Like many people, I buy groceries for the house once a week. Despite my conscious effort to stop going on Sundays at 2pm when everyone goes, I somehow always manage to go at that time. I regretfully shuffle through the crowds and buy the same things I usually do to replenish inventory. After a painfully slow checkout experience, I finally get home and restock the shelves.

However, I noticed something recently — I have a lot of what I like to call “stock photo filler food”. This is the food that lives in our pantry with no immediate intention of being used for anything specific. They sit comfortably on the shelves making it look “full,” but are rarely actually touched. Why do I do this? Is it some weird natural instinct to protect us from a possible apocalyptic situation? Do I absolutely need 4 cans of diced tomatoes at all times?

So for one week, I decided to skip the grocery store, use up the pantry items, and create meals using what we already have. Here’s the result — maybe it will give you some ideas for using up your own “filler foods.”

Monday

Breakfast: Peanut butter overnight oats with maple syrup

I was lucky to have bought a family sized jar of peanut butter for the two of us — that will last awhile.

Lunch: Pasta salad with leftover veggies and chickpeas

This pasta salad was mixed with vegan mayo

Dinner: Sweet potato and black bean chili

One of the smartest things to do during a pantry cleanout is to gather a bunch of your favorite ingredients you have on hand and dump them into your slow cooker. That’s exactly what I did here. I used my own recipe to create enough dinner for the week. Chilis are a great way to make large volumes of food using a few ingredients, and I used up several canned items (black beans, corn, and diced tomato).

Tuesday

Breakfast: Blueberry oatmeal topped with maple syrup

After rummaging through the freezer, I found a pretty recent bag of frozen wild blueberries and made a warm bowl of oatmeal

Lunch: Buddha bowl with quinoa, chickpeas, sweet potato, and corn.

I topped this with a questionable dressing I found in the fridge.

Dinner: Leftover sweet potato and black bean chili

Wednesday

Breakfast: Banana oatmeal pancakes

We had some leftover bananas that were starting to get too ripe on the counter. I decided to make my 2 ingredient banana oatmeal pancakes! All you need is 3 ripe bananas and a cup of quick oats. Mash together well and cook on a griddle or frying pan in pancake shapes until the sides are golden and the pancake is hot. I topped the pancakes with maple syrup and the last of my strawberries.

Lunch: Leftover sweet potato and black bean chili

I added nutritional yeast for a slightly different flavor.

Dinner: Pasta

This pasta was served with a generic jar of pasta sauce I found in the pantry and some more nutritional yeast.

Thursday

Breakfast: Banana oatmeal pancakes

Same as yesterday, but no strawberries this time!

Lunch: “Bruschetta”

Used the ends of a loaf of bread we had, I toasted them and spread some vegan mayo. I topped it with diced tomatoes from a can with salt and nutritional yeast.

Dinner: Leftover sweet potato and black bean chili

This time, I added some hot sauce I found in the fridge to change the flavor slightly.

Friday

Breakfast: Peanut butter overnight oats

This is exactly like Monday’s breakfast!

Lunch: Pasta salad with chickpeas and diced tomato

I mixed the salad with vegan mayo and celery seed spice.

Dinner: Teriyaki tofu stir fry

I used the last of the tofu block and marinated it in soy sauce and teriyaki sauce with a little bit of cornstarch mixed in. I also found a possibly freezer burnt bag of stir fry veggies and made a pretty tasty stir fry. I served the tofu over some quinoa.

Takeaways

A few tips I have learned because of this week…

Bulk cooking will save you the time and effort of having to constantly come up with a different meal three times a day

Slow cookers (or any pot you can dump a bunch of ingredients in and have it cook itself) are your best friend.

Spices and condiments are a great way to switch up the taste of your meals without having to make something entirely new.

When in doubt, stir-fry it. Everything tastes great when stir-fried with tons of veggies and spices.

Overall, it was surprisingly easy to fall back on my pantry this week. I definitely leaned into the meal-prep style by making a huge batch of chili for the week — no regrets there. It was surprising to see how much food we actually have constantly in the pantry. Challenging myself to be more creative and use up things in the pantry I hated seeing empty was pretty eye-opening. I saved $80–$100 this week by not going to the grocery store.

Now, I challenge you to do this for one week and see how many meals you come up with!