There's no doubt that a well-stocked store cupboard makes cooking easier, faster and more enjoyable. Having ingredients to hand means adding a pinch of this, or a splash or that, can transform an everyday recipe into a dish with more flavour. Have a look at our essential list of the top 35 must-haves with tips, tricks and easy recipes for you to try too.

Whether you prefer chilli flakes or powder, it's worth adding a little heat to your stock list. Adding chilli to a dish doesn't mean it has to blow your head off either. Chilli is also a flavour enhancer, especially when added to fish or shellfish dishes. For example, when added to squid or mussels, it brings out the flavour of the fish without overpowering it.

A tin of coconut milk is just what you need for Thai and South Indian curries. Cartons of coconut cream do a similar job – they are thicker and contain less water. Coconut milk makes a mean smoothie too, especially if you are dairy intolerant. Having a tin of coconut milk to hand means you can rustle up a creamy Thai chicken curry in no time.

Find our best-ever Thai chicken curry here

Whatever your preference for coffee, a small jar of instant granules is a must for bakers and dessert lovers. What would tiramisu be without that kick of strong coffee? Or a coffee and walnut cake for that matter. Give our recipe for coffee, cardamom and walnut cakes, coated in a rich, coffee icing a go when you need a bite-sized caffeine hit.  

 

Not just for fruit cake and cookies, dried fruit makes a great and instant snack. Always rinse dried fruit, especially sultanas and raisins, before using. You'll be surprised at the amount of grit in there. Apricots and prunes are also used in savoury dishes such as North African tangines – a slow-cooked casserole which has a lovely balance of spice and sweetness.

Try our lamb and apricot tagine here

The spices you need in your cupboard are the ones you use most frequently. If your style is Indian, you'll want cumin, coriander seeds and turmeric to start with. For Spanish dishes, it's paprika and saffron. Chinese? Star anise. If you can, buy most as whole seeds or pods and grind your own. Spices deteriorate so only buy as you need them. If you fancy an easy dish to try with just a few spices, cook our chicken curry recipe.

 

Fish sauce is often used in Thai and Vietnamese recipes. It's made from fermented fish (stay with us!) and adds a savoury, salty flavour. You only use it in small quantities, but it does add an incredible depth of flavour to a recipe. It is used in dipping sauces but also in salad dressings, as well as curries. We love it in our prawn salad recipe.

The flours you have in your cupboard depend upon the style of your cooking. If you bake often, then plain and self-raising flours should be there. If you mostly make pancakes, then plain flour is fine. Remember you can always "convert" plain to self-raising flour by adding baking powder to save cupboard space. Importantly, flour doesn't keep forever and can attract weevils, so store in an airtight container rather than the packet you bought it in.

Both couscous and bulgur wheat are perfect for salads, particularly from the Mediterranean and Middle East. As grains on their own, they are pretty bland, so you can really ramp up the flavours with citrus, fresh herbs and vegetables. Add flavour by cooking them in stock, rather than water. 

Red currant jelly is such an invaluable ingredient for sauces and gravies. It adds a hint of fruity sweetness. It's also great served with lamb or venison and other game meats. Gently melted, it makes a lovely glaze for berry tarts. Do search out a good brand – many are over sweet which masks the acidity of the berries.

If we were to recommend the more useful mustards in your cupboard, they would be Dijon, wholegrain and English mustard powder. (You are, of course, allowed, to have American mustard for hot dogs). As well as a condiment, mustards are perfect in salad dressings, dips, and a welcome addition to casseroles and stews. After opening, if you keep mustard in the store cupboard, it will lose its heat faster than storing it in the fridge. 

Try it with our shallot and mustard salad dressing

The choice of dried noodles available now is ever-expanding. There are even "straight to wok" noodles which have been pre-cooked – not that cooking noodles is tricky, but they do save on time and washing up. It's easy to find gluten-free noodles too, made from buckwheat or rice. They have a long shelf life and are perfect for soups, such as tom yum, stir-fries and salads.

 

It's best to buy nuts as and when you need them as their oil content causes them to go rancid quickly once opened. Our top tip is to store them in the freezer in an airtight container. Unsalted nuts can be used in salads, curries, cakes and cookies, as well as providing an easy high-protein snack. Pistachios go well in cakes and Middle Eastern recipes, peanuts are perfect for satay and stir-fries, and almonds go in almost anything. 

Try our romanesco tabbouleh with nuts here

People have written whole books on olive oil, but the main thing is to have one really top-notch extra-virgin oil you love the taste of (some are fruity, some more peppery) to drizzle on salads and vegetables. Then you can have a blended oil which will be much cheaper, to use for pesto or pasta. Make sure to keep it out of sunlight in a dark cupboard.

There are so many different oils on the shelf, it's hard to choose which ones you need. Apart from your swanky extra-virgin olive oil, we would recommend sunflower oil or peanut oil for general frying and sautéing. Nut oils, such as walnut, which are wonderful in salads, go rancid quickly, so buy in small quantities. Rapeseed oil is very on-trend, but it does have a slight vegetal taste, so it's better for cooking rather than salads, unless you can find a cold-pressed oil.

Discover everything you need to know about cooking with different oils

Where would our Italian cooking be without capers and olives? They take a simple pasta sauce to a new level, can jazz up a margherita pizza and give wow factor to an easy potato salad. Capers in melted butter and lemon juice make an instant sauce for white fish while black olives take centre stage in a tapenade. If you can track down tasty and good quality pitted olives, you'll make life much simpler. Capers in salt need to be rinsed before using. 

Try our tapenade recipe here

To cover all the bases for the vast majority of recipes, if you have white wine, red wine, balsamic, sherry and rice vinegars in the cupboard, you should be sorted. They keep well, too. You can mix and match your vinegars for a salad dressing, but if you work on the general rule that you need 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar, you'll be fine. Add garlic, mustard and fresh herbs as you like.

Peanut butter is pretty versatile. It's divine in a banana smoothie, great in cookies and makes an easy satay sauce for chicken and stir-fries. We'd recommend you use the coarse, rather than smooth, in recipes, though you can always have both if you prefer the smoother type spread on toast. 

You'll find a brilliant recipe for vegan satay noodle stir-fry here

Soy sauce is a flavour enhancer, tenderiser and used in marinades, dips and stir-fries. Look for naturally fermented Japanese soy sauce – short-cut unnaturally fermented sauces can be over salty. Soy sauce does contain wheat, so if you are gluten-intolerant, look for tamari sauce instead. The better the quality, the less you need to use. You can also find reduced salt Japanese soy sauce.

Let's be honest – most of us have a bottle of ketchup in the cupboard. But it's also a handy ingredient as well as a side sauce for fries. You can make a quick dipping sauce for spring rolls by combining it with soy sauce and a hint of chilli. Add it to a pasta sauce when you need more tomato flavour. But try a few brands out – some are lower in sugar than others.

The types of rice in your cupboard really depends on what you cook. Basmati for Indian food, arborio for risotto, bomba for paella and jasmine rice for Thai. You may want some fibre-packed wholegrain in there, too. Long-grain is a good multi-purpose rice. It's best to decant into sealed plastic containers.

Learn the secrets to cooking perfect rice every time here

If you love the punchy heat of horseradish or wasabi, it's worth finding a place for them. Horseradish added to a fish pie or a fish cake adds zing, but often the jarred sauces are too mild, so we love to add some wasabi powder for extra kick. Of course horseradish is the classic accompaniment to roast beef and smoked fish, but also great in mayonnaise to serve with prawns. 

What is wasabi? Find out more about the ingredient here

There's not always time to make your own stock. So have a selection in the cupboard – beef, chicken and vegetable are the ones you'll use most. Whether you buy cubes, powder or the jelly-like stock pots (our current favourite), you'll always have something to hand for risotto, soups, gravies and casseroles.

Try to stock up on unrefined sugars made from pure, unrefined sugar cane. They add a better depth of flavour to your cooking in both sweet and savoury foods. Golden caster and light brown soft are a good start. If you love Asian cooking, you could buy palm sugar made from coconut palm, which is used in marinades for meat and fish, including our recipe for Thai pork skewers.

Whether you are a Tabasco lover, or sriracha is more your thing, it's always handy to have a bottle of chilli sauce in the cupboard. Perfect for perking something up when you need an extra dash of heat. We also find it useful for when you've added fresh chillies to a dish which aren't quite as hot as you'd like. We also love this recipe for a chocolate cake where Tabasco is the secret wow ingredient.
 

A tin of anchovies, whether for a pasta sauce, adding to dauphinoise potatoes, or for cooking with a roast leg of lamb (which doesn't taste fishy at all!) is a must for the store cupboard. Ditto sardines, which are a perfect instant lunch on wholemeal toast, and full of healthy omega-3 fatty acids. Tinned salmon is great for quick fish cakes or for bulking out a fish pie.

Try the recipe for roast leg of lamb with anchovies here

Tomato passata is smooth, sieved, uncooked tomatoes; the purée is a concentrated version. Both are really handy ingredients. A touch of purée (careful, it's strong!) can be added to soups and sauces or to add a little tomato flavour to a casserole. Use passata when you don't want any pieces of tomato in your recipe. It's especially useful as a tomato sauce base for pizza or for a quick tomato soup. Gently fry an onion, add the passata, heat through then add a little cream and some fresh basil.

Worcestershire sauce is made from anchovies and adds a savoury umami flavour to dishes, without adding any fishy notes. Add to soups and meaty casseroles, and a splash makes all the difference to cheese on toast or to a prawn cocktail.

With such a long shelf life, dried wild mushrooms are a useful ingredient, especially when the colder weather sets in and you're after hearty stews and soups. You simply rehydrate them in warm water, then strain. You can use the soaking liquid too as a stock. They add a deep, savoury flavour to dishes such as a risotto, or add them to a beef casserole. You could also combine them with fresh mushrooms in a warming soup.
 

High in protein, tinned pulses deserve their place in the well-stocked store cupboard. A tin of chickpeas is transformed into hummus with olive oil, tahini, lemon juice and garlic. Lentils can bulk out a shepherd's pie, cannellini beans are great in a tuna salad, while kidney beans and black beans make an easy, super-fast veggie chilli, too.

Try our black and kidney bean chilli here

A jar of pesto can be used in so many ways. Yes, toss it into pasta for a speedy midweek meal. But you can add it to mayo for a quick dip for chips and vegetables too. Spread it on a piece of salmon with extra grated Parmesan and pop it under the grill. It works really well in an easy Italian-style chicken tray bake too. 

Discover the recipe for chicken, pesto, Taleggio and roasted tomatoes here

Cocoa powder is handy for all sorts of baking recipes, but you want proper cocoa powder, not drinking chocolate. You'll need dark chocolate for cooking, from 55-70% cocoa solids. To melt dark chocolate, break it up into a heatproof bowl and place over a pan of gently simmering water – without the bowl touching the water. Keep the heat as low as you can, leaving the chocolate to melt, (around 5-10 minutes). Using the microwave can cause the chocolate to burn in the centre, so best avoided.

The quality of salt you buy will make a big difference to your cooking. Sea salt or kosher salt is the one you want. It has a pure taste and you will use much less of it than standard table salt. Buy whole peppercorns too, and invest in a good pepper grinder so that you have freshly milled black pepper every time.

You'll want a selection of short and long pastas in the cupboard. Fresh pasta is not better than dried, just different. (And low-quality fresh pasta is definitely worse than dried when cheaper, coarser flour is used). The best advice we can give is to always buy Italian pasta. The price difference will be small but non-Italian pastas, such as own-label brands, can often come out soggy.

Honey is not just for toast or porridge, however delicious they are! If you love Chinese cooking, a drizzle adds that note of sweetness to counterbalance the hot and the sour. It's also great in dipping sauces, rather than using sugar, to counteract against the heat of chilli. In baking, it works a treat in a blueberry and honey cornbread.

Check out our genius hacks for organising your freezer here

It's really worth hunting out a good Italian brand of tinned tomatoes. The flavour will be more concentrated and less watery. You can now find tinned cherry tomatoes too, which are perfect for home-made pasta sauces. Just gently fry off a chopped onion, then add some garlic, then the tomatoes and a pinch of dried oregano, for a really quick pasta sauce. 

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