9 Staples to Make Not Buy

Use up ingredients you have on hand to make staples—and make fewer shopping trips during Covid-19

1. Baking powder

I do buy baking powder but when I run out, I make my own. Mix 2 parts cream of tartar to 1 part baking soda. Sift and use immediately.

Lemon juice mixed with baking soda can also replace baking powder. Mix 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice with 1/4 teaspoon baking soda for every 1 teaspoon of baking powder the recipe calls for and use immediately.

2. Brown sugar

Thoroughly mix together a couple of teaspoons of molasses and a cup of granulated sugar to “make” brown sugar. A shallow dish and a fork work best. Store it in the cupboard in a jar and use as needed.

3. Superfine or powdered sugar

I also made the superfine sugar in the pic below. It’s very much like powdered sugar and is fine enough to pass the homemade whipped cream test. I ground granulated sugar up in a coffee mill to make that. (Add cornstarch for a more powdered sugar-like consistency.) It contains little black flecks of a dehydrated vanilla bean leftover from making vanilla extract.

Superfine sugar (left) and brown sugar (right)

4. Bread crumbs

You can make bread crumbs in several different ways. I cube stale bread, whir the cubes in my blender with a bit of salt and herbs and then toast the crumbs on a cookie sheet in the oven at 300°F for 5 to 10 minutes, until slightly browned. You can find more details here.

5. Canned beans

Not only do dry beans you cook yourself taste better, you also cut your exposure to the BPA in the plastic that lines most cans. Scientists have linked BPA, a synthetic estrogen, to a variety of health problems, including breast cancer, reproductive damage, developmental problems and heart disease. Cook them in a pot on a stove or in a slow cooker (here are the instructions for both methods) or in few minutes in a pressure cooker.

6. Nut and seed milks

Like most things zero-waste, you do need to plan ahead if you want nut milk for your muesli or for cooking. This kind of planning used to be normal but only throughout most of human existence.

After you make your nut or seed milk, dehydrate the pulp afterward if desired. I usually do this in the oven at 225ºF for a couple of hours. Or store it wet. I put a couple of spoonfuls of wet pulp into my sourdough pancakes. Delicious!

Go here for an almond milk recipe. Swap the almonds out for pecans or cashews or other nuts of choice. I also have a recipe for coconut milk here. And another for pumpkin seed milk here.

Pumpkin seed milk

7. Tahini

If you have sesame seeds and a bit of sesame seed oil, you can make your own tahini. Carefully toast the sesame seeds in a pan on the stovetop on low for about five minutes and run them through a food processor with a bit of sesame oil.

I put this in hummus, which I also make in my food processor. I’ll make the tahini first, followed by the hummus, followed by only one washing of the food processor bowl instead of two. Little tips like that speed up your food prep. Find the tahini recipe here. Then add it to this hummus recipe.

8. Chocolate syrup

Want a little treat? To make chocolate syrup, combine 1/4 cup cocoa with 1/2 cup water in a saucepan. Whisk over medium heat until the cocoa dissolves. Add 3/4 cup sugar and pinch of salt and whisk until dissolved. Bring to a boil. Boil for three minutes, whisking constantly. Remove from heat. Add 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract (you can make that too). Mix the syrup into your homemade nut or seed milk and heat it up for a cup of hot chocolate. Read the full post on chocolate syrup here.

9. Vinegar

I wish I had kept track of how much money my homemade vinegar has saved me over the years. Recently I noticed that a large bottle of apple cider vinegar at the store costs $8. The good stuff is worth it so if you don’t have time to make vinegar or don’t want to make it or fermentation scares you, then buy it.

But you can make vinegar very easily and out of food that otherwise often goes to waste—apple cores and peels. If you don’t eat enough apples to make a batch, then freeze your scraps until you have amassed a large pile of them. The microbes on the fruit that ferment the scrap vinegar won’t die, they’ll just take a little nap. Find my scrap vinegar recipe here.

A very good batch of free scrap vinegar