Pantry Essentials

While your Sun Basket comes with the ingredients to make our recipes, you will need to keep a few key seasonings and healthy fats on hand. 

Kosher salt
We recommend using kosher salt or sea salt for your Sun Basket recipes. While chemically there is no difference between table salt, kosher salt, and fancy sea salts, there are additives to most table salts that you might not want flavoring your food. Kosher salt’s large, coarse grains make it easy to season evenly. 

Freshly ground black pepper
The volatile oils in pepper degrade quickly when exposed to air. It’s absolutely worth it to grind whole peppercorns as you need them. 

Olive oil
Our go-to fat for cooking and seasoning is olive oil. It’s good for you and does magic for the flavor of everything it touches. Use a good quality oil for cooking and making sauces and dressings, but if you invest in the fancy stuff, don’t cook with it. It’s rich taste is best enjoyed unheated. 

Neutral oil: Grapeseed, Canola, Coconut, Rice Bran, or Ghee
Choose any of these hearty-healthy, neutral-flavored fats for sautéeing and stir frying.

Butter
Occasionally a Sun Basket recipe will call for a bit of optional butter to finish a sauce or enhance a dish. Don’t skimp. Buy the best you can afford—it really does make a difference—and use unsalted butter, so you can control how much salt goes into your meal. 

Wine
Occasionally our recipes list wine as an optional ingredient for finishing a sauce. You don’t need to break out the good bottle, but never cook with a wine you wouldn’t want to drink.