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If your grocery bill is out of control or your pantry is in a state of chaos, it’s time for a pantry challenge! This is a great way to ditch the grocery store to use the food you already have! It’s easier than you’d think (and doesn’t have to feel like a drag, either). I’ll show you how!
Over the past few years, we’ve seen food prices skyrocketing. Grocery shopping feels like a meeting with the IRS. You want me to pay how much for some organic asparagus?
The thing is that most of us already have perfectly good food hanging out in our pantries, fridges, and freezers that we’re just not using fast enough.
When was the last time you had to toss some stale or old food?
We try to be careful, especially since we love to buy in bulk with Azure Standard, but I recently found a really old box of corn meal. It had turned rancid and was no longer safe to eat.
What a waste of food and money!
When you conduct a pantry challenge at least once per year, you can work through those pantry staples before they go bad and also save some money. Win-win!
What is a pantry challenge?
A pantry challenge is a fantastic way to temporarily shrink your budget while eating up those almost-bad foods before they go bad.
In a pantry challenge, you commit to only eating food you have on hand before you go to the grocery store.
You can adjust the rules however you see fit.
For example, during a pantry challenge, we continue to buy local produce, eggs, and cheese.
Our main focus is eating frozen ground beef, chicken, berries, and our favorite pantry staples.
Since we buy in bulk, we often have giant containers or 5-lb bags of dried beans and grains that can be used up. They tend to be freshest when consumed within a year, so this allows us to work through what we have and prevent wasting those perfectly good products by forgetting them in the back of the pantry.
Can a pantry challenge help you save money?
Yes! We like to do a pantry challenge at least once a year for this exact reason.
I realized lately that our kitchen freezer is barely closing, and with some big tax payments coming up, it’d be awfully nice to leverage my grocery budget to use it elsewhere.
Basically, when you do a pantry challenge, you shrink your grocery spending to just a fraction of the original amount.
This is a great way to flex your budget to cover big expenses or to help you save up for something special.
You can even consider this a no spend challenge, but sometimes saying “no spend” can trigger any issues with feeling limited. I tend to find it easier to call it a pantry challenge because it highlights all of the abundance and items we have instead of limiting ourselves.
Fight food waste by eating from your pantry
It’s so important to us to have a low waste pantry!
Buying in bulk or refilling our containers at our local co-op makes it easy for us to reduce our packaging waste. But that’s just the start.
Did you know that approximately 40% of all food produced in the US ends up in the trash?
Americans waste so much food. This food waste happens across every level of food production, from farming to packaging, but much happens in our homes.
- We often forget to finish our leftovers or overlook containers in the pantry; before we know it, they’re no longer edible.
- We also tend to fall for the best buy and sell-by dates, meaning we toss perfectly fine food before it’s actually unsafe to eat.
- The most frustrating part is that you’re not just wasting food – you’re also wasting all of the water, fuel, packaging, and labor that went into producing the food.
When you start thinking about this, you realize that your box of cornmeal or expired cereal is more than just the product in the box.
Fortunately, you’re already jumping into a pantry challenge for 2026, so you’re well on your way to minimizing your food waste (and grocery bills) right away.
15 Top Tips for a Successful Pantry Challenge in 2026
If this is your first pantry challenge, I’d love to share some simple tips to set you up for success!
It’s way easier than it seems (especially if you’re gentle with yourself and let it be easy).
These tips help me figure out what to do with too much brown rice or random cuts of meat and I’m sure they’ll help you, too!
1. Take inventory of your fridge, pantry, and freezer
Although it’s easy enough to peer into your pantry to see what you have, it’s always a great idea to pull everything out to see what you really have.
This is also a great time to clean up any spills and deal with food that needs to go.
About once a year, we pull everything out to get organized and remember the random bag of this or that hiding underneath a frozen chicken or bag of frozen raspberries.
If you’re a home canner or love to preserve food, this is a great way to use up those older jars of pickles and jams to make way for this year’s harvest!
2. Set some rules
Define a few simple rules for how this is going to go. I mentioned above that we still allow fresh fruits, vegetables, eggs, and cheese.
Do you also want to allow those things, or are you going on a complete spending freeze?
How do you feel about…
- Dining out?
- Buying ingredients to make a specific recipe?
- How long should your challenge last?
- Stocking up on your must-have items?
- Buying household goods (soaps, TP, etc)?
For example, we have a ton of dried beans and grains, but we’re quickly running out of the flour we use to bake our homemade bread. Do we go without flour or replace what we need?
It really doesn’t matter. You get to decide the rules, so do whatever works for you!
3. Meal plan
Good things come to those who meal plan. Especially when your pantry starts to get a little bare, you’ll need to be more and more creative to assemble a delicious meal.
Take the time now to figure out what you want to make instead of waiting until you’re already tired and hungry.
If you’re not sure where to start, make sure you check out this post about zero waste meal planning.
Even years later, this is still how we meal plan to minimize our waste as much as possible!
4. Let it be easy
Some of us love to really mean and strict with ourselves. We say that we can never do this or we have to do this complicated or unpleasant thing.
It doesn’t have to be that way. What would this challenge look like if you let it be easy?
- Maybe that means setting a smaller weekly grocery budget instead of forcing yourself down to $0.
- Maybe that means visiting the grocery store once a month to get fresh items.
- Perhaps you try a 10-day pantry challenge instead of forcing yourself into a whole challenge month?
What is a small change you could make to help reduce your spending a little bit that doesn’t make you feel like you’re going to run out of food forever?
5. Let things run out
This is one of my all-time favorite times for learning to reduce your waste or budget.
We’re so used to keeping things well-stocked so we never run out of dish soap or maple syrup.
In fact, we feel nervous about running out of dish soap or laundry detergent.
But what if we did?
If you run out of dish soap today, what would you do if you couldn’t go to the store?
You probably already have something on hand that could wash your dishes.
The same goes for the food in your pantry. If you run out of oats, what could you do?
Well, maybe you start eating yogurt instead or try eating cooked quinoa instead of oatmeal.
There are so many creative solutions to your problems if you just let the problems arise!
Trust yourself to be able to figure it out and you’ll have fun along the way. I know this might push you out of your comfort zone, but it can make a tremendous difference!
6. Make your own
Just because you ran out of bread doesn’t mean you can’t eat any…you just have to make your own.
What if you’re out of yeast? You could make your own sourdough starter or unleavened bread, like pitas.
Or, would it be so bad if you didn’t have bread for a while? I bet you could find something else to eat that tastes just fine. This is a fun way to try a bunch of new recipes!
7. When in doubt, make soup
Back in the day, I suspect people ate soup all the time because it was the easiest way to throw together a nourishing meal with all the little leftover odds and ends.
Plus, you can always add more broth to stretch a pot of lentil soup to feed a crowd.
I like to have my pantry challenge in the fall or winter so I can eat as much soup as possible, but don’t let that hold you back. It’s always better to start now than to wait!
Get organized with the Seasonal Kitchen Printable Collection
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8. Focus on abundance, not bare shelves
Do you know how people on restrictive diets almost always regain their lost weight?
The second you start to restrict anything in your life, this part of you believes it’s never coming back.
People freak out when they imagine having empty pantry shelves.
Especially if you ever grew up with food insecurity, a pantry challenge can really trigger these feelings of not-enough.
You don’t have to do a pantry challenge. You can always start by just meal planning or shopping from your pantry once a week.
If you do try a pantry challenge, focus on the abundance.
You could go to the store and buy whatever you want; you choose not to because there are bigger, more important things that matter to you.
This isn’t a punishment; you’re not in trouble, and it’s not forever. It’s just a way to have a little extra spending money and use up food before it goes bad. That’s all!
9. Think in categories
I recommended this in my post about cooking without recipes, but thinking in categories can totally change how you cook.
For example, think of all different types of pasta as just pasta. It doesn’t matter if its rotini, bowtie, macaroni, or lasagna noodles; they’re all just pasta and can be prepared and eaten the same way.
Think of all grains as just starches. Substitute couscous, quinoa, wheat berries, farro, rice, and any other grains in your recipes.
You will need to change how you cook them, but they can serve the same role in your recipes.
If you run out of sugar, you can use maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, and even dates to add sweetness to your recipes.
This way of thinking adds so much flexibility and will make it much easier to assemble complete meals with random items in your pantry.
10. Turn it into a game
Whether you’re a strong cook right now or not, you’ll learn and practice so many interesting recipes over the next few weeks!
Have fun with it. How many different ways can you use black beans? You can make soup, burgers, brownies, and probably a million other things.
You might even enjoy pushing it to the extreme if you’re a little competitive. Some people like to do pantry challenges until they literally eat all the extra food.
If that’s your thing, more power to you!
Not interested in that type of thing? You can stop or adapt this challenge however you see fit.
Get organized once and for all!
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It includes:
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11. Learn how to refresh old foods
One of the things that got us into this situation in the first place is the lie of the expiration date. You need to learn to tell when foods are fresh without a label or date.
Another great trick is to learn how to refresh foods (or at least hide them).
- Bake stale tortilla chips in the oven to crisp them up again.
- If you microwave stale bread covered with a damp paper towel, it will become soft and fresh again!
- Stale, freezer-burned meats taste great in stews and casseroles covered by many spices.
- Soak wilting greens in cold water to perk them back up.
- Stretch meats by adding lentils or canned beans.
- Freeze leftover chicken to add to soups and recipes later.
If you love tips like this, try these 80+ frugal food hacks to help you make the most of the food you have on hand.
12. Keep it a secret
If you’ve got some picky eaters in your house who would balk at the idea of eating the random foods hiding in your pantry, keep this challenge hush-hush.
They don’t need to know what’s going on and if they’re young kids, I bet they’d have fun getting hands-on and making bread or scones and other treats with you.
13. Redefine a “meal”
I’m not saying you shouldn’t eat healthy, nutritious meals. I don’t want messages from people who told me they stopped eating all vegetables for a month thanks to this challenge.
Instead, play a little loose with your idea of a meal.
We like to have meat, a starch, and some veggies at every meal. But that can look lots of different ways!
Try making:
- Breakfast for dinner
- Throw your veggies into a protein smoothie
- Try a yogurt bowl with chia seeds and berries
- Make a frittata or quiche
- Enjoy a charcuterie board (aka grown-up Lunchable)
- Make chicken or tuna salad sandwiches
14. Eat your scraps
Are you throwing perfectly good food in the trash? Repurpose carrot greens and broccoli stalks into your next meal!
Most leaves, like broccoli and cauliflower, can be prepared like collards or kale.
The stems of your kale or chard can be sauteed or pickled.
Any veggie peels can be saved to make homemade vegetable stock.
There are many ways to repurpose your food scraps, and there’s no better time to start than now!
P.S. You can throw bits of leftover this or that into chili or other recipes, and no one will ever know!
15. Shop with cash
If you do allow yourself to supplement your food storage with fresh produce and other items, consider using a cash budget. This sets a hard limit on what you can buy and can be a great way to get into shopping with cash as a habit.
Most of us spend up to 30% more when we shop with a card, so this is a super simple way to put that grocery budget in check!
Don’t forget your pantry challenge printables!
The Seasonal Kitchen Printable Collection will help you know exactly what you’re working with, and get organized for the year to come!
Related Posts
- How to Keep a Well-Stocked Pantry
- Printable Pantry Staples List
- How to Stock a Pantry on a Budget
- Basic Canning Equipment List for Beginners
- How to Set Up a Homestead Kitchen
Are you ready to try this pantry challenge in 2026?
Remember: you’re in charge here! This pantry challenge can be however you want it to be. There is no wrong way to do this. Try following these helpful tips to gently push yourself to start writing some meal plans and use up those foods before they go bad.
You’ve got this! Don’t forget to grab my kitchen inventory checklists or kitchen organization bundle to help you get organized and start meal planning.
Be sure to tag @milkglasshome on Instagram with your pantry challenge meals and ask any questions below!
