Can you guess the secret to creating cheap, quick meals? There are just certain ingredients that make dinner time more efficient and less expensive. You can even stock your home with pantry staples on a budget!

This well-stocked pantry list will help you create frugal, healthy, and quick meals. You can keep these cheap food staples on hand to make dinner time much easier.

This post may contain affiliate links. You can view my full disclosure policy here. So many varieties to choose from and an endless amount of meal possibilities! Click here to sign up for Ibotta! Signing up on the app instead? Use code uwhaflc to receive your bonus. Dry beans are inexpensive as well, but for quick meals, nothing beats canned.

Here are some to keep on hand:. Tomatoes are so useful and versatile in everything from spaghetti to chili and beyond. Be sure your pantry includes:. RELATED: How to do a Pantry Challenge to Save Money on Groceries This Week. Premade stock makes so many dinners faster and easier.

Some varieties include:. Some of the best frugal pantry staples are for making baked goods. Here are some ideas:. If you really want to make it easy, buy some baking mix such as Bisquick.

You can make everything from pancakes to biscuits, muffins, blondies, and even as a coating for chicken. Nothing jazzes up dinner like some flavorful sauces and condiments.

You can make sauces out of:. You can use condensed soups to make a huge array of cheap pantry meals. Another one of the best budget pantry staples is tortillas. They have a much longer shelf life than a loaf of bread, but can be used for anything from tacos to individual pizzas.

A spaghetti dinner can come together super quickly with the use of a jar of pasta sauce. You can always doctor it up with more spices or fresh ingredients if you want.

Believe it or not, you can make more than just mashed potatoes with these. Instant ramen is already inexpensive, but you can purchase it in bulk for even less. Rachel Cruze: 12 Ways To Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half See: 8 Best New Items at Five Below in January. Schedule a FREE consultation to see if you qualify for tax relief.

Whether you love to bake or make homemade soups or sauces, all-purpose flour is a must-have pantry item. Another pantry essential is peanut butter or peanut butter alternatives like sunflower butter or almond butter.

Peanut butter — and alternatives — often have a long shelf life. An opened container can last around two months, while an unopened jar can last much longer than that. Plus, peanut butter is versatile. You can use it in the classic peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or you can make cookies or even fudge with it.

Like flour, sugar is a good multipurpose ingredient that any pantry should have. Not only is it useful in baking desserts, but you can also use it to sweeten your tea, coffee or fruit slices. As long as you store it in an airtight container, it can last up to two years.

As anyone who likes to season their food will tell you, salt and pepper are pantry staples. Rice is more than a pantry staple. Since you can use a single bag across multiple dishes, this makes for an inexpensive, long-lasting item to have on hand.

Pasta comes in many forms, including angel hair pasta, farfalle, fettuccine, egg noodles, elbow noodles and fusilli pasta. You can also get white refined wheat flour or whole wheat pasta. Like rice, pasta is a staple in different types of dishes, such as spaghetti, macaroni and cheese and chicken fettuccine alfredo.

Both canned and raw beans are must-haves in the pantry. Canned goods tend to last for years when stored at room temperature. Raw beans can last about a year — longer if kept in a cool place. An inexpensive canned bean option is the It only costs 95 cents.

But it also pairs well with main dishes — think tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Bread is another staple that can last a few days or so in the cupboard, a couple of weeks in the refrigerator or a few months in the freezer. Dried spices also last much longer than their fresh counterparts.

DRIED HERBS | SPICES CHICKEN STOCK | BOUILLON VINEGAR

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Low-priced pantry essentials - PASTA DRIED HERBS | SPICES CHICKEN STOCK | BOUILLON VINEGAR

Choose green peppers because they are your cheapest option over the other colors. Onions add great flavor to every meal, without adding much extra cost for the healthy pantry staples for families. We use lemon juice for cleaning, but there are so many recipes that call for it as well! Lemon juice has a long shelf life, making it one of the best staple pantry items.

This is a great base for making your own homemade salad dressings. Where you aware that half a cup of white vinegar can be used instead of laundry softener or as a replacement for Jet Dry in your dishwasher?

Who knew?! Coconut Oil Coconut oil has about a gazillion uses! It has a higher burn point than butter making it a great choice for frying anything when you cook.

It has become one of our most used staple pantry items. No fresh ones, no frozen ones… then Onion Powder can come to your rescue! I am constantly using this as a substitute for fresh onion!

And I do the same with Garlic Powder! Baking powder is a must for baking from scratch! It is always on hand in my pantry. Baking soda is an important ingredient that can be used for cleaning and deodorizing around the home. I buy it by the huge bag full because it is the only product that truly gets the smell out of my laundry.

With three boys, all in sports, we have a lot of stinky clothing to use it on! Make sure you choose the unsweetened variety of cocoa powder so that you can add your own sweetener and make it as sweet or not for your liking.

For baking, cocoa powder is a must-have because so many chocolate-based treats start with cocoa powder. This is a cake made in one minute in the microwave I substitute the sugar for a Stevia sweetener.

Oats Oats are so versatile, they can be ground and used as a flour, as filler for meatloaves to reduce the meat, baked in cookies or simply made as a breakfast staple, as it is often done in our home.

Flour is always a great staple to have on hand. Most recipes, especially baking ones, will call for some amount of flour. I keep this low-carb, gluten-free one always on hand and ready for my baking needs. Sugar or Sweetener You know I love my coffee super sweet, but besides using it in coffee, sugar is also obviously used in baking as well as beauty and cleaning products.

Rice is a super inexpensive side dish to fill those growing kids! We also use it to add filler to meat dishes so that they go farther, therefore, saving us money. Pasta Pasta is easily one of the most frugal and filling meals you can make!

Peanut butter as a staple pantry items can be used to make protein balls, fudge, and even a filling sandwich for lunch. If you miss the sweet with the salty the jelly , you could pair it with an inexpensive banana, honey, or as my Dad likes to eat it… with butter. Popcorn is an inexpensive snack to keep on hand for those moments when you just want to munch, without it costing an arm and a leg!

We make popcorn on the stove in minutes, or in a brown bag version in the microwave too. Popcorn is our best pantry staples for cheap snacks. We do this all the time! Tortillas are super versatile, and you can even freeze them for later, making them a great pantry staple to stock up on!

Fajitas, quesadillas, and soft tacos are all great inexpensive meal options that use tortillas. As you can see, we keep a number of different staple pantry items in our home at all times to make sure that our home is well stocked for easy meals.

I hope that this list has not only inspired you to stock your pantry as well but that you give it a try! Because I believe everyone has the power to live a life of abundance regardless of their income level.

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I use them a lot as a side dish and also in recipes like my Easy Chicken Pot Pie , Cheesy Ham, Potato and Green Bean Bake and Easy Vegetable Beef Soup. CHICKEN Probably the cheapest kind of meat there is and super versatile too! A few chicken recipes that we enjoy: Herb Roasted Chicken and Potatoes , One Pan Chicken and Rice , Creamy Crockpot Mexican Chicken and Homemade Shake and Bake Chicken.

In casseroles or soups, I often can get by with using less than the amount called for. A few ground beef recipes that we really like: Crockpot Tamale Pie and Super Easy Sloppy Joes.

It helps me be frugal because I can buy in bulk when food is on sale becoming less and less, it seems, these days , portion it and freeze for later.

Yes, I love stocking up and freezing items that are on sale too! Such a great way to save. I so agree with you. We have worn out many vacuum food sealers over the years. Our son upgraded so he can vacuum seal whole chickens raised on his property.

We opted for a slightly smaller model and use it daily. when canning diced tomatoes can I pressure can them in stead of water bath?

If so how long to pressure can? Yes, you can definitely pressure can them! As for how long, it will depend on your pressure canner and altitude. I would look in the instruction manual that came with the pressure canner and go by what it says there.

I would follow that. Tomatoes also freeze well! Either whole or diced or roasted. Consider that especially when your garden is at its peak. I would add celery to that list as I use it in making stews. Onions, carrots and celery is your mirre poir for all basic stews.

Yes, celery is a great pantry staple, for sure! Never heard of strained tomatoes but canned tomato products of any kind are handy to have, I think.

This is one of my favorite ways to save on cheese too. Great list! A tip on keeping garlic longer — I buy the 3 packs of bulbs from Aldi and immediately put them in a small ziplock kept in the freezer.

It keeps a long time that way!!! Ready to mince, etc. I also keep Panko bread crumbs in the freezer as I use them in a variety of recipes. Lime juice gets used in marinades, etc. and lemon juice is frequently used as well, not only desserts, but certain salad dressings too.

Final note, this is not going to work for everyone, but try to hunt out whether or not there is a good local butcher shop in your area. Or at least within reasonable driving distance. I make a few trips a year and stock the freezer with various meats.

Got a great deal on those and they worked just fine for recipes that called for bacon bits or a bit of chopped bacon — just froze them and pulled out what I needed.

I never knew you could freeze garlic! That is totally going to change my life. Thank you! And I started keeping my bread crumbs in the freezer too. Lesson learned.

Freezing lemon and lime juice is so smart! I wish I could find a local butcher shop that has that kind of price on chicken!

So glad you are finding the blog interesting and helpful! It makes the work that I put into it so totally worth it when I get comments like that. There are two grocery stores near me different companies that every so often but always at different times!

have chicken leg quarters for anywhere from 39 to 59 cents a pound. so, 4 to 6 dollars for 10 pounds of those which I take home and bake and debone. I use the bones ad skin along with veggie scraps to make broth and usually enough chicken meat to make 2-cup packs that I stuff n the freezer.

It gives me a frugal break from my usual rotisserie chicken per week for much less broth and meat. It does take some work the day you buy but it saves so much money!

And I love how you use every last bit of it. Such a great money saver! Your email address will not be published.

Skip to primary navigation Skip to main content Skip to primary sidebar Home Welcome! Pin Share Cheap Pantry Staples. Cheap Pantry Items:. I like to watch for sales on butter and then I buy a lot and just freeze most of it.

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