Bulk pantry items can help to simplify your life and can mean making less trips to the shops to buy supplies or making things in large batches so that you do them less often. There are some food items which are reasonably convenient to buy or make in bulk if your family eats them regularly.
Buying in bulk or producing large batches can mean buying them from a bulk supplier, bringing your own containers and refilling them each time you purchase that item or purchasing the ingredients for your batch cooking in bulk. As an added bonus, often when you purchase items in bulk it is cheaper than purchasing small quantities.
In this article I am talking about buying large quantities from bulk supplies where you can provide your own container, jar, bag or box. This way you will be utilising containers more than once, re-using something which might ordinarily go into landfill or at best need recycling to be useful again. The planet will thank you!
Here’s my list of 10 things you can easily buy from a bulk store, and buy in bulk so you can make less trips to the shops, consume less packaging and hopefully never run out again!
1. Rice
Rice has a very long shelf life and is easily stored in your pantry for those days when you just feel like a good curry. I used to hate buying rice from the supermarket because of the plastic that it comes in, so I switched to buying it in bulk. I have a range of cotton cloth bags in which I can purchase it, which don’t weigh too much. I can buy as much or as little as I need and I have glass jars in my pantry in which to decant it when I get home. It stores for many months in glass and I have never had a problem storing it like this.
2. Almonds
I don’t generally eat wheat flour so I tend to use Almond Meal in a lot of my cooking. By buying almonds in bulk from a local producer, I can make almond meal whenever I need it.
While it won’t keep as long and as well as rice, almonds do keep well if kept in sealed glass jars. I use a screw top lidded jar for my almonds and then when I need meal, I blitz it with the Thermomix. I haven’t trialled keeping almonds vs almond meal but my gut feeling is that almonds last longer than almond meal.
3. Chick Peas
These are easy to come by in bulk stores and will last for ages in the pantry. They are great for adding to soups, curries or casseroles and stews and the added protein will give you a great boost. If you can find a local farmer that grows and dehydrates them, even better!
Again, I store them for the longer term in glass jars rather than in the cloth bag that they come in or which I use to purchase them from the bulk store. That way no nasties have any chance of getting into them.
4. Lentils
Lentils are another great staple that I would rather purchase in bulk than in plastic.
Purchase them from your bulk store, store them in glass. Add them to soups or make up some delicious dahl with turmeric for an amazing healthy option.
5. Apples
Apples are great to buy in bulk when they are in season and you can store them in all sorts of ways to use throughout the year. If you have a dehydrator you can cut them into rings and dehydrate them and store them in glass. For apples I always add a silica gel pouch to the jar so that any remaining moisture is absorbed. That way I don’t end up with mouldy apples a few months down the track.
If you have plenty of freezer space you can also stew up the apples and freeze them in batches in your freezer. Ready in no time you can have a crumble in the oven pronto when you need it.
Equally you can do this with pears – dehydrated or stewed they are still delicious when you eat them.
6. Strawberries
Strawberries are often quite cheap when purchased in bulk during the height of summer from your local farmers markets and if you are able to purchase B grade strawberries all the better. B grade strawberries are often almost too ripe and so don’t have long to go before they are no good.
But if you are keen you can purchase a box and turn them into jam which will store for many months, if not years in the pantry. An afternoon spent jam making can keep the family supplied for a long time (depending of course on how often you love jam on toast or scones with jam and cream!).
Alternatively, you can dehydrate them, the crush them up and add them to smoothies, sprinkle over ice-cream or add to cakes – they really pack a big flavour punch when they are dried.
7. Vegetables
If you have glut of something coming out of your garden, like I had zucchinis and squash last summer, or you pick up a bulk bargain direct from a farmer or gardener friend, then you can pickle vegetables and they will keep for many months in the pantry. Pickling is a quick and easy way to store vegetables – especially things like zucchini and squash that don’t respond well to water bath canning.
The other thing I did with my glut of these last summer was I blended them up (raw) in 500gm batches ready for making soups in winter. Just the other day I pulled out 500gm of blended button squash and, using my favourite zucchini soup recipe, made it into soup. It was a nice easy way to have a meal on the table quickly!
Some vegetables will store more easily than others – peas dry nicely, root vegetables and pumpkins will often store for reasonably longer periods if your pantry is dark and cool and capsicums can be roasted, then frozen. Cabbage can be easily turned into gut-loving sauerkraut and will keep well in the pantry for many months to come.
8. Herbs
Growing your own herbs is quick and easy and they can be simply dried and stored in glass jars in the pantry for quite some time. Herbs like thyme, coriander, oregano, rosemary and parsley go well in the dehydrator on their stems, then once they are dried, remove the stems and crush up the dried leaves for storage. That way they will be ready to use when you need them.
Herbs like basil which are a bit more delicate can be processed into pesto (use some of those Almonds in my easy Almond and Basil Pesto) and then the pesto can be frozen. Pesto adds a delicious punch to warming winter soups or can be used in the more traditional way as a dip.
There are so many things you can do with seasonal gluts, bulk buying opportunities and discounted end of season fruit to keep your pantry stocked up. I find when my meal planning gets a bit lax I can always rely on the pantry to provide me with something from which I can make a meal.
What bulk food items do you store in your pantry? What would you add to my list? Leave a comment below – I’d love to know!
