What’s in your Gentle Kitchen pantry? No matter how much space you have in your home kitchen, make a little room for some plant-based basics.
I have been establishing my plant-based kitchen for a while now so I know what ingredients I use frequently and always keep them in stock. I put 90% of my ingredients into containers which are labelled so I don’t mix up anything, and for convenience when I’m prepping.
It is handy to keep in stock a range of flours such as almond meal, buckwheat, brown rice flour, wholemeal flour, coconut flour, spelt, millet and sorghum. You can make your own oat flour if you blitz whole oats in the food processor into a medium or fine flour.
I always have baking powder, baking soda, citric acid, cornstarch, potato starch and arrowroot. For plant-based binders I use a lot of ground flax seed and applesauce.
Try and taste some plant-based milks such as the popular almond, soy, rice and oat milks. They are used not only for drinks and on your oatmeal and smoothies, but also for backing, sauces etc.
I have a large selection of dried herbs and spices – as I love cinnamon, fresh nutmeg, dried ginger in my go-to carrot cake.
For sweeteners, I always have maple syrup, pineapple, raisins, sultanas, dates, and I keep coconut sugar on hand as it is often used in baking.
Build up a store of preferred ingredients like tahini, hemp and other seeds, vinegars, coconut milk, raw cacao, vanilla paste, cashews (of course!), hazelnuts, brazil nuts, almonds and other nuts..