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

A tin of condensed soup - best invention ever. I can concoct chili, pasta, casserole, crockpot, jambalaya, stews, soups, sloppy joes, enchilladas, so many different meals from one humble tin of soup!

Noodles dried or straight to wok.

Throw in whatever vegetables you like (frozen or fresh) and left over meat/cubed ham or some tinned cannellini beans and you have a nutritious meal in minutes. Great for a quick lunch or after school when the children are ravenous.

Sultanas - maybe not an obvious choice but they are versatile in sweet and savoury dishes! Curries, salads, crumbles - I'll often throw a handful in!

Tinned pilchards in tomato sauce. Probably not all that popular, but children love them if given them from a young enough age - and so cheap.

On pasta as a sauce, 1 lge tin stirred into 1 lge tin of tinned tomatoes, add a little chili (depending on how old they are) some chopped garlic, add loads of black pitted olives and dsstsp of chopped capers. Add parsley or dried herbs. So quick, and - tastes nothing like pilchards!

As a pizza topping, just deboned and dotted around along with chopped leek and red peppers on top of a bottled sauce and under mozzarella and parmesan.

You can even make 'meatballs' with them - just drain of tomato - keep that - mix with breadcrumbs and egg, some grated cheese and herbs, after chopping and removing the bones. Fry or bake and put the sauce back on top, maybe with a little ketchup added.

I was finding it hard to fit oily fish other than salmon into my diet, so had to find ways of eating it that the kids would like. And pilchards are way cheaper.

Pasta every time. It keeps forever, even after opening and cooks super fast.

Top three uses:

Add to homemade soup to make it extra filling. Spaghetti broken up into pieces does the job well.

Stir in a knob of butter and cheese and instant child friendly meal (this is very important in my house).

String onto thread for instant child entertainment.

Ok the last one isn't technically food so I like to serve it with other store cupboard staples for pasta puttanesca. Just add the following to cooked pasta: tinned tuna, jar of tomato and chili pasta sauce, a few capers and black olives if you have them. Tinned is fine but you may need to rinse the capers and olives if they are in brine or the dish can be a bit salty.

For an instant...

no instant child needed for any of my recipes

Store cupboard heroes and top 3 ways to use it? Any one of the following three .... STORE CUPBOARD HERO NUMBER 1) Cheese; NUMBER 2) Potatoes, and NUMBER 3) Tomatoes (tinned or fresh).

--> CHEESE - Top 3 ways are:- 1) Primula Cheese Spread Plus Chives in baguettes and sandwiches, 2) grated on pizzas, paninis, or with waffles and all the potato specials listed below , 3) essential ingredient in spaghetti bolognese, lasagne, flan, quiche, etc.

--> POTATOES - the possibilities are limitless ... Top 3 ways are:- 1) baked in skin to make jacket potatoes, 2) baked without skin and strip cut to make wedges, 3) block fried with herbs to make hash browns.
But there are so many other options: baked ridged to make waffles, deep fried cuboid shaped to make chips, shallow fried sliced to make crisps, mashed, roasted, grilled, add to soups, add to salads, add to curries, etc., etc.

--> TOMATOES (tinned or fresh) - Top 3 ways are:- 1) freshly cut & fried with green peppers and onions to add to Korai dishes, 2) Freshly sliced as pizza toppings, sandwich filling, or to make caprese stacks, 3) grilled (perfect with hash browns - see above).
Plus, great for spaghetti bolognese, lasagne, with pasta, as a soup; can add to all potato & cheese specials listed above, and can substitute tabasco sauce with tomato to create an extravagant Bloody Mary drink!

:)

Got to be tinned chopped tomatoes-use on their own or in a variety of dishes.

My store cupboard heroes are nutritious, filling, lowfat and inexpensive chickpeas!

1. Fantastic to add to any stew/casserole, I like to make a quick and simple chorizo and tomato one, the chickpeas really absorb the flavours of the other ingredients.

1. Fabulous in curries - pork and chickpea madras is a favourite in our house.

1. Great in salads, I like them mixed up with chopped tomatoes and finely chopped red onion that has been marinated in balsamic vinegar.

and of course HUMMUS - traditional style or flavoured with dolop of anything you fancy. :-)

Harissa! Great as a baste on any piece of meat in the fridge.
Blitzed with preserved lemons and rubbed on poussins, or brushed simply onto lamb steaks or a whole chicken to roast.

My store cupboard hero is slightly shameful. Its a ready made jar of Salsa dip which is a sneaky way to entice reluctant teens to eat vegetables.
1)Mix a pot with tinned tomatoes -sorry had to mention tomatoes too- add to cooked chicken breasts, and any other veg you think you will get away with (I generally manage to get peppers and sweetcorn past my lot) and top with tortilla chips and grated cheese. Yum.
2) Add to chicken joints, chorizo, onions and fennel for slow cooked Spanish chicken
3) add to minced beef and kidney beans for a speedy chilli to go with Jacket Potatoes.

Or you could just dip crisps in it.

Mine is Worcester sauce, I can't remember a time when I didn't have a bottle of it in the cupboard.

1. Marinades - it's a great base for flavouring meat. I add soy, ginger and garlic for my "Chinese" pork and it also makes the sauce.

1. It's essential for my corned beef hash. I leave a good couple of tablespoons to soak into cubed corned beef before cooking.

1. Scrambled eggs. Just a dash makes them really tasty, it's my ultimate comfort food.

Poor DS, who has been eating my "special" scrambled egg on toast all his life, was horrified to learn that one of the ingredients was anchovies

Passata for me too! Pasta sauce, sausage casserole or pizza sauce base. So glad i discovered it instead of tinned toms.

Tinned tomatoes. I actually rang out the other day and was stuck.

Tinned stewed steak. Really easy to add mushrooms and carrots and ready rolled pastry top for an instant pie.

Stock cubes (in various flavours) always get used here. Adding to soups, casseroles, mixed in CPUs cous!

That should be cous cous!!

Another passatta user here.

1. in the slow cooker with pork ribs and peppers

2. with mince to make a chilli type base for a Shepherd' pie

3. with chicken and lardons for a different kind of stew

Rice with everything
Flour to make everything
And tomato ketchup to hide the taste of everything

A bag of dried penne pasta or similar has saved mealtimes on numerous occassions. Is great with leftovers, goes with lots of meals and when my fussy ds doesn't want what the rest of us have for dinner is great mixed with tuna, tinned mixed beans, some cheese, a scoop of mayo - can be eaten warm or cold so great for lunch boxes too!

Lentils! Tesco do the best big bags around and they are always on standby for warming, tasty soups. My son has also now learnt to make a delicious lentil loaf that even his unhealthy sister will eat.

I love Dolmio bolognese sauce,
I use it to make spaghetti bolognese,
Stick chicken in it and make a chicken pasta
Use the same sauce in lasagne

Mine would be Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon powder (veggie stock). We are a bit meh having a tomato-based dinner more than once a fortnight so although we have them in the cupboard, without this 'magic' stock, I'd really panic. It's got just about the right balance of flavours to be the base of lots of delicious dinners (and not too salty like the other brands). Fantastic base for risotto, paella, chicken noodle soup (for the DSs), hearty minestrone, curries and veggie stews. I always make sure we take some on holiday when we go to the caravan in case the local supermarkets don't stock it. (It was once recommended by Nigella).
Personally I'd also struggle without Hellman's mayonnaise (opened jar in the fridge, spare in the cupboard) and black pepper - cracked black pepper goes with everything (and large bags can be bought inexpensively from ethnic section of supermarket for a ready supply!).

Like many of the posts above, it's tinned chopped tomatoes for me.
Use them for pizza base sauce, with added veg blended up for my veg-avoiding DS1, spaghetti bolognese and curries.
I also keep a variety of herbs and spices which come in handy to add flavour to many dishes!

Tuna fish
Mayonnaise
Pasta
Tinned toms
Sweetcorn
Bag of mixed nuts (unsalted/unroasted)