The ultimate pantry list that will get dinner made night after night

Produce

• Lemons: Memorize this fact — when you’re tasting food and think it’s missing “a little something,” 20 percent of the time it’s salt, and the other 80 percent of the time it’s acid. My favorite acid is lemon juice because it’s bright like sunshine, and a spritz of it makes any dish sparkle. Plus, you’ll always have the ingredients on hand to make a refreshing glass of lemonade. Can’t step to that now, can ya, apple cider vinegar?

• Onions: Did you know onions are an allium? Has knowing that made your life better in any way? I do hope so.

• Garlic: I buy the prepeeled cloves you find in a plastic container in the produce fridge because I hate having to go through peeling a whole head of garlic just to find they all secretly sprouted those little green centers, and then I have to go through them one by one and remove them. The plastic container offers me transparency, which is something I find important in a relationship.

• Flat-leaf parsley: Aside from adding some oomph to salads, marinades, side dishes and the lot, sprinkling chopped parsley across the plate is like sprinkling pure culinary razzmatazz!

• Boxed salad greens: Sure, you may logically think that it’s smarter to pick up loose greens because they’re cheaper, but you are so incredibly wrong. I will bet you 10 bucks that every week, you buy yourself a bunch of loose greens, and at the end of the week, you throw them all out because you threw them into the crisper drawer but never used them because you didn’t want to go through the hassle of washing them. Or you just forgot, because you can be inconsiderate like that. This won’t happen with boxed salad greens. They’re a bit hard to jam into crisper drawers, so you’ll probably jam it into the space between the milk and top of the fridge, meaning every day you’ll have to look at it. And it’s easy enough to use, so you’ll just grab it with some of the lemons you always have on hand, toss with a bit of olive oil and a touch of salt, and boom! Salad! You weren’t even thinking about cooking, yet somehow salad happened.

The fridge

• Whole milk: I don’t waste my time with skim milk, because I’m not a little bitch.

• Butter: For making a great pan sauce or making healthy foods unhealthy… but delicious!

• Parmesan cheese: Please buy the kinda-good stuff. You don’t have to buy the expensive stuff from Italy, but just not out of a can. Please don’t make me cry for you.

• All the cheese: My fridge is actually 75 percent cheese. I recently found out I have high cholesterol, but I refuse to believe these facts are related. I’m blaming my father and his lousy genetics.

This is a lot, we know. So we created a short version — your handy, dandy printable pantry checklist. You’re welcome!