Three Pantry Staples For Living A Dairy Soy Free Life

UPDATE: Please make sure to double check ingredients each time you buy. I hope I never overlook anything but it’s possible and ingredients can change. A lot of my posts are over two years old and since I have gone back dairy soy free I have discovered a few items I use to buy all the time that now have soy in them.

One of the the questions I get asked the most is if cutting dairy and soy out of my diet meant I had to buy lots of expensive hard to find ingredients. The answer is no. Now if you want to eat cheese, then yes you can find dairy soy free cheese.  Unfortunately it's expensive, and you have to go to specialty stores. But for most recipes there are only 3 pantry items you need to make them work.

First is the wonderful coconut oil. This amazing item is found with the other oils, & most grocery stores carry it. Coconut oil has so many uses, but for cooking it can replace butter in almost every recipe. Coconut oil comes in a solid form (so it's great for recipes that call for not melted butter), but it melts easily so can be used as melted butter on things like popcorn, oatmeal, potatoes, etc. So as long as you have coconut oil in your pantry you can replace butter in most any recipe.

The second staple is canned coconut milk. I like to buy canned coconut milk instead of cold coconut milk because it keeps longer, it's cheaper, and it's more versatile. When you buy canned coconut milk do not shake the can until you know what you need it for. Until you shake the can the top part is thick coconut cream (good for recipes that call for cream), the bottom is coconut water, then when you shake it you have coconut milk (great to replace milk in most recipes). Canned coconut milk is found in the Thai section of the grocery store.

Third is Enjoy Life Chocolate Chunks or Mini Chips. Since all of Enjoy Life's products are dairy soy free these will be the staples to chocolate chip cookies and anything else you need chocolate for. These can be a little harder to find. I found them in the allergy free section at Bi-Lo & Ingles but have not found them at Walmart yet.

If you keep each of these staples in your pantry you should be able to adapt most recipes (minus the ones with cheese).

Are there any recipes you are having trouble with?

You can also find me on Pintrest @DairySoyFreeMom