These Are Ree Drummond's 11 Must-Have Pantry Staples

Ree Drummond, also known as The Pioneer Woman, has built an empire of sorts from her from-scratch meal ideas and homemaking aesthetic. With a successful television show on The Food Network, cookbooks, and full line of kitchen gadgets, Drummond is a force to be reckoned with that many aspiring home chefs and organization geeks idolize, and rightfully so. Whether it is coming up with your next dinner idea or customizing various nooks and crannies in your home, Drummond has probably covered it over the years.

But a great home-cooked meal cannot happen without first making sure that the pantry in your kitchen is well-stocked. While we all wish we could rummage through Drummond's kitchen ourselves for inspiration, thankfully, we have the internet to provide us with some insight into how she chooses to supply her pantry. Pantry essentials are there to make sure you have the building blocks for a variety of simple dishes, but they are also there to add tasty final touches to your favorite meals. If you are heading out to the grocery store soon, make sure you have these pantry essentials that Ree Drummond swears by.

No matter what, food items that have a long shelf life are an essential pantry item for Ree Drummond. These often come in the form of dried and canned items, which includes a myriad of products. Not only do dried and canned items last for a really long time with a far out expiration date, but they are kitchen must-haves that you can usually find at a really good price, as Drummond shared with USA Today.

What kind of dried and canned items should you add to your pantry? Having all of the fixings for your favorite recipe is always a good idea so there is always something kicking around in your pantry for a dinner idea. For Drummond, this can range from canned beans so you have a hearty legume to add to your soups or salads, per the Pioneer Woman's website. She also recommends having essentials like broths, peanut butter, dried peppers, and oats.

While some pantry essentials include basic ingredients that can serve as a building block for a number of recipes, other must-haves include easy-to-find items that can enhance a dish last-minute. One specific category of preserved pantry essentials Ree Drummond swears by are jarred sauces. These can often be found in your local grocery store at a decent price, and when there is a sale, you can really stock up to make sure you have enough sauce to last.

When speaking to Food Network, Drummond highlighted her love of jarred sauces as pantry must-haves, which can include a good quality marinara, pesto, salsa, and more. Why stock up on sauce? According to Drummond, they quickly bring any plain meal to the next level with a burst of added flavor. Pesto sauce in particular is a favorite of Drummond, who points out that it acts as a great substitute for fresh basil and can work with a variety of meals, including pasta, quiches, and even as a salad dressing or dip, per Pioneer Woman.

Nothing beats the taste of freshly-made pasta, but most of us typically opt for the dry pasta you can find in the aisles of your local grocery store. You might think that dry pasta is frowned upon by celebrity chefs and Food Network stars, but Ree Drummond actually prefers to have them in good supply at her house.

When speaking in an interview with Popsugar, Drummond included dry pasta as one of the pantry items she always makes sure she has in stock. Why? If you have a busy work week and you do not have a ton of time to make an elaborate dinner, pasta is an excellent quick meal idea. It usually only takes a few minutes to boil dry pasta, but once that step is complete and you toss it in some tasty sauce, you have a full meal. Drummond makes sure she has all kinds of pasta included in her pantry so no matter the occasion she can quickly whip together a simple but satisfying meal.

While some pantry items usually only serve a single purpose, there are others that can be used in a wide variety of ways. In those instances, Ree Drummond stocks up big time to make sure she has enough ingredients on hand to create an array of meals to satisfy her family. If your pantry currently does not have any canned tomato products, such as tomato sauce, tomato paste, or diced tomatoes, you may want to include them on your weekly grocery list. Not only are they perfect for quick sauces, but you can also add them to other dishes, such as soups and meatloaf.

The Pioneer Woman also notes that tomato products are the most important item you can stock up on to make sure last-minute meals are simple and accessible in your home. Tomato paste and diced tomatoes are great building blocks for more elaborate meals, but one-step ingredients, like pizza sauce, are important to keep on hand too.

Oftentimes, we become so preoccupied with stocking our kitchen with essentials for cooking dinners, that we forget to check our baking cabinet to make sure we have all of the necessities for making sweet treats. Ree Drummond also loves to bake, so the basic components of any baked good are likely in her pantry at any given time. In a video she shared on Instagram, the Pioneer Woman goes through her pantry to reorganize some of her must-have ingredients. In the video, she also gives us a glimpse at the baking essentials she keeps in good supply, including flour, sugar, chocolate chips, and nuts.

Other baking ingredients Drummond suggests we all include in our pantries are an assortment of baking chocolates, evaporated milk, yeast, and shortening. Also essential for baking are the tools needed to construct your perfect dish. Gadgets like baking brushes, rolling pins, and even pizza cutters can be used in multiple ways, including making large batches of cookies.

This next category spans the creation of a dish from the very early preparation steps to the final touches. Oils and condiments are essential tools when making dinner from start to finish, so it is no surprise that Ree Drummond makes sure she includes them on her list when stocking up. When it comes to oils, she recommends making sure you have a variety on deck and not just olive oil; be on the lookout for peanut oil and coconut oil, too.

For those condiments that serve as the perfect embellishments to a dish, make sure you have hot sauces, soy sauce, ketchup, and barbecue sauce as your basic foundational ingredients. As far as mayonnaise goes, Drummond prefers the real deal to alternatives like Miracle Whip. She also makes sure honey is nearby, as it can be used in a variety of ways, including as an addition to her smoothies or berry bowls.

This next pantry must-have may depend on your personal taste, but if you were to ask Ree Drummond, you would be surprised if you ever took a look at her pantry and found this ingredient missing. Included in her personal list of pantry essentials to stock your kitchen with are artichoke hearts.

Drummond admits in a clip from The Pioneer Woman that spinach artichoke dip is one of her favorite foods, saying that it is a true "weakness" of hers. So, it should come as no surprise that she has the makings of a spinach artichoke dip in her kitchen at all times. In this particular episode, she used her beloved dip as a sauce to make spinach artichoke chicken. But, as she shares, the dip can be used in other ways too, most commonly as a dip for bread or chips, but as a sauce for pasta as well. Drummond praises the versatility of artichoke hearts, noting that they also make a good pizza topping.

Salt and pepper are no-brainers when it comes to stocking up your home kitchen and pantry. But if you were to ask Ree Drummond, the herbs and seasonings you should have in stock go well beyond those two simple ingredients. Herbs, spices, and other seasonings are non-negotiable in her eyes.

One important thing to note is that you want to make sure to stock up on dried herbs and seasonings specifically. While fresh herbs add a burst of flavor to a dish, they have a short shelf life. Dried herbs, on the other hand, can last much longer. And since most recipes only require small doses of the spices (a little goes a long way!), you can get a lot of mileage out of one jar. In fact, Drummond notes that she only stocks up on these sorts of pantry items a few times a year, so when she goes to the grocery store herself, she only needs to focus on picking up fresh ingredients.

It might feel somewhat intimidating to see what expert chefs include in their personal kitchen pantries, but upon further investigation, you may find that they are just like the rest of us and include a few items that you may be surprised to see. While Ree Drummond is known for creating tasty meals from scratch, she also admits that she has a weak spot for, of all things, Nutella.

Not only does Drummond share that she always has a jar of Nutella stocked in her pantry at all times, but she discloses that you may not be aware that it is in her kitchen. That is because she hides it well so that no one else in her family finds it. Since her family is also big into the hazelnut spread, one jar could be wiped clean in a matter of hours if left out in the open. Her go-to hiding spot for the jars? Pickling pots.

Some of the kitchen items Ree Drummond suggests you always have in stock will not necessarily wind up in your pantry or cabinet. Some culinary must-haves need to be stored in the refrigerator, which is where this next category of ingredients comes into play. According to Drummond, it is always a good idea to stock up on a variety of cheeses, because you never know when you may need them.

Drummond uses six of her 15 slots for refrigerator essentials for different kinds of cheese. The kind she believes we should always have on deck include cheddar, feta, cream cheese, mozzarella, Monterey jack, and Parmesan. As you can imagine, these cheeses can be used in a wide variety of ways, including toppings on your favorite bowl of pasta, a smear to use in the morning on a bagel, or as the base for a fresh batch of homemade macaroni and cheese. From there, you can include more elaborate or fancy cheeses if you are expecting to host a group of guests, but those six varieties should be in supply at all times.

Pantry essentials do not just stop at the food items themselves. Depending on the ingredients, you may want to reorganize your pantry so that you are able to find what you are looking for in a pinch. Some items will remain in their designated containers, like canned goods, but other pantry items can be transferred into different containers for next-level organization.

Ree Drummond once shared a video on Instagram of her transferring her baking ingredients into glass containers so she could easily see each ingredient (plus, we will admit, it is just so aesthetically pleasing to see shelves lined with glass jars). She also utilizes turntables for multiple uses, including the organization of her dried herbs and seasonings as well as tools like measuring cups. She explains that organizing your pantry in such a way helps keep things streamlined before, during, and after preparing a dish. This kind of pantry organization inspired a makeover at The Lodge, where Drummond's show where "The Pioneer Woman" is filmed in Pawhuska, Oklahoma.