12 Foods Ina Garten Always Keeps In Her Kitchen

Hollywood celebrities walking any red carpet are always asked: "Who are you wearing?" But, when TV cook and best-selling author Ina Garten appears anywhere, everyone wonders: "What's in your pantry?" Speaking with Esquire, Garten typically gives a straightforward answer, "I like to find ingredients that make it easier to cook." 

Thanks to that simple philosophy, many of us have snapped up cans of Libby's pumpkin, or the one tomato sauce Garten keeps in her pantry – and, of course, the ever popular Grey Poupon Dijon mustard. These are products that regularly crop up in lists of Garten's must-have ingredients. We've used them to whip up lots of Garten's fail-safe, delicious recipes. But let's dig deeper into what foodie items the former Barefoot Contessa owner always has to hand.

Scrutinizing Garten's Instagram photos — along with trawling the web for articles and videos — has pulled out 13 ingredients from her perfectly organized shelves and brought them into the light: From the rice that features in her make-ahead dishes to the extra something that makes her breakfast porridge really sing. Also revealed are ways in which Garten incorporates these foods into delicious recipes.

During a 2020 interview with PBS' William Brangham, when asked what ingredients in her pantry were crucial for meals anytime, Ina Garten responded: "I think a lot of things like dried beans and rice and lentils and legumes that last for a long time". According to a snap on Instagram, she also has plenty of bags of white cannellini beans, notably the New York-based Citarella brand, is in her pantry too.

It's easy to understand why Garten's such a big fan of these beans and pulses. They are great sources of fiber and have a host of health benefits, including helping to cut sugar and cholesterol levels. They are also super-easy to store, will keep for months at a time, and can be quickly and easily dropped into a host of soups, stews, and casseroles, with delicious results.

Garten updated her stewed tomatoes and lentils recipe, a dish she had been "making for decades", after learning that her followers were short of ways to use the lentils they had in their store cupboards. Another one of Garten's iconic meals is her Tuscan white bean soup. She told fans on Facebook that the recipe allowed them to be "really creative with dried herbs and other vegetables!" Garten also pointed out that the Tuscan white bean soup lasts for a week in the refrigerator – and that's a boon for anyone looking to create leftovers.

We may all still be going crazy for sourdough starters but when it comes to keeping something in a resealable jar for a very long time, Ina Garten's vanilla extract beats 'em all: It has been among her pantry staples for almost 40 years. It is nothing more than a handful of vanilla beans that have been immersed in inexpensive vodka and left to do their thing.

We know that Garten has always been a fierce champion of store-bought ingredients but when it comes to vanilla extract — if you don't have almost four decades to wait for her home-grown liquid — she recommends investing in the real McCoy. In an Ask Ina video she posted to her Instagram, she mentioned vanilla essence, the synthetic version of the flavoring and said: "If you're buying store-bought vanilla, buy real vanilla, not the imitation stuff, it's terrible ... I love Nielsen-Massey vanilla."

Garten's vanilla brioche bread pudding and vanilla rum panna cotta are just two of her iconic recipes that call for vanilla extract. Whether you use a decades-old extract to up the level of your baking game like she does, or you pour it from a newly purchased bottle, it's worth keeping the good stuff in your cupboard for the best results.

Fans love it when Ina Garten invites them into her kitchen to explore the equipment and ingredients she uses on a regular basis. Two minutes into a video tour, we find out she doesn't have a single preferred brand of salt to hand: She has three. Even more revealing is their location: Because salt so important to her, it lives right next to the cooker rather than tucked away in the pantry.

Garten's preferred brand of Kosher salt, which is 100% sodium chloride with no added extras such as iodine is Diamond Crystal, because she feels it is less salty than other forms. Second is her lightly briny sea salt Le Saunier De Camargue Fleur De Sel, which is used as a finishing touch to dishes, while the third, Maldon sea salt flakes, helps take the Barefoot Contessa's pastry toppings to the next level.

Of course the vast majority of her recipes use salt as a seasoning (even salt spray can work) or to give a twist to something sweet, such as Garten's salted caramel brownies — she also adds a dash of salt to her daily bowl of breakfast porridge.  

Sticking with the breakfast theme for another one of Ina Garten's pantry staples: French butter. During her appearance on Julia Louis-Dreyfus' podcast Wiser Than Me, she said how her early-morning slices of toast always came with a slick of tasty, salted French butter, called beurre de baratte. 

Produced by Rodolphe Le Meunier, this premium butter gets its name because it is made using a traditional wooden churn. It is a real taste of luxury, so it's understandable that Garten opts for a more modest (but no less delicious) product for her everyday cooking and baking. In response to a question on her website's Ask Ina section, she revealed: "I often use Cabot Creamery unsalted butter but there are many good brands of butters available." 

For home cooks who can't bear the thought of switching from butter to oil (like coconut oil, for instance), Garten advises people stick to unsalted butter in her recipes so they can keep the amount of salt they eat under control. As for recipes? Her crisp French apple tart and warming mushroom and leek bread pudding are just two whose ingredients list call for a stick or so of good butter. Or you could toast some bread for breakfast and slather it on, Ina-style.

Where do you keep your eggs? In the fridge, so they stay nice and fresh? In a cupboard or the pantry, so they don't get bumped and end up a broken mess of shell and goop on the floor? In Ina Garten's pristine kitchen, her snow-white, always extra-large eggs are among several items arranged on her countertop. They sit in bowls, alongside garlic, oranges, lemons, and limes; just waiting to be cracked into her next delicious recipe.

She wrote on Instagram: "... some pretty lemons and limes on the counter not only make the kitchen feel good but you get more juice from room-temperature citrus." As for eggs, no matter their size, ambient temperatures can help us get the best out of them too, proving there's more to Garten's display than simply convenience or minimizing the risk of dropping an egg or two on the way back from her pantry.

Fridge-cold eggs may be easier to separate the yolks from the white, but waiting up to 30 minutes before whisking or beating them will give you bigger, fluffier results, recommends The Incredible Egg. Give it a go the next time you try your hand at scrambled eggs – or maybe just whip up one of Garten's best egg-based dishes, from her sensational herb-baked eggs to the always tempting easy eggs in purgatory.

Ina Garten may have been the uncrowned queen of dinner parties for years, but there is always something new to learn about her. For instance, when it comes to flour, she told Julia Louis-Dreyfus on the podcast Wiser Than Me that she doesn't sift this everyday ingredient in the same way as she would confectioner's sugar. Instead, Garten fluffs it up before she takes her required cupful.

What's also cool about the Barefoot Contessa is that her pantry is home to not one but three different types of flour. She always has a box of Swans Down super-fine flour to hand among her shelves, while hundreds of her sweet and savory recipes call for — presumably fluffed-up — cups of all-purpose flour.

The brand that makes it to the list of preferred ingredients on Garten's website is Heckers Unbleached, and if buying a bag for our own store cupboards means we have to make another batch of chocolate brownies, then so be it. The all-purpose flour also shares the page with Cup4Cup's Multipurpose gluten-free flour. Garten said she added it to her pantry after getting lots of requests for gluten-free recipes, and it features in her delicious strawberry rhubarb crisp as well as her chocolate chunk cookies.

We're not saying that Ina Garten's passion for chocolate comes anywhere near close to her love for husband Jeffrey, but it's definitely an ingredient she has enjoyed having at the ready for many years. "Chocolate's really important to me," she told Bon Appétit. "If it's going to be chocolate, it has to taste like chocolate. I always use bittersweet chocolate, and I like to get it from Lindt in huge bars ... I think it's the perfect balance."

Garten also told Katie Couric that, after having used Lindt chocolate for so long, was she missing out on something better elsewhere? To find out, Garten and her team carried out a blind taste-test with six different types of chocolate. The Swiss brand's bittersweet chocolate came out on top, where it has been ever since, which would explain why there are at least 13 bars crammed into the Barefoot Contessa's pantry.

She has given us lots of ways to bake with chocolate too, from her rich, dark chocolate tart and English chocolate crisps, to chocolate pecan scones and even peppermint hot chocolate. If you need an excuse to start cooking, health experts have suggested that regularly consuming moderate amounts of high-cacao dark chocolate could have a host of health benefits, including lower blood pressure, enhanced heart health, and improved skin.

Chef and author Ina Garten has written 13 cookbooks, with more than 50 pasta recipes featured among their pages. Whether you always have a portion of weeknight bolognese in the fridge, or regularly rustle up her summer garden pasta, they all have excellent pasta at their core, and Garten has two brands that take pride of place in her pantry.

As with so many of her pantry ingredients, whether store-bought or not, quality is key, and Garten is a big fan of using the De Cecco brand for many of her dishes. However, when she's in the mood for something a little more luxurious, Cipriani Tagliarelle is her go-to ingredient because it's quick to cook, tastes great and doesn't have the doughy texture that sometimes comes with fresh pasta. 

All the focus on flavor doesn't mean she's a purist, however. In her 2018 book "Cook Like a Pro," one of her best tips for cooking pasta is using a variety of shapes in the same recipe, such as her baked pasta with tomatoes and eggplant. Garten enjoys working with more than one kind of pasta, because of the added texture and also utilizing half-empty boxes of pasta in the cabinet.

Ina Garten's peanut butter and jelly sandwiches achieved legendary status, thanks to her 2021 Instagram post. They managed to stir up as much admiration for the way the snack looked as they did controversy about the bread being toasted. While much has been made of luxury ingredient Eli Zabar's raspberry jam, nobody batted an eye about the PB nestled next to the J.

You can see a jar of Skippy peanut butter in many images and videos of Garten's pantry, but it appears that it's a relatively recent addition. She told Anderson Cooper that she had never eaten a PB&J until she and Jeffrey discovered the sandwiches during the pandemic. "My mother never made them, and we were like: 'this is great!'" Garten chooses the brand's creamy variety — rather than a natural peanut butter, which is better stored upside down – staying true to her philosophy that not every pantry ingredient has to be high end or homemade. Apart from Garten's iconic sandwiches, she uses the same ingredients for her peanut butter and jelly bars, chocolate peanut butter gobs, and the peanut butter icing on chocolate cupcakes.  

Rice is a staple food in millions of households across the United States and Ina Garten's is no different. She told Nathan Lane, while serving up a bowl of her life-affirming rum raisin rice pudding, that she used to sneak the dessert to her father who had been banned from eating cholesterol by her mother. It's not clear which brand of rice she used back then, but today she only has shelf space for the Texmati label.

Garten often uses their flavorful brown and white basmati rice varieties, as well as the brand's arborio rice and couscous. The company behind it, RiceSelect, was thrilled by the Barefoot Contessa's vote of confidence, saying: "We're truly grateful that she relies on us to offer the very best." 

It's a key ingredient in Garten's warm brown rice and butternut squash dish. While she wrote a book about 'make-ahead' dishes that save time and reduce stress, it's worth taking the advice from the United States Department of Agriculture with rice-based meals to avoid getting food poisoning. Uncooked grains could contain Bacillus cereus bacteria which thrive in rice that's left at room temperature for more than an hour or reheated to less than 165 degrees Fahrenheit. If either happens to your fried rice, you might want to take extra precaution and throw it away. 

Sugar, alongside flour and butter, makes up the Holy Trinity of basic baking ingredients and is present in just about every home. Ina Gartendoesn't rely on just one type of sugar to take her long list of sweet recipes to the next level, she has two: Demerara and caster sugar, which she also calls superfine sugar.

Demerara sugar comes from sugarcane and is considered a brown sugar because of its color — but demerara is less processed and contains no white sugar or molasses syrup, notes sugar manufacturer Ragus. Caster or superfine sugar occupies the middle ground between the fine powder of confectioner's sugar and traditional granulated sugar. "Since caster sugar dissolves and incorporates quicker than granulated sugar, it makes it perfect for light and airy desserts," chef Melissa Araujo told Southern Living.

There are hundreds of recipes from Garten's cookbooks to choose from that call for demerara and caster sugar, but her perfect pound cake and zingy raspberry rhubarb crostata are two instant classics. Proving there's more to the sweet stuff than family-friendly cookies and cakes, Garten uses caster sugar in her strawberry jam as well as in her fresh lemonade drink.

The final ingredient in our list that Ina Garten has tucked away in her pantry became an overnight sensation among the Barefoot Contessa's followers, thanks to another Instagram post, this time about her cool and refreshing herbal iced tea. In the P.S., Garten wrote: "Do you know the secret ingredient I use as a sweetener?" The answer was Martinelli's apple juice.

Garten has been using Martinelli's apple juice in her cooking for more than 20 years, but what's so special about it? The 156-year-old brandgrows all its apples in California, including the Newtown Pippin variety. After being washed and hand-sorted, they are cold pressed, flash-pasteurized and bottled, before being shipped around the country.

We all know that "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" but a study in the journal Nutrients finds apple juice can also help improve heart health. While it might be tempting to throw a few apples into a blender for a speedy version of the popular drink, Garten is encouraging us to be more adventurous with this delicious liquid. Thanks to her, apple juice is also finding its way into recipes such as her warming butternut squash and apple soup.