Talk to Tesco about your store cupboard hero and your top three ways to use it - you could win a £200 Tesco voucher NOW CLOSED

[AngelieMumsnet]

We've been asked by Tesco to find out about Mumsnetters' store cupboard heroes.

Here’s what Tesco say, “The Tesco Eat Happy Project is our long-term commitment to help children have a healthier and happier relationship with their food. We’ve got lots of recipes for healthy, tasty dishes that we think they’ll love – especially if they help you prepare them. But we’re keen to hear your recipe ideas too.”

So, what is your store cupboard hero and what are your top 3 ways to use it? Perhaps you always keep pesto in your cupboard, to stir into pasta, pep up a risotto or spread onto pastry to make a savoury puff? Or maybe you like to have lentils in stock, to add to soup, bulk out a stew or make a warm winter salad with?

Whatever your store cupboard hero is, Tesco would love to hear about it!

Everyone who adds their comments to the thread will be entered into a prize draw to win a £200 Tesco voucher.

Please note that any comments posted on this thread may be used by Tesco in further marketing material (anonymously, of course).

Thanks and good luck,
MNHQ

Harissa paste. Sooo tasty - as a marinade to rub on meat, stir a bit into a sauce or a stew. And I love mixing a bit with a dollop of full fat Greek yoghurt to put on a salad or a jacket potato.

Tinned tomatoes ! Not original but used in so many dishes.
Heinz tinned tomato soup for a quick meal if needed.
Tinned beans from chickpeas, cannelloni etc to add into dishes to bulk them up (usually used with tinned tomatoes)
Chopped garlic (easy and quick to use), once again added to chickpeas and tinned tomatoes!
Tinned tuna for wraps

Like so many before me i have to say tinned chopped tomatoes - just brilliant!! I also will always have lentils, tinned fruit and jelly (currently ds's obsession), pasta, beans and flour! Those are my staples that will always be found in there.

Tinned fruit, usually the ones in fruit juice as opposed to syrups. Love them for breakfasts with porridge or yoghurt. Will use some at lunch for on salads, peaches/grapefruits are good for this. Also use in other meals like quick crumbles or with one pot roasts for extra flavour.
Really useful.

I always keep tins of chopped tomatoes and kidney beans in stock to add to casseroles, pasta sauces etc. I like to have tins of different fish as well - sardines, tuna, pilchards can add protein to a meal. Tins of condensed soup are useful for making slow cooker dishes or oven bakes.

My storecupboard hero would have to be tinned tomatoes. I use them for lots of things, but the top three would have to be:

1. Tomato pasta - popular with adults & DC, cheap, easy to make & healthy (I blend whatever other veg I have with it)
2. In spag bol
3. On their own - on toast, or perhaps as part of a Full English

Yy to tinned tomatoes!
They are the basis of an awful lot of quick and easy dishes in our house.
Favourites include mince (which might then become chilli, spag bol or cottage pie), three bean chilli or some sort of pasta bake.

Lots of canned chick peas.

1. Humous -add tahini, garlic ,lemon juice olive oil and blitz.

1. Curry- fry onions garlic ginger and add masala ,passata or canned chopped tomatoes and chick peas.

1. Roasted vegetables- onion aubergine, courgette, carrots, peppers whatever with a liberal sprinkling of fennel seeds and a good pinch of chilli flakes. Mix with passata, chick peas and serve with cous cous or rice and some labne or greek yogurt and sprinkle on mint or coriander.

Bistro Stock Melts.

They are so useful as you don't have to dissolve them in hot water before use, just stir them into what ever you are making and they dissolve.

I have a cottage pie in the oven at the moment which has beef melts in it. The vegetable ones are great for a cheap and filling leek and potato soup. I add a chicken flavoured one to a pan of water to cook rice in to add flavour.

Chopped garlic - I get fretful when this is nearly out. I use it in pasta bakes, chili, bolognaise and so much more. Kids love it and along with tinned tomatoes for the same dishes use it almost daily!

Dried pasta for me. Dinner in a hurry an easy filling packed lunch to make a change from sandwichs or the mini ones added to soup to bulk it out.

Chilli paste.

Add it in small quantities for umami to :

bolognese
shepherds or cottage pie
pork meatloaf

or spread on salmon steaks

Frozen veg, it's so helpful to have a good range of frozen veg and fruit in the freezer. Especially in snow, when you don't want to go out.

Bake at home bread is also a favourite.

Capers - into bolognaise, on pizza or make a crafty puttanesca
Green pesto - quick pasta and pesto tea, stirred into passata over roasted vegetables for a rich pasta bake sauce or posh cheese on toast with pesto spread on the toast before the cheese goes on
Knorr vege stock cube - lovely for soup at this time of year - lentils, onion, carrot and celery cooked with Knorr and blended; as a base for a hearty veg stew made with pearl barley, carrots, parsnips, onion, celery, swede and served with yorskhires and quorn sausages, or to add richness to a bolognaise.

Lentils.

Hot, filling soup

Spicy curries.

As a thickener for stews and in burgers to give an Eastern flavour.

Peanut butter! Use it on toast with banana for a reasonably healthy snack, mixed with soy sauce and lime juice for a quick noodle sauce and also a dollop in a smoothie with chocolate almond milk, a handful of oats and a frozen banana- best breakfast ever!

Pesto sauce (pref tomato):

I eats is on pasta...

I put a layer on the bottom of a baking dish, cover with a layer of steamed veg then slaver in cheese sauce and bake in the oven

I use it as a lazy pizza base on French bread and cover in grated cheese

I stir spoonful into soup

I spoon a bit into portobello mushrooms and cover with breadcrumbs and grated cheese

I love the stuff

Sesame seeds. They are excellent toasted to add flavour to vegetarian dishes and stir-fries.

Tinned tomatoes here too - for pasta sauce, casseroles and curry.

Chopped garlic here. (I absolutely HATE peeling and cutting garlic cloves!)

1. Usually perfect size for quick garlic bread. Add butter and mixed herbs. Drizzle with oil and bake.

1. Flavour for soups - add to onions and sauté, add veg of choice, throw in a stock cube. Simmer. Blend.

1. Quick pasta bake - garlic, onion, tinned toms, herbs, pepper and mozzarella.

Hungry now!

Bulgar wheat - Its really healthy & perfect for bulking up home made chilli etc. It was a big factor in helping my husband and I losing 12 stone between us so its always in our cupboard

Eggs for me - its the best way I've found to make sure my kids eat protein and I always try to have some in, so we always have an option for favourite dinner. Usually I make omelette for dinner, or scrambled eggs for lunch, and it is handy to have them if people are coming over so I can make a cake - which saves the problem of buying one in advance, and finding someone has eaten it before the day!

Tinned tomatoes.
It makes pasta sauce (in a pinch on its own but normally with other store cupboard essentials), to make an English Breakfast slightly more healthy and our family favourite - spicy sausage ragout.

Always so happy to find a tin of tuna in the cupboard. We use it to make tuna pasta bake, to top a jacket potato and for the kids packed lunch sandwiches. Best of all, it's the only fish DH will eat and only the tinned variety!

Eggs
Instant dinner (boiled, scrambled, eggy bread normally)
Instant entertainment - baking
Makes yummy treats - rich chocolate cake/brownies.

Tho if I had to live from a very basic cupboard, I'd like, as already mentioned tinned tomatoes, onion and pasta. (or bread and butter)