Kitchen Food Pantry + Healthy Cinnamon Roll Recipe

Kitchen food pantry is a must whether it’s shelves or bins if you want to maintain a healthy eating lifestyle and not have to run out to the grocery store every time you need an ingredient 🤔 And if you want to make a recipe like cinnamon rolls below, your ingredients are cupboard and pantry ready or can be subsituted.

It’s smart these days to have a running house food pantry, especially with all the grocery store shortages and shipping dilemmas. What you store in your food pantry ends up being part of your diet (the same concept as: what you bring home from the grocery store or delivered ends up on your plate).

So, I started a household food pantry at the start of 2020 because I’m a planner and that makes food conveniently available in real-time. Real food is a basic need, and no metaverse can change that (zero taste would never last on our planet 😊).

Plus, having a personal food pantry lets you bypass the panic buy waves that seem to run rampant. And you can find yourself cooking and baking more, just in case you’re looking for homemade-cooking inspiration.

But even if you’re not a planner, the checklist below can help remind you of healthy pantry food items to stock up on when you’re running low.

One recent item I found interesting that made the trending grocery shortage list along with chicken is cinnamon buns. They are easy to bake (I think) and I have a delicious and fast recipe bake below that’s gonna keep you warm and healthy. It all starts with having cinnamon spice on hand (and one of my #1 go-to sources for adding a little sweet to bakes, foods, and drinks).

Here’s a kitchen food pantry idea list that can come in handy (from my pantry to yours maybe?):

✔️ Nuts, Seeds, and Dried Fruits (ex: raisins, craisins, dates, papaya, almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, flax seeds) come in handy as snack fillers between meals. You can make a trail mix or use them to bake with. They’re dry ingredients so they water down baking, that’s working to dry what’s baking in the oven. If you have temperature-sensitive nuts like macadamia or Brazil nuts, you can keep them in the fridge to give them a longer life.

✔️ Canned Beans and Other Legumes (ex: white beans, black beans, peas, edamame, chickpea-garbanzo beans) you can use for every meal or straight out of the can. You can run water inside the open cans to rinse out some of the preserving salts/sodium, or you can use the can liquid for soups and dips. You can even use the chickpea aquafaba liquid as an egg white substitute. There are no rules. But once cans are opened, it’s smart to refrigerate and use ’em within a few days.

✔️ Packaged Fruit (or what I call pantry shelf fruit, ex: unsweetened applesauce, cherries, pineapple) come in handy for baking. Btw, I always buy the unsweetened (or unsalted) versions if there’s a choice for all food goods ready-to-eat or for baking. ‘Cause then you can choose what sweets or salts to add back in, and control how much.

✔️ Canned Proteins (ex: tuna, sardines, clams) make great snacks and lunch meat. You can add to almost any carb meal.

✔️ Shelf-ready Non-dairy milks (ex: almond milk) are good to keep around, plus a can of coconut milk and evaporated milk for easy baking or soups. Best expiration dates are usually over a year out.

✔️ Comfort Food Boxed Pasta make a pantry shelf look organized (that probably wasn’t your first thought, lol). There seems to be a new pasta shape out every year and in panic-buy shortages, the whole aisle empties fast (and ends up in pantries!). So it’s good to have a couple of uniform boxes with different pasta shapes on hand. Larger pasta surfaces like shells will hold onto sauces better when you’re deciding what shapes and types to go with (ex: traditional spaghetti, macaroni, whole wheat). Veggie pasta doesn’t need a fancy sauce and can taste light and elegant with the right EVOO.

✔️ Canned Tomatoes or Tomato Sauce go hand and hand in your pantry for a weekly Italian meal. But the cheese doesn’t belong there and I agree with the Italians that parmesan (America’s cheese) is pretty gross once you get a taste of the better stuff. I used to be a daily cheese lover (so many of us out there!) but have cut down, and only do fresh light cheeses for celebrational eating or baking that have some health benefits when eaten in moderation, in case you wanna get rid of the cheesy daily habit.

✔️ Slow Cooking or Old-Fashioned Oats and Grits. Good for breakfast but they can be substituted instead of flour for some bakes, and if you want to do gluten-free.

✔️ Other Whole Grains: (ex: brown rice, quinoa, barley, farro). Just look for “whole” in front of grains.

✔️ Drinks: (ex: unsweetened cocoa for baking and hot cocoa and ground coffee.) Even if you don’t drink these often they come in handy for occasions. And the best drink for your body (water) isn’t in the pantry.

✔️ High Bran/Whole Grain Cereal: Processed cereals (including fortified ones) have gotten a bad rap. Some you may have heard we grew up with are even linked to having traces of weedkiller. But if you find the right fortified cereal, that can be a good daily fiber source and a possible better sweet substitute.

✔️ Chocolate chip morsels: You can always find some chocolaty-way to bake them in or enjoy in a no-bake trail mix.

✔️ Salts: (ex: kosher, coarser sea salt, regular sea salt). Kosher is good for some bakes while coarser salts are a great finishing touch for veggies (almost like a salt garnish). They allow you to appreciate your foods better at the moment when they activate on your tongue ...remember the different taste regions on the tongue?

✔️ Vinegars/Condiments: (ex: ACV, red, white wine vinegar, soy sauces). These are versatile ingredients you can use to dress up your dishes, dressings, and sauces.

✔️ EVOO: medium and a lighter version for baking (if you like the scent and taste, chances are you’ll love it in your dishes).

✔️ Flours: all-purpose, whole wheat, bread, corn, gluten-free (ex: almond, coconut, and buckwheat can be used in baking). Gluten-free flours are better preserved in the fridge than in a pantry.

✔️ Baking agents: (ex: cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda-the orange box in your fridge not to be confused with slightly different baking powder in baking), yeast packets for breads, sugars sparingly used for baking (ex: powdered sugar, monkfruit sugar, brown sugar).

✔️ Soup: before 2020, I used to buy canned low-sodium soups, and learned to cut down the sodium even more by making soups from fresh and my kitchen food pantry ingredients. With fresh and root veggies, you can almost make any kind of warm soup you want. Same concept with fresh fruits where you can make any cool juice you want.

✔️ Variety of herbs and spices: for every day (ex: oregano, turmeric, cayenne, cumin, black pepper, cinnamon) and Thanksgiving/Christmas holidays (ex: thyme, rosemary, nutmeg, anise, allspice, cardamom).

✔️ Loose leaf and tea bags: from herbal (ex: peppermint, floral, fruity) to black (ex: cinnamon, Earl Grey, chai), green, and red/rooibos.

✔️ Breads: Where is the best place to preserve bread longer… pantry, fridge, or freezer?

Yup, the freezer! The fridge hardens and dries out your bread, but a freezer will keep it from undesirable changing properties. You’ll know when freezer bread has eventually turned stale as it has a freezer-burn smell and taste, but that doesn’t usually happen for months or longer. If fresh freezer bread is unsliced, you’re best to slice it up at room temperature before freezing, so you can pull out the slices you need without de-thawing the entire loaf. And then pop in your toaster and it’s just as fresh.

I leave ready-to-be-eaten baked fresh bread in the cooled oven (keeps it dry and softest) for up to 3 days.

And on that note, this is my no-refined sugar cinnamon buns bread recipe:

Jump to Recipe

Low-Sugar Delicious Cinnamon Rolls

For sweetness, I recommend honey in the dough and as a final glaze and a load of Ceylon cinnamon spice in-between for the sweet. Of course, you can add sugar or monk fruit sugar if you wish and if you have a younger eating audience that’ll want more sugar. Your older guests (and you) can appreciate your healthy baking gestures.

The goes for the fat used in this recipe. Keep in mind: if you use a healthy fat like light EVOO, it won’t be like the bakery and store-bought cinnamon buns you’re used to. These cinnamon buns’ bite will be moist and different than a flaky butter finish, but still delicious.

Flour: Bread flour (or a mix with whole wheat flour) does the best for cinnamon buns in my opinion, but you can definitely substitute with crumbly gluten-free “healthy” flours and add xantham gum or other binders. But I like no-fuss or muss, so this bread prep can be done in 5 minutes by hand mixing 5 ingredients: warm water, flour, yeast, plain yogurt, and salt. Plus, honey for sweetness. And no proof waiting time.

The dough rests for a few minutes, and then you can roll the buns and watch the magical oven work while pursuing other hobbies 😊 …that’s how I Cinna-roll in this sugar-off, but delicious-on recipe.

Print Recipe

Cinna(MON)-Roll Bread Buns

Ingredients (for 8 rolls):

8”x 4” (or 9”x5”) pan

2-1/2 cups total flour (you can mix bread flour, whole wheat, gluten-free bread)

1/2 tsp yeast (if active yeast add to warm water to activate first)

1/2 Tbsp sea salt

1/2 Tbsp raw honey

1/2 cup plain yogurt (Greek yogurt recommended)

¾ cup warm water + more

Directions:

Mix ingredients in a bowl adding just enough warm water until all the flour is incorporated. Some of the dough will be stringy dough pieces or crumbs, and not a smooth dough (not like a baby’s bottom 👶).

Let rest for a few minutes (or leave overnight covered in the fridge).

Bring the dough out and lay it on top of bench flour (any baking flour will work. I like to stick with the same ones I’m using in the buns or whole wheat flour). Roll out dough (not too thin to about 1/4-1/2″ thick) into a rectangle shape and then cut strips with a pizza wheel cutter (or knife), saving the dough scrap ends.

Roll out the remaining dough and combine with the dough scraps, to make 8 total long pieces about the same size. These will be your buns.

Healthy Version:

Then brush light EVOO (good for sweet baking) or ghee (clarified butter) on each strip. And then layer and fully cover a generous dusting of cinnamon spice (Ceylon cinnamon suggested and the amount based on your preference).

Bake time will vary depending on flour choices, dough thickness, baking pan, and oven. As a guideline, bake until a little darker than golden brown as the outside is browner then the inside that can still be a little moist/unbaked.

Suggested time and temperature: Bake at 350 °F for about 45 minutes. Pull out halfway and brush more EVOO. Then reduce oven heat to 200 F for another 10 minutes. That’s what these in the photos were baked in.

If you find the outside looks too dry, you may want to brush with EVOO again. You could also substitute with an egg wash (about half way through) for a ‘lil moist shine, but I prefer another way after cooled…

Because the bread dough is pretty dense after cooled, I then add sweet orange zest, and raisins ontop, so it looks a little like a pain aux raisins. Then I pour brewed warm (but not hot) tea over the cinnamon bun, that softens and plumps up the raisins (like you may have heard to add to your Earl Grey tea and that mellows out the brisk taste). Well… the raisins and zest here add sweetness and the tea bath adds the mellow. The fruit-forwardness comes through.🧡

For the pouring tea, I suggest using a black tea: like cinnamon, chai, or Earl Grey. Then when you wanna enjoy it, you’ll have a sweet, warm, and lightly moist bread experience. Yes, please! 😋