Ultimate Pantry Challenge Guide: Eat up and Save Money!

Time for a pantry challenge!

How do I know another pantry challenge is in order?

Well, here I am again, playing pantry Tetris. The cupboards are almost full and after the latest shopping trip I need to carefully navigate cans and jars into the tiny empty spaces.

Not to mention my poor chest freezer, which is cloaked in a thick layer of ice and is begging to be defrosted.

Pantry challenge to the rescue!

What is a pantry challenge?

Think of it as spring cleaning for your pantry.

You’re trying to use up the accumulated food stores in your house (in the fridge, freezer, and various cupboards and drawers where food may be hiding), buying only minimal additional groceries. You simply cook with what you have.

Others sometimes refer to this as a freezer challenge or no shopping challenge. In fact, a pantry challenge can naturally be part of a no spend month or no spend year.

I usually go at it for a month at a time, but you could choose a shorter period or continue until you’ve finally dispensed of those hard-to-use pantry ingredients you keep avoiding.

You can go hardcore and eat down strictly what’s available – think three dinners in a row of couscous with olive oil – which is not easy if you’re subject to the gustatory whims of a toddler.

Or you can plan to use up one “old” item per meal, or stick to your current meal plan but sub in foods from your pantry whenever possible.

Ultimately, the challenge is what you want it to be.

I usually cook with as many pantry ingredients as possible every meal and only buy fresh staples. For example, if we don’t restock the milk, I’ll hear some grumbles (Andrew) and whines (Max), plus we need eggs, some fresh fruit and vegetables, coffee, and peanut butter (again, grumbling and whining ensues if we run out).

Why do I need a pantry challenge?

If you’re like me, you’ll occasionally open your fridge and wonder how you ended up with so much food!

For one, we cook and eat most of our meals at home, so we’re regularly bringing ingredients into the house. And I’m not always fully organized with a meal plan, so some things don’t get eaten right away and just sit on a shelf.

I also like to stock up on sales but, ahem, sometimes overdo it. I rarely say no to friends who want to give me their unused food when they move. Plus, I like to try out lots of new recipes that often require special ingredients. (That’s where the red, green and yellow curry, salted shrimp, ume plums, tamarind paste, gochujang and gochugaru came from.)

A pantry challenge interrupts the cycle for long enough to take stock of what you have, clear out expired, expiring, or otherwise languishing ingredients, and learn some useful lessons to improve your future planning and shopping.

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How does a pantry challenge help?

You may:

• break out of a rut and cook more creatively again. Now you finally will make that Thai curry you bought the kaffir lime leaves for.
• clear enough space to clean: defrost the freezer, wipe down cupboards, clean the fridge. This is especially helpful if you’re planning a long vacation or are moving soon.
• make space for incoming food, such as prepared meals, a bulk meat purchase, or the summer vegetable harvest from your garden or CSA.
• inform your future shopping. In my ongoing attempt at living a more minimalist lifestyle, the pantry challenge helps me to, well, challenge everything. I ask myself: Did I really need this when I bought it? Do I need to buy it again? By the end, you’ll have a clearer picture of what the staples at the core of your pantry are. Conversely, you’ll know what you don’t use – after all you just worked so hard to cook it down. These are ingredients you should buy only when you need them, in the amounts your recipe calls for. You could also decide to get Vietnamese takeout when you get the craving, rather than cooking it yourself. Who knows, maybe you’ll get to the point where you don’t need pantry challenges anymore because you’ve streamlined your shopping so much.
• save money. Yes, you’ll eventually have to shop again to restock, but you’ll use up ingredients you may otherwise let expire and have to throw away. And armed with more knowledge about your habits, you’ll start to keep a more frugal pantry.
• have fun. One of my favorite TV shows growing up in Germany was “Kochduell”, a cooking competition along the lines of “Chopped”, based on mystery baskets of mismatched ingredients (think gummy bears, steak, and artichokes). Well, that’s what it’s like for me to open the fridge during a pantry challenge. I love trying to come up with new dishes in my own, personal chef challenge.
• make you aware of and grateful for the abundance in your life. I realize that I’m speaking from a fortunate position. I have both the space and the resources to even need – and want – a pantry challenge. Maybe you have experienced empty cupboards and get comfort from having them properly stocked, even overflowing? Totally fine. You may still want to refresh your stores by rotating out items that are getting old and anything you are unlikely to use without some prompting.

Join the pantry challenge fun!

You can start a pantry challenge anytime, of course. But I’d love it if you joined me for the annual pantry challenge I run every May in the Happy in the Hollow Facebook group. It’s extra fun in good company.

You’ll find inspiration, motivation, progress updates, and recipe ideas. Some people are real whizzes at conjuring up delicious concoctions out of whatever you throw at them.

I’ll also announce the next challenge in our newsletter, so sign up now! (FREE bonus: printable freezer, fridge, and pantry inventory sheets.)

When I ran my first 30-day pantry challenge, I was amazed how quickly more than 150 of you joined me. Clearly, I’m not the only one eager to use up that excess.

We had a blast! Here’s what some of my fellow pantry challengers had to say:

I have loved this so much! It is refreshing my cooking a lot and I am using things up instead of throwing away. My grocery bills have been slightly lower and I have found it easier to walk past things in the store that I don’t need, so I am also saving that way! Overall, I just feel good about making room in the freezer and pantry for things we DO want!!!

Leah

Loved it! I saved money, ate better and am finally getting back into loving cooking again. I’ve gotten so so much better with getting rid or using things up. This challenge was amazing in helping me to begin making major changes in my food habits!

Holly

I really found it helpful seeing what people came up to fix with what they had. It really helped me with ideas for my own family!

Laurie

How to start your pantry challenge

So let’s get going! Here’s how you prep for the challenge:

Take stock – what’s in my pantry?

It’s time to face your pantry! If you haven’t done this in a while, you may be surprised at what extra food lurks in the back of your shelves. Do you even know what’s in the depths of the fridge?

Working in sections, take everything out of your fridge, freezer, and cupboards. Group items by category, such as baking, condiments, pre-made foods and so on.

Now throw out anything spoiled or questionable. Freezer-burned chicken? Has got to go. (Or use it to make dog food.) Spices with no flavor? Out. Moldy bread? Ugh. Cans past their “best by” date? Hold it, not so fast!

Check here for guidance on how long food really lasts. “Best by”, “use by” or “sell by” labels don’t mean a food is automatically unsafe to eat after the printed date.

Make a list

Now make a list of what’s left, roughly organized into groups (such as meat, vegetables, sauces etc) and mark anything that needs to be used up sooner rather than later.

There’s no need to write down every last item. If you bake regularly, flour, sugar, and vanilla extract will probably always be part of your pantry, so just keep them in rotation. But if you stocked up on flour when it was on sale and some of it may go stale before you get to it, add it to your “use up” list.

When you’re done, put all the food back into the fridge, freezer, and pantry. Keep it as organized as you can muster so you can find everything when you’re ready to put it in the pot.

By the way, your pantry is much bigger than you may realize: Check out some backyard foraging recipes like these dandelion fritters.

Brainstorm meal ideas

What can you make from what you already have? 

Think about your favorite recipes. Maybe an ingredient is missing. Can you replace it with something that needs to be used up?

As an easy example, a chicken recipe may taste just fine with turkey instead. Or try the grain salad with bulgur instead of quinoa. Berry crisp may taste even better than apple crisp. You get the idea.

Then look up recipes in your cookbooks or online for ingredients that still stump you or if you’re looking for new ideas.

A few of my favorite basic cookbooks:

              

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Some of my go-to sites for recipes with what’s in my pantry:

• Genius Kitchen
• Simply Recipes
• The Kitchn
• Nom Nom Paleo (paleo recipes)
• Pressure Cook Recipes (Instant Pot recipes)

And, of course, there’s an app for that…Here’s a list of recipe apps for what’s in your fridge.

Even better: post a question in the Happy in the Hollow Facebook group. Someone’s sure to have a suggestion.

Shop, Cook, Eat

How you proceed after that depends on what works for you. Maybe you come up with a weekly menu plan and cook fresh every day. Or you food prep on the weekend and cook as little as possible during the week. Perhaps something in between.

If you don’t plan much and wing it, is that what got you a super-stocked pantry in the first place? (Just a thought…)

I usually write out pantry meal ideas for the week but know that I’ll be using them pretty flexibly.

A side note for shopping: If during the pantry challenge I come upon an amazing sale for groceries I know I’ll definitely use, such as canned tomatoes, I’ll stock up in reasonable amounts.

But I try to remind myself that sales are like buses – there will always be another one coming.

Ready? Let’s eat!

That’s a pantry challenge in a nutshell. You can start your pantry clean out any time, but it’s especially fun in a group.

So join our newsletter or the Happy in the Hollow Facebook group to hear about the next challenge.

If you have any questions, I’d love to hear them! Feel free to post them in the comments below or in the Facebook group.

Want to see all my tools that make life easier in the kitchen? Check out my resources page!

Photo credits: Olivia Hall, Natalie B/CC0