A homestead pantry is a stockpile of food with self-sufficiency in mind.
It may include a combination of garden produce, homemade preserved foods, and grocery store items, but the goal of the homestead pantry is to cohesively run a kitchen and garden together, where meals are based on whole foods and the dependence on the grocery store lessens over time.
Here are our homestead pantry staples that make up our homestead’s recipe list. We keep these foods on hand to strategically reduce food waste, work with what we grow in the garden, and effortlessly keep prepared meals of favorite dishes (grown-up grilled cheese anyone?).
What is a homestead pantry?
While we’re calling it a pantry, a homestead pantry consists of all of the food, water, and minerals stored in a home, and includes what we store in the fridge and freezer too.
A well-running homestead pantry should:
- Complement and fulfill our garden harvest
- Keep in stock the ingredients for our preplanned meals and snacks
- Have prepared whole-food meals or home-processed foods ready any night of the week
- Stock nutritionally essential times for survival in case of an event
To some, a homestead pantry is a survival stockpile of canned foods curated from a grocery store, to others, it is financial freedom from food inflation filled with home-grown ingredients from the garden.
To many more, running a homestead pantry is a creatively fulfilling way to live a simpler life and way of eating.
Why should I have a homestead pantry?
Have you ever wanted to overhaul your diet? How did it go? The food we consume is a mixture of habits, convenience, as well as preference, and it is notoriously difficult to control. Creating a homestead pantry is a process that can shape what we eat for the better.
Here are a few other reasons to organize a homestead pantry today:
- A fresh start with a whole-food and nutritious diet
- Save money and live frugally
- Reduce waste and live sustainably
How Do I Stock a Homestead Pantry?
We’ll use these starting ingredients to make a meal plan with a ton of variety from our collection of whole-food simple living recipes. We will grow many of these foods ourselves following the garden calendar we created specific to our cold climate (zone 4a).
| Baking | ||
|---|---|---|
| Bread flour | ||
| Active Dry Yeast | ||
| Sugar or Honey | ||
| Herbs & Spices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Salt | ||
| Peppercorn | ||
| Cumin | ||
| Cinnamon | ||
| Produce, Nuts, Seeds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Onion | ||
| Garlic | ||
| Tomato | ||
| “Soup” beans (Pinto, black, navy) | ||
| Sweet pepper (Bell) | ||
| Spicy pepper (Jalapeño, Habañero, Chili) | ||
| Peanut butter | ||
| Berries | ||
| Lime | ||
| Chia or hemp seeds | ||
| Mixed nuts | ||
| Animal Products | ||
|---|---|---|
| Eggs | ||
| Cream or milk | ||
| Cheese | ||
| Fish | ||
| Olive oil | ||
| Butter | ||
| Grains | ||
|---|---|---|
| Rice | ||
| Corn | ||
| Oats | ||
Keep in mind, that the food we grow in this list will not be the only plants and herbs in our gardens, this is merely the grocery list to cover our pantry basics. Keep these items stocked above and follow along as we will be unlocking a diversity of flavors and nutrition, growing food both indoors and in our backyard garden.
