Subscribe 
Essential Edit: 10 Pantry Staples That Instantly Make You a Better Cook
A good pantry is not about hoarding ingredients. It is about keeping the staples that earn their shelf space: the tins, sauces, grains and bottles that can pull dinner together when the fridge is giving you almost nothing.
A good pantry should make you feel slightly smug. Not because it is crammed with every ingredient under the sun, but because it knows how to save you at 6.47pm when the fridge is offering half a cucumber, three eggs and no emotional support.
This is the shelf for people who actually cook: the ingredients you reach for without needing a recipe, a plan or a second supermarket run. A tin of tomatoes can become dinner in 20 minutes. Rice is never just rice. Good oil can change the mood of a dish, and one hard-working sauce can do more for a Tuesday night meal than a dozen ingredients bought with ambition and left to wilt.
This is not about abundance. It is about usefulness. A few tins with range. Noodles that buy you time. Vinegar for lift. Fish sauce for savoury depth. Pulses for ballast. Condiments that know how to pull a meal into focus. Here, we edit it down to the 10 staples worth making room for: the ingredients that earn their shelf space, sharpen your instincts and make everyday cooking feel far more capable.
Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
Extra-virgin olive oil is the bottle that earns its spot within arm’s reach. Use it to start a sauce, finish a soup, dress tomatoes, revive beans or make toast look like lunch. Don’t keep the nice one hostage for guests. A weeknight egg with good oil and salt is already on your side.
The Best Extra Virgin Olive Oils
Grampians Olive Co. Lemon Pressed Agrumato Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 250ml, $17.50
Goldi Smooth Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 500ml, $22
Cobram Estate Extra Virgin Rich & Robust Olive Oil 375mL, $13
RICH GLEN Early Harvest Extra Virgin Olive Oil 2026, Limited Release 200mL, $75
Tinned Tomatoes & Passata
Tinned tomatoes and passata are dinner’s best backup plan. Tins bring texture and depth to ragùs, stews, beans and braises, while passata is your fast lane to silky pasta sauce, baked eggs or pizza night with very little warning. Add garlic, olive oil, salt and a little patience, then let the pantry do its finest impression of a plan.
Chickpeas and Other Pulses
Chickpeas are the friend who always turns up with snacks. Mash them into rough hummus, crisp them in the oven, toss them through tomatoes or let them bulk out a soup when dinner is looking thin. Lentils and butter beans deserve shelf space too. Cheap, useful and far more charming than their beige little outfits suggest.
Soy Sauce
Soy sauce is where pantry cooking gets its backbone: salty, savoury, a little broody, and able to pull almost any meal into focus. Keep a light soy for seasoning, a dark soy for colour and depth, and a sweet soy for gloss. ABC Sweet Soy is lovely brushed over salmon, tossed through tofu or caught in a pan with garlic, ginger and greens, giving rice bowls and stir-fries that deep, sweet-savoury finish.
Dried Pasta & Noodles
Dried pasta and quick noodles are not a cop-out. They are the reason wilted greens, a fried egg, tinned tomatoes, passata or the last spoonful of chilli oil can become dinner before your standards collapse. Keep a few shapes and packets you genuinely like, then dress them up with garlic, soy, vinegar, sesame, herbs or whatever sauce is earning its rent that week. Suddenly, the cupboard has range.
Vinegar
Vinegar is what stops dinner from tasting flat. A splash of it in lentils, rice bowls, tomato sauce, or pan juices can wake up the whole thing. Keep rice vinegar for quick pickles and sharper dressings, then add a darker bottle for beans, braises and salads that need a little edge. It’s the pantry’s tiny correction button.
Chilli Sauce
Chilli sauce is the pantry move for when a meal needs a lift, a kick or a little rescue mission. Keep something sweet for spring rolls, grilled chicken and fast dressings, something hotter for noodles, eggs and fried rice, and something smoky or fermented for depth. ABC Original Chilli brings a punchy chilli hit: lovely beside anything crisp, loosened with lime, or stirred through mayo when a sauce needs to happen quickly.
Tinned Fish
Tinned fish has escaped the sad desk lunch allegations. Good tuna, sardines, anchovies or mussels can turn toast, pasta, tomatoes, rice or boiled eggs into something that feels extremely together. Keep a few tins you’d happily eat standing at the bench with a fork. That is usually the sign you bought well.
Rice
Rice is the pantry’s great peacekeeper. Jasmine rice makes sticky salmon, saucy tofu, fried eggs, leftover curry or chilli greens feel like an actual meal, rather than several things sharing a plate. Long-grain is there for pilafs, salads and anything that wants a cleaner finish, while arborio is your ticket to risotto, baked rice and comfort on command. Keep at least one close for nights when dinner needs somewhere for all the good sauce to go.
Fish Sauce
Fish sauce makes everything taste a little more awake. Add a splash to stir-fries, broths, dressings, tomato sauce or marinades and it brings savoury bass without taking over. Start small, trust that the smell will calm down, and use it anywhere salt alone would be too obvious.
The Best Fish Sauce
A good pantry will not make you a better person, but it will make you far more capable when hunger starts making decisions. Stock it with ingredients that do the heavy lifting, then let instinct take over: a splash here, a tin there, rice on the stove, sauce in the pan, dinner somehow pulling off a glow-up with the contents of a cupboard and a vague sense of ambition. For more edible intel, take a bite out of our latest food and drink news in Australia, or pour over our guide to Australia’s best gins.
