7 Essential Food Items for Your First Apartment

Are you a student who just moved into a new student apartment? First of all, congratulations on your first apartment! This is a huge milestone in anyone’s life! Now that you have unpacked in your new place, you’re probably feeling a bit hungry (not to mention tired too). The last thing you want to do is go grocery shopping!

While ordering a pizza or your favourite Chinese takeout works for the first night, you will eventually need to make that trip to your local grocery store to stock up on the essentials. This is a big endeavour since you will be stocking your fridge, freezer, and pantry from scratch.

As you are settling into your beautiful student apartment, make sure your kitchen is equipped with a variety of delicious foods. Head to the store (or order online!) with this handy list of essential food items for your first apartment:

1. Canned Foods

One of the most essential food items for any first apartment are canned foods. As a student, canned foods can really be a lifesaver if you’re short on time or on a budget. Some canned foods can be a meal on their own, while others make a great addition to a larger meal.

Since canned food lasts a long time, you don’t need to worry about your purchases going bad if you don’t eat them quick enough. Some must-have canned food items include canned stew, chilli, beans, vegetables, pasta sauce, and soup, to name a few.

2. Frozen Foods

Frozen foods are ideal to pull out and warm up after a long day of school. Things like ready-made meals (lasagna, pizza, shepherd’s pie, etc.) are ideal, especially if you don’t like to cook or simply don’t have the time.

It’s also a wise idea to stock up on things like meat, frozen vegetables, frozen fruit, and frozen snacks (pizza pockets, frozen burritos, that sort of thing). If you plan to have friends over to hang out or study, having some frozen appetizers on hand, like mozzarella sticks and spring rolls, that you can pull out and heat up in less than 20 minutes, are also a great addition to your freezer.

3. Fruits and Vegetables

It’s also nice to have some fresh produce on hand for snacks or cooking. Make sure you don’t buy more than you can eat in one week as these items tend to go bad quickly. Pick up your favourites. For fruits, this can include apples, oranges, grapes, blueberries, and pears. It also depends what’s in season.

For vegetables, have some celery and carrots on hand with a vegetable dip for a quick snack. Also buy onions, garlic, potatoes – anything you might need for a recipe.

4. Condiments

Since you’re starting your fridge essentials from scratch, you will need to stock up on your favourite condiments and sauces. It’s also a good idea to have the basics covered in case you have guests over.

Some essentials include ketchup, mustard, relish, pickles, hot peppers, mayonnaise, hot sauce, barbeque sauce, salad dressing etc. Just visit the condiment section of your grocery store and you’ll see everything displayed before you, helping you to pick up all those must-have items.

For cooking purposes, make sure to pick up some cooking oil, like olive oil or vegetable oil, depending on your preference.

5. Herbs and Spices

Speaking of cooking, you will need to stock up on spices for your spice rack. Visit this aisle of your grocery store and pick out the spices that you like to use in your cooking. Some common ones include salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, and chili powder.

A fun way to organize your spices is to decant them into small mason jars. You can buy the ones with the chalk stickers on the front (or pick these up from your local dollar store) and write what each jar contains. Not only does this look cute, but it makes all of your containers uniform, rather than having some spices in bottles and some in bags.

6. Baking Ingredients

You just never know when you’ll be craving something sweet. If you like to bake, having all of the baking essentials on hand is a must when stocking up your pantry.

One of the great things about baking ingredients is that they don’t spoil quickly, so you can have them on hand for some time. Some baking essentials include all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, chocolate chips, and vanilla extract.

If you’re feeling really fancy, you can order a high-quality vanilla extract from online that will give your baking an added bit of flavour.