Gimme Some Oven

100+ Easy Pantry Recipes

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For all of you working on meal planning right now with pantry staples — I’m here to help! ♡

Below I have compiled a list of all of my favorite recipes made with pantry staples that are legit easy-to-make. And more importantly, totally delicious. I’ve divided the recipes up into the following categories to hopefully make them a bit easier to search, including:

Each category is full of tried-and-true recipes that center around basic pantry and refrigerator staples. I have also included notes to help with potential ingredient substitutions/adaptions that you might need to make during the coming weeks, as well as tips for how best to store and freeze these recipes too.

I really hope that this list will helpful! Let me know in the comments below if there are any other questions or requests that you have for specific kinds of recipes right now. And of course, stay tuned for many more pantry-friendly recipes to come in the weeks ahead!

Sending lots of love to you all today. ♡  We’re going to get through this together.

Easy Pantry-Friendly Breakfast Recipes

Pantry-Friendly Breakfast Recipes

Breakfast recipes are thankfully some of the easiest to source from your pantry! Right now in our house, we are relying on lots of granola and muffins. (It’s a great time to break out the canned pumpkin for these!)  And when eggs are in stock at the grocery store, we especially love making menemen, migas, breakfast tacos and breakfast casseroles. Keep in mind that nearly all of the cooked dishes below (including pancakes, egg casseroles, etc) can be frozen (well, except for migas which might get soggy). And if you run out of dairy milk, any shelf-stable plant-based milk should also work well as a substitution in any of the recipes below.

Easy Pantry-Friendly Soup Recipes

Pantry-Friendly Soup Recipes

Soups have been my favorite meal to cook lately because they are quick and easy to make, very forgiving with substitutions (you can almost always swap canned or frozen veggies in place of fresh in soups), and all of the recipes that I have included below also refrigerate and freeze beautifully. If you find yourself without chicken/beef/veggie broth right now, I recommend just using water and adding in an extra pinch of garlic powder and celery salt (per cup-ish of water) and you will be good to go. For any of the soups that include chicken, feel free to use frozen shredded or diced chicken or sub in some canned chickpeas.

Easy Pantry-Friendly Pasta Recipes

Pantry-Friendly Pasta Recipes

Italian pasta is of course a fantastic staple to keep stocked in your pantry — but don’t forget to also stock up on other kinds of noodles too! We have been cooking at least once a week lately in our house with rice noodles or sweet potato noodles (to make our favorite japchae), which can be used in everything from noodle dishes to soups, curries, cold salads and more. As always with pasta/noodle recipes, I recommend following the recipe for the amount of noodles and sauce. But then from there, you can feel free to swap in whatever veggies (frozen or fresh) and/or proteins (chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, fish, tofu, etc) that you have on hand. All of the recipes below are extremely flexible. And if you’re looking for a fun project to do with the family, I totally recommend trying your hand at homemade pasta and gnocchi!

Easy Pantry-Friendly Rice, Grains and Quinoa Recipes

Pantry-Friendly Grain & Rice Recipes

Grains, rices and quinoa (which is technically a seed, but I’ve included it here) are also fantastic staples to keep in your pantry right now. And bonus — they can basically be used interchangeably in all of the recipes below! I’m especially partial to my favorite fried rice recipe, to which you can add any veggies, proteins and/or kimchi that you have on hand. And for any of the recipes below that call for veggies or greens, feel free to play around with frozen veggies and greens (especially frozen spinach) that you have on hand.

Easy Pantry-Friendly Recipes with Beans

Pantry-Friendly Bean Recipes

With meat and seafood being out of stock in many grocery stores around the world right now, this is a great time to be cooking more with legumes! (Whether you are vegetarian or not!)  I’m especially partial to adding beans and lentils to soups right now, to give them some extra protein and heartiness. But they are also fantastic in curries, chilis, tacos, salads, and more. So stock up and get creative with them — and let me know how it goes!

Easy Pantry-Friendly Casserole Recipes

Pantry-Friendly Casserole Recipes

So many of you have told me that you love casseroles, and they are a fantastic option for larger-batch cooking right now! All of the recipes below also freeze and reheat beautifully. And don’t forget that you can also freeze cheese (especially shredded cheese), if you are stocking up on ingredients right now to make some of your favorite cheesy casseroles.

Pantry-Friendly Snack Recipes

Pantry-Friendly Snack Recipes

With so much time around the house right, it’s good to have some tasty snacks on hand! You all already know that I’m completely obsessed with nooch popcorn, but if you haven’t tried it yet, now’s the perfect time because it is made with 4 pantry ingredients (nutritional yeast, coconut oil, popcorn and salt). My favorite salsa recipe below is also made with canned tomatoes and basic pantry ingredients, and you can omit the fresh cilantro if you don’t have any on hand.

Easy Pantry-Friendly Sauce Recipes

Pantry-Friendly Sauce Recipes

I also thought that it might be helpful to include a list of some of my favorite sauce recipes whose ingredients can be easily sourced from your pantry. The enchilada and mole sauces can be used in everything from enchiladas to tacos, burritos, quesadillas and more. The BBQ sauce is downright fantastic and proudly Kansas City-style. (KC girl, right here!)  The Szechuan sauce is nice and spicy. And the marinara and arrabbiata sauces are two of our family faves. Feel free to search through my various stir-fry and pasta recipes to save any of the sauces included in those recipes, which you can mix-and-match with ingredients that you have on hand.

Easy Pantry-Friendly Dessert Recipes

Pantry-Friendly Desserts

Finally, desserts. ♡  So many of you have said that baking has been a comforting and fun activity to do with your families right now while everyone is at home, and I couldn’t agree more. All of the recipes below should be pretty easy to make with pantry staples. And don’t forget my tutorial on how to freeze cookie dough too, if you want to just thaw and bake a few cookies at a time (instead of a whole cookie-sheet-full).

Take care, everyone! ♡♡♡

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12 comments on “100+ Easy Pantry Recipes”

  1. Thank you SO much for the notes about places where frozen veggies will work in place of fresh — no serious grocery shortages, but the worst (beyond cleaning supplies LOL) has been in the fresh-produce section. I’m definitely planning to make a few batches of your pizza and marinara sauces, too, and maybe you have this noted in the recipes, but I saw Liz at The Lemon Bowl mention recently that whole canned tomatoes are the gold standard right now because you can dice or puree or do whatever it is you need to them. (Maybe other folks already realized this too, but sharing for those like me who would likely freeze in panic in a grocery aisle upon not finding diced tomatoes, LOL)

  2. Saw this post this morning and remembered I had some Greek yogurt left in the fridge that would go bad by the end of the week- so made your sour cream coffee cake on a whim! Turned into the best Sunday morning treat and I have extra to drop off with family. Yay for a happy surprise (was just going to eat toast this morning otherwise!). Thanks!!

  3. OMGosh, this is such a GREAT collection of your amazing recipes! I would love to print them all and put them in a binder….better yet, PLEASE write a cookbook! ☺️ I love your recipes and have printed so many of them so I can always refer back. A big thank you for putting this together especially at this time. I will save this post and use it as a reference. Thanks Ali ❤️

  4. This made my day! You’ve always been a favorite to refer back to on finding new recipes. Always pretty simple and delicious!

    Keep em’ coming! :)

  5. Thank you so much for this !

  6. Thank you for the post. I have plenty of food to cook up these next few weeks, so new recipes are appreciated.

    Are you experiencing any shortages where you are? Let us know how you are doing.

  7. Thank you for this great list. Hope you are staying safe in Barcelona. Hugs from Canada. Angela

  8. Thank you for this extensive blog!! I wonder if you are still in Barcelona. If you are, hope you are healthy and safe.

  9. I am beyond grateful for this post and list. I am a teacher, have two small girls, and a husband who is still working during this dreadful time. To say I am anxious would be an understatement.
    Although I have never considered myself a cook/baker, I’ve made it a point to allow my girls to help in the kitchen. Cooking and baking has helped bring a bit of stability to our otherwise unstable days. And I’m so glad I’m able to make these positive memories with my babies.
    Thank you!

  10. So very grateful for this list! Baking and cooking is helping to bring stability to the households of so many of us. I am looking forward to trying my hand at the pretzels bites, enchilada sauces and so much more. Thank you again and stay safe and well everyone. We will get through this!

  11. You are so thoughtful! What a delight to discover this just now. BTW I just made a double batch of your red enchilada sauce which I have made many times. We love it!

  12. Thanks for sharing! I love that so many of these can be made without another trip to the store. I appreciate it!