Top pantry staples you should always keep stocked

2. A vinegar you like

Red wine, cider or sherry vinegar. A spoonful lifts a stew, a lentil salad or a pan of softened onions in the way a squeeze of lemon does, and it keeps for years.

3. Tinned tomatoes

Two or three tins at all times. They are the fastest way to a sauce, a soup, a braise or a curry. Whole plum tomatoes tend to be better quality than chopped; crush them in the pan with a spoon.

4. Dried pasta

A bronze-die pasta has a rougher surface that holds sauce better, and it is worth the small premium. One long shape and one short one cover most nights.

5. Rice

A long-grain rice such as aged basmati for anything with a sauce. It cooks in about fifteen minutes and turns a handful of vegetables and an egg into dinner.

6. Lentils

Puy lentils hold their shape and make a warm salad in twenty-five minutes; red lentils collapse into soups and dals. Neither needs soaking. Keep at least one of each.

7. Tinned chickpeas or beans

Ready in the time it takes to open the tin. Roast chickpeas with spices, stir beans into a tomato sauce, or mash them with olive oil and garlic onto toast.

8. Jumbo rolled oats

Porridge, overnight oats, crumble toppings, flapjacks, and a handful to thicken a soup. Jumbo oats keep more texture than fine ones.

9. Runny honey

For porridge and yoghurt, but also for dressings and glazes: a spoon of honey with mustard and vinegar is a dressing in itself. Honey keeps almost indefinitely in a sealed jar. It should not be given to babies under twelve months.

10. Walnuts

Crunch for salads, oats and roasted vegetables, and a quick pesto with garlic and oil. Because their oils turn rancid in the warm, keep them sealed and cool, or in the freezer if they will take more than a month or two to use.

11. Tinned fish

Sardines, mackerel or tuna in olive oil. Stirred through pasta with lemon and chilli, piled onto toast or folded into a potato salad, a tin makes a proper meal with almost no cooking.

12. A jar of concentrated flavour

Stock concentrate, miso, a curry paste, harissa or good mustard: choose the one you reach for most. A spoonful turns water into a soup base or plain vegetables into a curry. Once opened, most of these belong in the fridge; check the label.

Keeping them at their best

Dry goods fail for three reasons: air, light and damp. Decant pasta, rice, oats, lentils and nuts into sealed jars once the bag is open. It keeps them fresh, keeps out pantry moths, and lets you see at a glance what is running low. Store oils and nuts somewhere cool, not beside the oven.

Tins keep for a long time, but once opened the contents should go into a lidded container in the fridge rather than stay in the tin, and be used within a couple of days. Rotate as you shop: new tins and packs go to the back, older ones come forward.

Three panic-free dinners

Each of these uses a couple of fresh things plus the cupboard.

1. 1Pasta with tinned fish, lemon and walnuts — spaghetti, a tin of sardines in oil, garlic softened in olive oil, lemon zest and toasted walnuts. Fifteen minutes.
2. 2Chickpea and tomato stew with an egg — onion and garlic in olive oil, a spoon of harissa, a tin of tomatoes and a tin of chickpeas, simmered for ten minutes, then eggs cracked in and covered until set. Twenty minutes.
3. 3Lentil and rice pilaf — rice and Puy lentils cooked together with stock concentrate, finished with vinegar, olive oil and whatever greens need using. Thirty minutes.

Check your shelf tonight

Go through your cupboard with this list and note which of the twelve are missing. Fill the gaps from the pantry aisle, the pasta and rice shelf and the nuts and pulses shelf on your next shop, and then read batch cooking for people who hate batch cooking to see how far a stocked cupboard can take you.