This is my go-to grocery foundation when I want to cook at home without overthinking meals. These ingredients mix easily into stir-fries, soups, rice bowls, roasted trays, and quick one-pan dinners. I keep them around because they’re flexible, forgiv...
Sections
5
Protein Staples
Vegetables
Carbs
Flavour boosters
Extra helpers
Protein Staples
These are the ingredients that make meals filling and versatile. I rotate them through stir-fries, soups, noodles, and rice bowls depending on what I feel like cooking.
I always keep eggs because they turn almost anything into a proper meal — fried rice, noodles, soup, or just toast.
Fresh Eggs From Local Farms - Dasoon Premium & Redmart - Keep Chilled
More forgiving than chicken breast and stays juicy. Personal favourite.
These are the vegetables I buy because they last reasonably well and can go into nearly any Asian or Western dish.
Roasts well, stir-fries well and I like to joke about them being tiny trees with my daughter to get her to eat them.
Broccoli
Long shelf life and easy to add to soups, stir-fries and roasts. My daughter especially loves them shredded and tossed with soy sauce and sesame oil.
Carrots
Fresh or frozen, spinach is great as a quick add to many dishes to make meals more balanced.
Spinach Fresh & Organic for Healthy Meals
Adds depth and makes simple dishes taste more complete. There are times where I've made the mushrooms the hero ingredient and the meat takes a step back. Definitely a favourite staple in my fridge.
Mushrooms
Good raw, roasted or tossed into quick pasta or egg dishes. I do snack on them sometimes too.
Cherry Tomatoes
Carbs
The bases that help turn the other ingredients into actual full meals.
My default base. I'm Asian after all. Any leftover rice will be turned into fried rice dish the next day.
Jasmine Rice
This is not the ‘ramen' or instant noodles. They're plain fried noodles that I can then add my own ingredients for either a soup or stir fry dish.
Noodles
For days where I'm inspired to cook something a little more Japanese. Husband's personal favourite and I've done many a yaki-udon with these.
Udon Noodles Variety Pack
I usually have spagetti/ linguine/ macaroni/ penne in the pantry. A lot of pasta dishes are pretty quick and easy so I do like having these on hand.
Pasta
So many dishes have potatoes in them and you can boil or roast them quickly. I like roasting because I don't need to even peel the skin off. I just need to wash them really well.
Potatoes
Flavour boosters
These are what makes healthy cooking tasty and not boring.
Almost all dishes taste better with garlic…and it needs to be the full garlic and not garlic powder. Trust me. I've tried to substitute and it's not the same.
Chopped Garlic
Fresh or the powder, ginger adds depth to most dishes and helps with water retention too.
Ginger
If you're Chinese, I do not need to explain. This is the typical soy sauce used for flavouring without changing the colour or flavour profile of the dish significantly.
Light Soy Sauce
Do I really need to say why?
Olive Oil
This is for braising meats or for us Singaporeans, this is the soy sauce for chicken rice and Hainanese curry.
Dark Soy Sauce
This is what gives a lot of dishes that extra oomph with just a few drops.
Sesame Oil
I like getting white miso paste that already has benito stock in it. This really works for a lot of recipes and is quite versatile. I definitely use it for more than miso soup.
Miso Paste
I not only use it at times as a soup base, it can also be used to flavour stir-frys and other dishes
Maggi Concentrated Chicken Stock
So important when I need something sweet but subtle to balance salty soy sauce in a lot of dishes
Mirin - Singapore
Again, another must-have in a Chinese kitchen. Used for steaming fish, braises and stews and even stir fries.
Oyster & Abalone Sauce
I love this for black pepper as freshly ground black pepper just smells and tastes better!
Best Pepper Mills
Extra helpers
Little extras that make it easier to cook even when I'm tired.
Adds instant heat and flavour when food tastes too plain.
Sambal Chilli Paste & Sauce
Somewhat similar to miso but it has a slightly different taste profile. A lot punchier.
Soybean Paste
My backup when I run out of fresh vegetables and these are fantastic in fried rice.
