When trying to break the habit of frequent eating-out, the most important step—beyond learning how to cook—is making sure that your kitchen is stocked with some staple foods and spices.
If you make sure that your fridge and cupboards are always stocked with these items, you should be able to prepare most of the recipes on Domestic Dog without having to make a special trip to the grocery store for ingredients.
The Basics
The Basics are the items that form the basis for most meals. In all likelihood, you have most or all of these items in your kitchen already. If you don’t have any of these, you should pick them up as soon as you are ready to start cooking for yourself.
With the meats, I recommend buying them fresh and using them within a few days of purchase if possible. This will ensure that you get the best flavour from your meat dishes. However, in much of North America, it’s much easier to buy your groceries several days or weeks in advance and simply freezing your meat until you are ready to cook it.
If you’re vegetarian or vegan, you’ll have to replace the meat and dairy products with vegan alternatives, but I think that most of the items on this list are vegan friendly.
- Ground beef, bison, or elk (whichever you prefer)
- Chicken thighs, drumsticks, or breasts
- Wild & brown rice
- Basmati rice
- Canned soup:
- Cream of mushroom
- Chicken noodle
- Tomato
- Potatoes, yams, or sweet potatoes
- Canned vegetables and beans:
- Black beans
- Chick peas (aka: garbanzo beans)
- Mixed beans/Bean medley
- Kernel corn
- Creamed corn
- Tomato sauce and/or tomato paste
- Cheddar cheese
- Skim milk (1% or 2% milk will do if you find skim too watery)
- Bread (whole wheat or multi-grain)
- Fresh vegetables:
- Carrots
- Broccoli
- Onions
- Bell peppers (whatever colours you prefer)
- Tomatoes
- Asparagus
Condiments and Sauces
Because no one wants bland food, you’ll need to stock your kitchen with a few basic condiments. I’m listing what I consider to be the bare minimum here. If you have a favourite condiment that I haven’t listed, feel free to add it to your own kitchen (and leave a comment about it at the end of this post).
- Ketchup
- Mustard
- Relish
- BBQ Sauce (I prefer “original” or “hickory smoke,” but choose your favourite)
- Mayonnaise or Whipped Dressing
- Hot sauce (Tabasco or Frank’s Red Hot are my favourites)
- Teriyaki sauce
- Peanut butter
- Honey
- Jam/Jelly (whatever flavour you like best)
Herbs & Spices
I’m a guy who likes spicy food, so I have been slowly building up a fairly large collection of spices. But, for the average bachelor, there are really only a few basic spices that you need. With that in mind, I’ve tried to keep the list of “essential herbs & spices” small.
- Black pepper (whole peppers and a pepper mill is ideal)
- Table salt
- Seasoning salt
- Paprika
- Parsley
- Oregano
- Basil
- Garlic powder
- Chili powder
- Cinnamon
The above spices are the main essentials that I use in most of my cooking, so you should be able to get away with nothing else for your own bachelor cooking (as well as for most of the recipes I’ll be posting on Domestic Dog). However, if you want to spice things up a bit, here are a few more options:
- Onion powder
- Curry powder (mild, medium, or hot)
- Cumin
- Chili peppers
- Ginger
There are, of course, a wide variety of spices that you can pick up, depending on your tastes. But, those listed here are among those I find myself using most commonly.
I’ve probably forgotten a few things, so if you have anything to add to either the list of basic foodstuffs, or to the list of essential herbs and spices, leave a comment or send me an email and I’ll add the item to the list if I think it’s something that bachelors should commonly use.
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