Stocking Your Pantry and Refrigerator for Health

Have you taken that important first step toward cooking healthy at home? That step is stocking your pantry and refrigerator with nourishing foods and products, which is the key to healthy eating.

The modern American cook is all about making meals fast for the family. Having nutritious staples on hand will help you stay on track with your health and your time budget. No last-minute trips to the supermarket are necessary when everything you need is ready to grab from your pantry and refrigerator.

“If you’ve got the foods there, you can put together a meal that’s more nutritious, lower calorie, and less expensive in less time than it would take to order pizza or drive somewhere for fast food,” says Karen Collins, MS, RD, CDN, nutrition advisor for the American Institute for Cancer Research.

And don’t forget your spice rack. Every family and every cuisine has its own favorite spices. Decide what your go-to spices are, and make sure you have some stocked in your pantry.

WebMD turned to Collins and Christine Gerbstadt, MD, RD, spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, for their tips on stocking a healthy kitchen. Check the categories below for their tips on bottled dressings and sauces, canned foods, dry foods, frozen foods, and more.

Healthy Salad Dressings and Sauces

Salad dressing: Choose light dressings that use canola or olive oil. A bottle of salad dressing really serves five food purposes. Along with being the traditional topping for a green salad, it can quickly transform into a marinade, dip, spread for sandwiches, or dressing for pasta salad.

Stir-fry sauce, sweet-and-sour sauce, hoisin sauce: These convenient Asian sauces are all low in fat but can be high in sodium, so make sure you don’t add any salt to recipes that use these sauces, even if it’s called for. Many Asian cuisine recipes call for making these sauces from scratch. You can skip those steps in the recipe and use prepared sauces.

Marinara and pizza sauce: Check the ingredient label to make sure the products you choose use olive oil and contain zero saturated fat and trans fat. Red sauce is a featured ingredient in most favorite Italian dishes, such as lasagna, spaghetti, chicken parmesan, and pizza.

Salsa verde, enchilada sauce, taco sauce, and red salsa: Mexican-style recipes are a snap when the sauces are already made. Most favorite Mexican dishes (enchiladas, tacos, chili rellenos, quesadillas) call for one of these sauces or salsas.

Must-Have Canned Foods for Your Pantry

Tomatoes (Mexican and Italian-style available) and tomato sauce: All sorts of dishes, from casseroles to stews and chili, call for canned tomatoes.

Beans (black beans, kidney beans, garbanzo, etc.): Add beans to salads, stews, casseroles, chili, and Mexican entrees.