We just got back from a short vacation. When coming home, one of the first questions asked was: “what’s for dinner?”. Tired from a long and hot car ride your first reaction might be: “let’s order takeout.” If you, like me, prefer a healthy alternative, make sure your pantry and freezer have some reserves for such cases. This way you can put an easy and healthy meal together, no need to get fresh groceries.
Let me give you a real-life example and the list of my go-to pantry and freezer ingredients.
One of our favorite dishes is pasta. Fortunately nowadays it is simple to find delicious and healthy, plant-based pasta. By “healthy pasta” I mean one that is not based on wheat but on alternative flours like peas or lentils. Read here why I prefer to avoid wheat-based products.
A tasty sauce begins of course with chopped onions and garlic. Luckily onions and garlic stay good for a long time so hopefully you had some on hand before going away. That was my case today.
To add some heat and umami I like to use peppers. Have a jar of jalapeno peppers in your pantry if you don’t have fresh ones. Want some more bite and a little bitterness? Add chopped olives to the mix, think traditional puttanesca sauce: add capers if you have some. In my case I didn’t have any and I used green olives. No worries, the taste is still great.
No fresh tomatoes is not an issue either as long as you have a jar of passata, ready-made tomato sauce. Stock up organic passata, preferably in a glass jar instead of in metal tin. Glass is tasteless and resistant to acids. Some of the plastics that are used to coat food tins have come under criticism. The BPA / BADGE (bisphenol-A diglycidyl ether) that they contain can be passed on to the preserves in small amounts. This substance is suspected of being a possible carcinogen. So to remain on the safe side: choose passata in glass instead of in tin.
While your sauce warms up, set water to boil for the pasta. Add whatever greens and beans you have to your sauce. Luckily I had fresh spinach in the fridge and a tine of cannelloni beans in my pantry drawer. Although not on the picture I also added frozen peas to the sauce. Once the sauce and pasta are ready, throw the pasta in the sauce pan and serve, with or without added cheese or cream as you like (grated parmesan, mascarpone, plant-based cream…).
As promised, here are a few suggestions of things to keep handy in your pantry in jars, tins or frozen, year-round:
- Plant-based milk (oats, coconut, soja…) milk
- Legumes (beans, lentils, chickpeas)
- Vegetables (green peas or runner beans, spinach, broccoli, canned diced tomatoes)
- Sauce bases (coconut cream or milk, passata)
- Grains or non-wheat-based carbs (rice, quinoa, couscous, plant-based pasta)
- Condiments (mustard, sambal, jalapeno peppers, grilled bell peppers, capers, olives)
- Spices
- Dry or canned fruits
Enjoy the summer and your vacation. And upon return: enjoy your meal!