A Guide for Using Up the Random Ingredients in Your Pantry

Have you ever looked inside of your pantry, teeming with random ingredients like evaporated milk, unsalted almonds and rice paper rolls, and still felt like you had nothing to eat? We’ve all been there, and it’s a bummer to feel like you have to go to the grocery store again even though you clearly still have food in the kitchen. Figuring out how to put all those random ingredients together, though, can be tricky, especially if you’re the kind of person who feels more comfortable following a recipe than riffing with whatever you have on hand.

But if you want to reduce your grocery bill and/or cut back on food waste (and don’t we all?), it’s worth figuring out how to use those leftover ingredients to make a meal, even when sardines and old maple syrup feel like the best you can do. Here are some tips that can hopefully save you from an extra trip to the grocery store this week.

1. Take stock of what you have.

Before you do anything else, you need to take stock of what you already have in your kitchen, and this is especially important if it’s not super well organized. Maybe you have a box of pasta or some extra rice in the back of the pantry behind that big container of oatmeal. Perhaps you didn’t realize there was still some peanut butter left or that a can of tuna fell behind some other ingredients.

You’ll first want to make note of the ingredients that will go bad first. Try to incorporate produce and meat into your next few meals, then move onto the stuff that’s more shelf stable. Simply by having a clearer picture of what you have on hand, you can find new ways to put different ingredients together into a coherent dish.

2. Think about what you can make from scratch.

If you have most of the ingredients you need to make a specific dish but you’re just missing one or two items, take a look at what you already have in the pantry, and see if you can make it from scratch. All-purpose flour can be used to make pasta, bread and crackers, for example, and corn tortillas are simple to make when you have some masa on hand. You can even make your own gnocchi with that sprouting potato sitting on your counter. Yes, making these items from scratch can be time-consuming, but they often taste better than the pre-made stuff you can buy at the grocery store.

3. Don’t follow recipes, but use them for inspiration.

Sometimes, we get too attached to recipes, convincing ourselves that we have to follow the directions to a T. That’s not always the best way to think about recipes, though, especially when you’re trying to use up the stuff that’s already in your kitchen. Look through recipes to gain a better understanding of different cooking techniques you can use, but apply those ideas to the ingredients you already have. For example, you don’t have to plan another grocery shopping trip for a recipe that calls for tilapia when you have cod in the freezer. Similarly, herbs like parsley and cilantro may be interchangeable. In many cases, you can even switch out one carb for another. Keep an open mind, and consult your list of ingredients when necessary.

4. Plan your meals.

Sure, you probably plan your meals before you do a big grocery shopping trip, but you can also plan your meals once you’re getting to the end of your pantry food stash. Once you’ve taken stock of everything you have on hand, think about different ways you could put it together into meals that you’ll actually enjoy. This process requires some prep work, but it can save you time over the course of the rest of your week.

5. Get creative with food waste solutions.

Unless you literally want to throw your money away, it’s in your best interest to eat up as much of the food you have in your kitchen as possible before it goes bad, and all of these tips can help you do just that. But you’ll also want to think about what you actually do end up throwing away. Parsley stems? Carrot tops? Onion skins? All of these “waste” products can actually be used in other recipes. Herb stems can add some extra flavor to a marinade or salad dressing, carrot tops can be blended into a tomato-based pasta sauce and onion skins can be boiled down to make a flavorful veggie broth. For the stuff you can’t use at all, composting is a solid option for food waste reduction.

Samantha Maxwell is a food writer and editor based in Boston. Follow her on Twitter at @samseating.