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5 Vegan Pantry Essentials Every Cook Should Consider

They’re not just for vegans anymore

With my election anxiety diminishing, thoughts turn toward pandemic life during the upcoming winter. My daughters will continue with online school and it’s likely to be a season spent mostly at home. While we remain committed to helping our favorite local restaurants survive by getting take-out about once a week, like many people, I continue to see a whole lot of home cooking on the horizon.

While I appreciate that the pandemic has offered us opportunities to become a better cook, there are no signs it’s ending soon. Instead of worrying that the worst is yet to come and there is no way I can stop it, I’m trying to focus on what I can control.

For me, this means the food I buy.

Did you know that you could buy Sriracha by the case?

With the possibility of higher food prices and questionable levels of access to ingredients happening again, as it did in the spring, properly stocking our pantry now seems like a reasonable response to this moment. It’s also an activity that I am capable of tackling, which feels nice.

Since my husband, two daughters, and I are all vegan, much of our pantry is what you’d expect: dried beans, whole grains, canned items like tomatoes, artichokes, pumpkin, and coconut milk, herb and spices, nuts and seeds, dried fruits and condiments.

Buying some of these items by the case has made it easy to maintain our commitment to donating a box of food each month. Not everyone has the ability to fill their pantry these days, especially. (I’d love to think my motivation for doing so is purely altruistic, but I know better. Meeting up in the church parking lot each month to load the cars to take the donations to local food pantries is an event I look forward to.)

Besides these expected basic ingredients, as I decided what were our essentials for the upcoming winter, I realized that there are five other pantry staples vegan cooks typically stock that omnivores probably don’t.

But this is not a typical year. Everyone might appreciate having these on hand in the coming months.

Though their name is fun, these one-ingredient wonders made from soybeans are not what I would consider truly curly. They look more like shredded chicken.

Unlike other meat analogs, soy curls are not made of textured soy protein or soy isolates, or a dozen ingredients. They are made only from non-GMO soybeans, but they also don’t look or taste anything like edamame or tofu.

If you’ve ever ordered a vegetarian chicken dish at a Chinese restaurant, you might have eaten some without knowing it.

Soy curls come dried in bags that can be stored on the shelf in your pantry for months or frozen for even longer.

Much like tofu, they have a neutral taste right out of the package. This is good news because they can pick up the flavor of a broth or marinade even better than tofu can. And their chewy texture might even suit those who are tofu-averse.

If you buy some, plenty of recipes can be found online for your newly purchased soy curls, but you can also just use them as a substitute in your favorite chicken recipes like chicken noodle soup, chicken fajitas, chicken pot pie, or General Tso’s Chicken.

The process of preparing the soy curls to add to your recipe is a simple two-step process.

First, measure out the amount needed and then soak in water or broth (no-chicken broth is great for many recipes) for 10 minutes. This reconstitutes the soy curls, so they will grow in size slightly and in weight as they absorb the liquid.

Second, very importantly, squeeze out the excess liquid so that the soy curls are no longer soaking wet. They will retain their fuller shape, but this step prevents them from being soggy and allows whatever sauce or spices you’re using in your recipe to adhere to them better and add more flavor.

At this stage, you can treat the soy curls like you would chicken or other meat that has already been cooked. You can brown the pieces or sauté them if you want, but they do not need to be cooked. They even can be used in place of chicken in cold recipes, like chicken salad. (The Whole Foods near us frequently has vegan chicken salad made this way, which is delicious.)

After adopting a vegan or plant-based diet, it doesn’t take long to learn that there are myriad ways to substitute for eggs in recipes. But there is also a product called, simply, egg replacer that is sold by several brands.

Before you skip this section, if you like eggs and have no intention of giving them up, please note that does not mean you won’t find this product handy. You don’t have to give up on all eggs to appreciate having some egg replacer on hand.

Egg replacer is made from potato starch, tapioca flour, and non-dairy leavening agents. Besides being vegan, it is nut-free and soy-free as well.

Egg replacer doesn’t replace all uses of eggs that might come to mind. You aren’t going to make a scramble or even a quiche with this (tofu would be a better egg-free substitute for these). What it does very well is a substitute for eggs in baked goods.

To substitute for one egg, simply blend 1½ teaspoon of egg replacer powder and 2 tablespoons of warm water.

You can whisk the egg replacer and water together by hand, but since it works best when you can get it nice and thick, I like to blend them with an immersion blender for a minute or two.

After blending, you will have a thick white froth that you can add to your baking recipe when it calls for eggs. If you need more than one egg, just multiply the amounts of both the egg replacer and water and blend. This substitute won’t affect the recipe’s flavor, but it will supply the rise eggs would.

The best thing about egg replacer is a single box costs only around $8. And it contains the equivalent of 113 eggs.

That’s 85 cents for the equivalent of a dozen eggs.

Unlike eggs, egg replacer contains no cholesterol and can be safely stored in your pantry for a year. So just one box will allow you to indulge in comfort baking for a very long time.

These days, you can find cereals and granolas that contain flax seeds pretty easily. Curiously, often the flax seeds are added to these products whole.

While they may add a nice texture to recipes, eating them this way isn’t going to do much to improve your health. Flax seeds need to be ground for your body to absorb its nutrients.

You can either buy flax seeds whole or already pre-ground. If you buy the whole seeds you can grind them yourself in either a high-speed blender or in a well-cleaned coffee grinder. Whole seeds tend to give you more for your money, so I usually grind my own.

Once the seeds are ground, they should be stored in the refrigerator or freezer. A canning jar on the door of the refrigerator works well.

When it comes to your health, flax is a great source of the antioxidant alpha lipoic acid, which your body converts to omega-3s. One tablespoon of ground flax has the equivalent of 2 grams of omega-3s and early studies suggest many health benefits including lower cholesterol and reduced risk of both breast and prostate cancer.

We aim to enjoy 1 tablespoon a day, most often in bowls of oatmeal with bananas or berry muffins. But it can also be added to pancake or waffle mix or just sprinkled on a fruit salad.

While omega-3s are one of the reasons flax meal is popular with vegans, studies show that even meat-eaters are deficient too. Daily flax meal intake can help close the gap.

Flax meal may also be blended with water as a substitute for eggs in some recipes. (Yes, vegans have more substitutes for eggs than days of the week.)

Try this ratio to substitute for one egg: 1 tablespoon flax meal with 3 tablespoons warm water.

Use the same method to blend as the egg replacer: 1 to 2 minutes with an immersion blender.

While I prefer the egg replacer powder in cakes, the flax meal method adds a nice flavor to muffins and is virtually undetectable in rich brownies.

While it may not be completely uncommon for omnivores to have some flax in their kitchens, if no one in your house is 100 percent vegan or strictly plant-based, you probably don’t have any nutritional yeast.

If so, you’re really missing out.

Not to be confused with baker’s yeast, nutritional yeast is a deactivated yeast that will not help your bread rise. These yellow flakes can be found in canisters or bags in the natural food aisle of your grocery store or at online retailers. Once opened it can be stored in your pantry for up to two years.

Often fortified with B-12, folic acid, and other B vitamins, nutritional yeast can lend a cheesy flavor to dishes without any dairy.

If you decide to buy some, the first thing you might want to try is putting it on popcorn.

I pop our popcorn with an ancient air popper and then drizzle it with melted (vegan) butter or olive oil and then generously sprinkle it with nutritional yeast and either fine sea salt, Himalayan salt, or kelp flakes.

I’ve been serving huge bowls of this popcorn to friends and family for over a decade and have been asked for the recipe countless times. It’s one of the first snacks my girls learned to make all by themselves. When my husband makes it, he likes to add hot sauce too, which with the right beverage is really delicious.

If you explore vegan recipes, you’re likely to find many recipes that call for nutritional yeast. It is key to a good tofu scramble, for instance.

But the other two ways we most frequently enjoy nutritional yeast don’t require a recipe. I add it to pasta sauces, where it lends a nice umami flavor to the dish, and use it to make a vegan parmesan cheese sprinkle.

I make double batches and store the leftovers in a jar in the fridge, ready to sprinkle on anything we want (like minestrone).

We vegans are unlikely to possess a smoker, but that doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate smoked flavors. Which is why I like to keep a bottle of liquid smoke on hand.

Cheaper, lower-calorie, and healthier than bacon, liquid smoke is the secret to making many of the plant-based versions of bacon out of ingredients as diverse as coconut, eggplant, tofu, and mushrooms.

The addition of liquid smoke also adds depth of flavor to barbecue sauces and marinades. And it’s the secret ingredient that makes lentil sloppy Joes so irresistible.

A little liquid smoke goes a long way. But that’s okay because a bottle will store safely in your pantry for up to two years, so there is no rush to use it up.

In the winter, I always add a few drops to split pea soup. And I love to make trays of smokehouse flavored nuts. Hot out of the oven, these are especially heavenly.

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