7 Affordable Foods I Keep In My Kitchen Every Week | Grocery Essentials
As I’m sure you already know by now, I’m a huge fan of using basic ingredients and transforming them into many different meals. It saves a lot of money, it cuts off a lot of time from weekly meal prep, and it truly helps cut down on excess food waste.
Naturally, because I use the Mindful Meal Prep Method so much, I found that my shopping list was pretty identical every single week despite eating a completely different meal every single day.
Today, I’ll finally be sharing some of my grocery essentials with you and how adding these staples to your list could be game-changing!
1. Dried or Canned Beans
Beans play a huge role in boosting my protein consumption while staying extremely affordable.
For example, 100g of dried red kidney beans cost about $0.47 CAD.
And a 500ml can of bean medley may be found on sale for $1.00 CAD sometimes.
The beans I have in my home will differ from week to week depending on what I have in mind to cook and what’s on sale, but chickpeas, red kidney beans, and black beans are in my home the most.
2. A Variety Of Seasonal Vegetables
While eating a variety of vegetables, in general, is really great for your health, I love to opt for seasonal veggies more often because the produce is more likely to be more affordable and higher in nutrients + flavor due to the larger abundance.
I try to have at least 3-5 different colorful vegetables available all week long. If you’ve ever been curious about the saying “eat the rainbow,” it refers to eating a variety of vegetables of various colors because different pigments give your body different phytonutrients. So while it’s definitely important to “eat your greens,” also eat your reds, oranges, yellows, blues, purples, browns, and whites!
If you’d like a list of seasonal vegetables, click here if you’re from Ontario. If you’re from elsewhere in the world, a quick online search should point you in the right direction.
And here’s a short list of my favorite local Ontario farm to support:
Willowtree Farm (Port Perry, Ontario)
Campbell’s Orchard (Picton, Ontario)
Pingle’s Farm Market (Hampton, Ontario)
Likewise, if I’m not shopping at a local Ontario farm, I will purchase my vegetables in bulk at Costco. With bulk shopping for fresh produce, it’s important that you select vegetables that can be repurposed in many meals - like broccoli, carrots, onions, etc. For vegetables I don’t think I can finish before they go bad, I will pre-chop them and freeze them for stir frys.
3. Jasmine White Rice
White rice is abundant in my home. While there are so many other options, It’s important to me to stay true to my Filipino culture and not sway too far away simply to “eat healthier” - and I put “eat healthier” in quotes simply because health looks different from person to person.
For a long time, I thought I had to stop eating rice and that rice was the culprit of many of my health issues (including obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease). Especially with the "low-carb” fad, I thought I had to release my heritage to hold on to health. When, in fact, some of the healthiest countries in the world have people eating white rice for multiple meals a day. Years later, after changing up my overall diet and movement, all of those health issues had faded from existence - all while I continued to eat white rice.
It’s inexpensive to purchase, it can be used with so many different meals, and one bag goes a long way. What’s not to love?
4. Low-Sodium Soy Sauce
I cannot go a week without soy sauce in my kitchen. It is such a versatile ingredient to level up the flavor of any Asian-inspired meal.
From fried rice, adobo, tofu marinades, dipping sauces, stir fry sauces, and more - you can never go wrong with having low-sodium soy sauce in the kitchen.
A huge bottle from the Asian supermarket may run you around $3-5 that’ll last you weeks (if not months).
5. Extra Firm Tofu
Despite popular beliefs that tofu is an expensive plant-based luxury item, it’s actually quite inexpensive if you purchase it at an Asian supermarket.
In comparison to the 4 x 400g individually-packaged tofu you can purchase at Costco for $9 CAD (that’s 1.6 kg), you can purchase 2 kg of tofu at the Asian supermarket for about $4 CAD and also reap the benefit of less packaging. That’s more than 50% cheaper.
6. Whole Coffee Beans
I’m a huge coffee lover but I stopped visiting Starbucks daily once the pandemic hit in late March 2020. Instead, I’ve been trying to support more local roasters, buying whole beans, and grinding them fresh each morning.
Over the last year, I absolutely fell in love with Muskoka Roastery Coffee Company. Howling Wolf and Black Bear are my favorite beans (can you tell I’m a dark roast kinda Gal?).
Not only is buying whole beans less expensive (especially in comparison to buying a latte every single day), but you also get to enjoy the enhanced flavor profiles from grinding your beans right before brewing. As a former barista, it’s a win-win scenario.
7. Unsweetened Peanut Butter
This may come as a surprise to many, but peanut butter is such an essential condiment in our cooking (and not just for making peanut butter and banana sandwiches!). In many cultures, peanut butter is an essential ingredient to make both savory and sweet foods.
From Filipino Kare Kare, peanut sauce for dipping spring rolls, spicy peanut noodles, protein smoothies, energy balls, a topping for oats, peanut butter cookies, and more - peanut butter is such an inexpensive and versatile ingredient that can be used for so many different recipes.
These are just a handful of some of the amazing foods I use every week to make delicious, affordable meals throughout the week. Make sure to click here if you’d like to see what I cook up each day.
