The Foods Chefs Say You Should Always Keep in Your Pantry

Professional kitchens run on a surprisingly short list of ingredients repeated over and over, not some vast collection of rare imports. The difference between a forgettable dinner and a genuinely good one often comes down to just one or two things sitting in the cabinet.

Ask a handful of chefs what they personally refuse to run out of, and a few specific answers keep coming up. None of them are complicated to find.

Ina Garten Won’t Cook Without This Exact Salt

Not all salt behaves the same way once it hits a pan, and Ina Garten has been specific about which one earns a permanent spot in her kitchen. For her, it comes down to one particular brand of kosher salt.

She’s said plainly, “For cooking, I use Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt.”

The reasoning comes down to the shape of the crystal itself. Diamond Crystal’s lighter, flatter flakes dissolve more evenly than table salt or denser kosher brands, which makes it easier to season consistently rather than guessing at how much is actually landing in the dish.

Bobby Flay Hides This in Almost Everything He Cooks

Anchovies rarely show up on a list of beloved ingredients, mostly because people assume they’ll taste fishy. Bobby Flay uses them precisely because, prepared correctly, they don’t taste like much of anything at all beyond deeper flavor.

He’s described folding them straight into sauces without announcing it.

“I put anchovies in so many things and people don’t know it,” he’s said, particularly when cooking seafood. Crushed into a pan and melted down, they dissolve completely, leaving behind richness rather than any identifiable fish flavor.

One Chef Puts Chili Crunch on Breakfast Too

Chili crisp has gone from a specialty jar to something closer to a default condiment in a lot of kitchens, and chef Joe Nierstedt treats it that way at home. For him, it’s not reserved for any one type of meal.

He’s said the jar gets used well beyond dinner.

“Chili crunch goes on everything in my house, breakfast included,” he’s explained. The appeal is the combination of crunch, heat, and savory depth all in one spoonful, which works just as easily over eggs as it does over noodles or roasted vegetables.

A Japanese Chef Says This Paste Gets Used Almost Daily

Miso paste tends to get filed away as a specialty ingredient reserved for soup, but chef Yuki Gomi treats it as a near-constant presence in her kitchen instead. Her own use of it goes well beyond the classic bowl of miso soup.

She’s been direct about how often it comes out.

“Miso is full of umami,” she’s said, describing nearly daily use. Beyond soup and ramen broth, she’s mixed it into yogurt to build a quick marinade and stirred it into simple dipping sauces, treating it as a flavor shortcut rather than a single-purpose jar.

None of these four ingredients require a special trip to track down, and none of them are expensive relative to what they actually do for a dish. What they have in common is simpler than any trend: each one quietly does more work than its size on the shelf would suggest.