super fast. This dish only takes 10 minutes to prep and 40 to cook, so you can put it on as soon as you get home from work and have dinner ready for your family by the time you have changed and walked the dog.

Serve over rice for a complete meal. Need a great pantry dish for vegans? Look no further than this sweet potato chickpea curry, which is luxurious and satisfying enough to please even the meat eaters at the table. Serve over rice, or with naan or pita breads for sopping up all the spicy sauce.

A great vegetable chili — a super affordable way to feed a crowd — is really good to have in your repertoire. This recipe calls for fresh corn and tomatoes, but you can sub in canned versions when they are out of season or if you have them in your pantry.

This Asian-inspired rice bowl pairs equal amounts of rice and tuna by weight to ensure that the one-pot meal is a perfect balance of protein and carbs. Make a double batch and eat leftovers cold over chopped lettuce for a great lunch salad. Taco Tuesdays get an affordable pantry makeover by featuring canned black beans cooked in a rich sauce of canned green salsa and savory spices.

No time to pick up tortillas? Serve over lettuce for a taco salad, or pile into baked white or sweet potatoes. Fried rice is an ideal way to use up leftover rice, but this dish is so good, you will want to make rice fresh just to cook it!

This recipe features quick-cooking brown rice for a great texture along with plenty of vegetables in the mix, including frozen peas. If you want to up the ante with protein, stir in some scrambled eggs or strips of omelet at the end.

Having canned salmon in your pantry is a wonderful and affordable way to get more fish into your diet without breaking the bank. These patties come together start to finish in 25 minutes, making it a perfect after-work meal. You can serve with rice or potatoes, on top of a salad, or even put on buns for a version of salmon burgers.

Ask any Italian what they cook when they need something fast and easy out of the pantry, and chances are they will say spaghetti aglio e olio. Pasta in garlic-scented oil topped with Parmesan cheese can be a main dish or a side and is perfect in its simplicity.

The key is not to rush the toasting of the garlic: if it burns, the dish will taste acrid and unpleasant. We love to keep couscous in the pantry — needing only a steep in boiling water to bring it to life, it is the fastest carb to prepare.

Add in some canned and frozen vegetables and a punchy lime vinaigrette and you have a salad that eats like a meal. If you have rice, onions, and canned tomatoes in the pantry, Italian sausage in the freezer, and some bell peppers in the crisper drawer, you are a half hour away from popping some killer stuffed peppers into your oven.

Have any leftovers after dinner? Chop them up and make a hash, and top with fried or poached eggs for a hearty breakfast.

A well-stocked pantry with budget-friendly staples is great to have for anyone looking to save money while enjoying delicious homemade meals. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Skip to primary navigation Skip to main content Skip to primary sidebar menu icon. Follow Me! Amazon Instagram LinkedIn YouTube.

search icon. Home » Grocery Home » Grocery. More What to look for in a grocery store? Healthy Grocery List On A Budget For Two. Flour Flour is essential for most baking. Sugar Sugar is another must have for baking! Baking Soda and Baking Powder When baking from scratch you will also want both baking soda and baking powder.

Yeast If you are wanting to make any homemade bread or pizza crust you will need yeast. Vegetable Oil Oil is another important and cheap staple to keep in your pantry.

Cocoa Cocoa is an important ingredient to keep stocked for a good chocolate fix, without having to spend a lot of money just the way we like it! Related: 15 Easy Pantry Dinner Ideas Cheap Foods to Buy For The Pantry Here are some great budget friendly food items I recommend keeping stocked in your pantry.

Pasta Pasta is a great item to keep stocked at home. Condiments Condiments are another great item to keep stocked! May is a great time to buy condiments, as this is when they will usually go on sale.

Related: 10 Quick Ways to Lower your Grocery Bill Vinegar Vinegar is so useful in recipes and a great cleaning agent. Oatmeal One of our favorite breakfasts are these overnight oats. Want to save even more money on groceries?

Sign up for the upcoming January Pantry Challenge below! Cheap Protein Foods to Buy We all need protein. Canned Beans Canned beans are an excellent source of protein.

Ground Beef Ground beef is something I always have stocked in my freezer. Chicken Chicken is one of the most frugal meats and another great item to buy in bulk!

Eggs Eggs are a great source of protein and are fairly cheap. Here are a few cheap produce items I recommend: Frozen Vegetables A great staple to keep stocked in your freezer are bags of frozen vegetables. I use our frozen vegetables as side dishes, in stir fry, soups and casseroles.

Carrots When we are talking about cheap foods to buy, I have to mention carrots! Potatoes Potatoes are hearty, filling and versatile. Canned Fruit Watch grocery stores for case lot sales on canned fruit. Canned Tomatoes Canned Tomatoes are very cheap, especially when you watch for the Case Lot Sales.

Related: 8 Foods You Should Freeze in an Ice Cube Tray Bananas Bananas are one of the cheaper fruits available, and so tasty too!

Related: How to Eat Healthy For Cheap Cheap Foods to Buy For Snacking I love to snack! Raisins I always have a box of raisins in my pantry. Popcorn Want to know a secret about me? In Conclusion There are many cheap foods to buy to keep your pantry well stocked, without breaking the bank.

Pin for Later: What cheap foods do you recommend buying for a frugal pantry stock up? Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. Do not sell my personal information.

Settings Accept. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website.

Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website.

These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.

Necessary Necessary. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website.

These cookies do not store any personal information. Non-necessary Non-necessary. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies.

Stock up on brown rice, or other grains such as quinoa, and add it to your meals for a fiber boost. Use the brown rice in grain bowls with black beans or other proteins, side salads, and puddings.

Of course, you can also use brown rice to make fried rice or stir fry. For quicker meal prep, cook up a big batch of rice and freeze it for later, or look for pre-cooked rice that only needs a few seconds in the microwave to be plate-ready.

Beans are a great way to add protein to any meal — and they're cheap. While dried beans are a few cents cheaper, canned beans are more convenient because they're ready to use in an instant.

Either is worth stocking, depending on the time you have. Any beans — like black beans, chickpeas, kidney beans, or white beans — can be used to replace meat in your meals, like in a black bean burger. Beans are also a great addition to soups , stews , and chilis. They can be cooked with ground beef or other meats to stretch a pound to feed five or six instead of three or four.

Traditional pasta sauce isn't only for spaghetti — although that's a quick and easy weeknight meal. You can use leftover marinara sauce to make stuffed peppers , chicken Parmesan , meatloaf , pizza, and so much more.

Next time you're at the store grab the multipack of sauce; it will save you extra money and provide you with multiple meals for the month. Canned meat, like chicken, salmon, and tuna, is a great alternative for fresh meats.

And it's a non-perishable item that will last significantly longer than fresh meat would, even in your freezer. Canned tuna can be used to make sandwiches, salads, and casseroles.

While canned chicken can be used for soups, salads, and, of course, dips. Combine with a bit of breading, spices, and egg for fast and flavorful cakes or patties.

Stock is a common ingredient in soups, sauces, and casseroles. You can also use chicken stock to flavor your rice or other grains and sautéed vegetables. And a bit of stock can help you stretch soups and sauces if you need a bit more for a full meal.

Peanut butter is an inexpensive and versatile ingredient because it can be used in every meal of the day. From smoothies to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to peanut butter noodles , and tons of peanut butter desserts, the jar in your pantry will certainly not go to waste.

And if you have a peanut allergy, you can substitute other nut butters, like almond butter , in many recipes. So many recipes start with oil, and for typical cooking applications, a standard olive oil is all you'll need. But buying a high-quality extra-virgin olive oil is important if you plan to make no-cook dishes, salad dressings, and sauces.