7 Healthy Pantry Staples You Need in the Kitchen

Kate Gavlick |

Updated: Dec 4, 2024

Healthy Pantry Staples, Unsplash — Credit: Unsplash

Certain tried and true pantry staples include dried beans and coconut oil, while canola oil and margarine should be removed ASAP. On the other hand, up-and-coming trendy pantry staples like ghee or collagen peptides bring nutrition back into the kitchen and offer delicious ways to transform your favorite recipes.

Keep your cabinets stocked and promote healthful eating at home with these seven healthy pantry staples. It makes life easy and you’ll notice a difference in your diet in no time.

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1. Avocado Oil Spray

Avocado Oil Pantry Staples, Wiki Commons — Credit: Wiki Commons

Avocado oil is more than a trendy pantry staple; it’s a game changer of an ingredient. Avocado oil is made by pressing the flesh of avocado to create a rich healthy cooking oil filled with monounsaturated healthy fats, vitamins, and minerals – with a high smoke point, too¹.

Using avocado oil in spray form is pure genius. Use it to spray cookie sheets and bread tins, pans, the grill, or any other cooking surface. Spray avocado oil directly onto vegetables, salmon, meat, and any other place where you may use the oil. Bonus, you’ll use less oil with the spray rather than glugging it from the bottle.

2. Grass Fed Collagen Peptides

Collagen Peptides Pantry Staples, Unsplash — Credit: Unsplash

This superfood has taken the nutrition and health community by storm. Powdered collagen peptides — made from grass-fed, pasture-raised bovine hides — are rich in various important amino acids to support joint, skin, hair, nails, cartilage, and bone health and integrity². Supplementing with collagen peptides has also been clinically shown to reduce wrinkles and signs of aging in women, while providing moisture and elasticity to skin – buy in bulk².

Add a scoop of collagen peptides to everything (see our guide to The Best Collagen Supplements You Can Trust, for our favorite product recommendations). Flavorless and odorless, collagen peptides easily dissolve into coffee and tea, baked goods, salad dressings, soups, stews, and so much more.

3. Unsweetened Coconut Flakes

Coconut Flakes Pantry Staples, Unsplash — Credit: Unsplash

Coconut flakes are underrated and inexpensive pantry staples. Unsweetened coconut flakes, made from dried coconut meat, are filled with healthy medium-chain fatty acids, fiber, and essential vitamins and minerals³. Choose unsulphured, unsweetened coconut flakes and store them in the refrigerator to maintain freshness.

You can use coconut flakes in smoothies, as a topping for oatmeal bowls, pancakes, chia seed pudding, banana bread, and cookies, as vegan coconut bacon, blended with almond flour to bread chicken and fish Paleo-style, or toast in the oven for garnishing dishes.

4. Turmeric

Turmeric Pantry Staples, Unsplash — Credit: Unsplash

The queen of spices, turmeric, is one of the best pantry staples for every kitchen. Not only does turmeric deliver major health benefits — especially its anti-inflammatory properties — but it also has a warming flavor that adds richness and brightness to every dish⁴.

Use turmeric in golden milk lattes, hummus, curries, blended into soups and stews, smoothies, as a marinade for chicken and fish, sprinkled onto roasted vegetables, mashed into sweet potatoes, stirred into oatmeal, and so much more.

5. Brazil Nuts

Brazil Nuts Pantry Staples, Wiki Commons — Credit: Wiki Commons

Here’s another nut to add to your arsenal. Brazil nuts, which are rich in protein and healthy fats like other nuts, are filled with selenium. Important for metabolism and thyroid health, selenium plays many roles in the body⁵. Unfortunately, this trace mineral is only found in a few foods including eggs, fish, liver, and chicken, so vegans or vegetarians may not get enough of this beneficial mineral in their diet.

Brazil nuts contain the highest amount of selenium of all plants and animals, and just one or two nuts provide your daily recommended amount. Use these nuts where you would other nuts: in homemade nut butter or nut milk, chopped and sprinkled on oatmeal or salads, or added to granola and trail mix.

6. Medicinal Mushroom Powders

Mushroom Elixer Pantry Staples, Unsplash — Credit: Unsplash

Tonics are on trend, and what could be trendier than adding superfood medicinal mushrooms to them? Organic medicinal mushrooms (shiitake, chaga, cordyceps, turkey tail, reishi, and maitake mushrooms, among others) offer nutritious properties, vitamins — including vitamin D —minerals, and fiber. Specifically, medicinal mushrooms contain beta-glucan, a fiber associated with immune support and immune-modulating properties⁶.

Use medicinal mushroom powders in a variety of healthy kitchen snacks, beverages, and treats. My favorite way to use a plethora of mushrooms is to add them to a cozy mushroom latte with plenty of cinnamon and cacao powder.

7. Grass-Fed Ghee

Ghee Pantry Staples, Unsplash — Credit: Unsplash

Ghee, or clarified butter, is all the rage in the healthy fat world. Not only is grass-fed ghee a supreme source of short-chain fatty acids and butyrate, a type of fatty acid associated with gut health, it packs in concentrated vitamins (vitamins A, D, E, and K) and minerals as well⁷.

Ghee gives dishes a rich, nutty flavor. Use in place of butter, olive oil, or other oils when roasting or cooking. Scoop in a tablespoon to make a bulletproof coffee, caramelize a banana with cinnamon on the stovetop, or spread on a piece of toast. The uses (and deliciousness) of ghee are endless.