Learn how to stock a pantry for a year with our complete guide! We’re sharing everything you need to know to fill up your pantry with nutritious, long-lasting food sources that make it easy to create easy meals that feed a crowd.
Table of Contents
Why Stock Your Pantry For a Year?
If you’ve never stocked your pantry full of foods that can last the entire year, the process might seem a bit daunting. And you may be asking yourself what’s the point?
However, we’ve found that learning how to stock a pantry for a year has a boatload of benefits! It ensures you always have healthy ingredients on hand, helps prevent food waste, limits the amount spent on grocery bills, and can make cooking quick and easy.
Plus, it’s super satisfying to do! Go ahead and snap a picture of your freshly stocked pantry when you’re done. You know you want to.
Tag us on Instagram, too. We want to see all your hard work!
Tips and Tricks When Learning How to Stock a Pantry For a Year
Before you begin, we have a short checklist to run through to help make the process easy.
- Take inventory of what you already have. Write it down in a notebook, and include how much of each food you already have. This helps to prevent buying too much.
- Ask yourself what you enjoy. Loading your shopping cart with a million different foods can be fun. But there’s no point if they’re just going to go to waste. Be honest with yourself about what you and your family will actually eat, and buy those items.
- Set some goals. Do you want to eat more whole foods? Maybe you’re trying to incorporate more veggies? Whatever your goals, buy food accordingly.
The Best Foods to Stock a Pantry for a Year
When it comes to choosing the best foods to keep stocked, it’s all about longevity. You want to pick items that can be stored for a long time — 12 months to be exact — without going bad.
Examples of these items include:
- Grains: rice, quinoa, bulgur, farro, oats, barley, pasta, couscous, sorghum, popcorn
- Pulses and Legumes: chickpeas, black beans, lentils, peas, kidney beans
- Nuts and Seeds: almonds, walnuts, cashews, peanuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, peanut butter, almond butter, sunflower butter, hemp seeds, flax seeds, chia seeds
- Dried Fruit: raisins, figs, dates, apricots, mango, cherries, apples
- Oils: coconut, avocado, olive
- Baking Essentials: white whole wheat flour, coconut flour, almond flour, cocoa powder, coconut sugar, granulated sugar, cake mix, brownie mix
- Canned Protein: tuna, salmon, chicken
- Canned Vegetables: green beans, carrots, sauerkraut, beets, corn, mushrooms
- Extras: honey, dark chocolate, canned full-fat coconut milk, broth, spices, protein powder, collagen, protein bars, jams, and jellies
- Condiments: spaghetti sauce, dressings, balsamic vinegar, ketchup, mustard
How to Organize
Before you begin stocking your pantry, clear it out. Sort through any items already in it, and determine what you want to keep and what you can donate.
Then, make a plan! We like to organize items based on their category. For instance, we section all the grains together, all the baking essentials together, etc.
To make sure everything stays tidy, we use items like:
More Guides for Storage and Organization
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