Weekly Grocery Staples

There is nothing I love more than grocery shopping, especially finding new food products to try when I'm there. But I still always find myself picking up the same staples week after week. These 12 items are super flexible can be used in a variety of meals and snacks. With each of my go-to grocery items, I've also included some of the meal I use it in to hopefully give you some ideas for how you can use them too!

Pantry:

1. Oats - Hands down my favourite carb source for breakfast or pre-workout is oats. I also love adding them the smoothies and using in healthier baking (like this banana bread).

2. Rice Cakes - While they can be very messy to eat, they make some of the best snacks or light lunch. My favourite combos are guac and deli turkey, hummus and cucumber or cream cheese and tomatoes. If you want a sweet option try with nut butter and jam pre-workout or at breakfast.

3. Nut Butter - While I like nuts, there is something about nut butter that is just way more delicious to me. I use nut butter as a healthy source of fat in a lot of my snacks like rice cakes or yogurt bowls. I also love it swirled into oats pre-workout. Make sure you are checking the ingredients, there are often hidden oils and sugar. I like to get nut butters that are just the nut and sea salt (I love this brand, or the whole foods 365 brand).

Dairy:

4. Greek Yogurt - I love making yogurt bowls with fruit and nut butter for either breakfast, snacks or pre-workout. Greek yogurt is also a great source of protein for smoothies if you prefer not using protein powder. I've recently started using it as a substitute for sour cream and it's a game changer (just make sure you're using a plain unflavoured type). I recommend getting a higher fat percentage (5% is my favourite), it's much creamier and doesn't have the same chalky almost dry taste that 0% has.

5. Eggs - There isn't a time of the day where eggs are not a great option. For breakfast, I love a quick scramble with spinach and onions. My favourite way recently though is soft boiled (I have instructions here for a fool proof method). I will take them to work for a quick breakfast or snack, add to a salad or on top of leftovers.

Meat:

6. Ground Meat - This is hands down my favourite protein to meal prep because it's not only super quick to cook (10 minutes in a pan with some onions and garlic and you're done) but it reheats much better than chicken because it's a bit higher in fat. My current favourite way to eat it is to make a nourish bowl with roasted butternut squash, avocado and broccoli.

7. Deli Meat - I often use deli meat to add protein to a snack at work. I typically put it on rice cakes with some guac or wrap it around a cheese string for a lower carb snack. I also love dicing it up and adding to scrambled eggs.

Fruits/Veggies:

9. Frozen Berries - While I love fresh berries too, they are much more expensive and go bad quicker than their frozen counterparts. I love adding these to smoothies, yogurt bowls and oats. You can easily warm them up in the microwave for a few seconds and mash them up to make the quickest jam!

10. Spinach - I personally think this is the easiest veggie to get into foods in sneaky ways. If you chop it up finely, it will disappear in eggs, tomato sauce, ground meats etc.

11. Pre-chopped Mixed Veggies - While chopping vegetables is not that onerous of a task, after a long day that is often the step that keeps us from including veggies in our dinner. I love throwing these veggies into a stir fry, or roasting in the oven for a 15-20mins. They can even be pan fried and added to eggs in the morning. No excuses not to eat your vegetables when you have these on hand - just make sure you're switching up the mix weekly so you get variety.

12. Onions and Garlic - I wholeheartedly believe people will only stick to a diet long term where their food tastes good. No one wants to be eating bland chicken for the rest of their life. Anytime I made meat, a stir fry, soup, stew, eggs etc. I always use onions and garlic. A little goes a long way for flavour and the calories are very low. Win win in my book.

What are your weekly grocery shopping essentials?