Our Vegan Fridge Tour

When I was new to being vegan, I did not know what the heck to keep the fridge stocked with and it turned into a stressful and expensive nightmare. Our main goal with Sweet Simple Vegan is to help ease the transition into the vegan lifestyle for you if you are new to it and help you avoid the some of the bumps in the road that we hit.

Chris and I thought that it would be helpful to put together a blog post showing you EVERYTHING that we have in our refrigerator and freezer, go over our “staples” (aka what we always have stocked), give you our top tips for a vegan fridge and all in all hopefully provide more insight to you on how regular ol’ vegans eat. We don’t follow any particular diets within our vegan lifestyle, we just try our best to eat well at home while still indulging here and there. Plus we do drink alcohol and we share with ya some of our favorite brews!

First and foremost, before we talk about what’s in the fridge, let’s talk about the fridge itself. Chris and I are excited to partner with Samsung Home Appliances and tell you guys all about their this French door refrigerator with a Family Hub. Having a “smart fridge” was new to us and at first, we did not know exactly what the Family Hub meant or could do. We started reading more about this fridge and holy cowwww were we impressed. Here are some of the features that drew us in:

• Use your voice to add items to your shopping lists.
• It has adjustable shelves that slide-in or flip-up so that you can to store taller items like bottles with ease.
• Automatically assign expiration notifications and nutritional information to make sure everything is healthy and fresh.
• Order Grubhub, Postmates, Instacart etc.
• Stream music and Samsung TV.
• Connect smart appliances such as lights or the ring doorbell.
• Expiration date inputs – you can log what you have in your fridge on an app + input expiration dates as well so you can really keep tabs on your stock and leftovers and prevent food waste.
• Inside view – the refrigerator has built in cameras so that you can view what’s in the fridge without ever having to open it. This isn’t necessary when you are at home, but it’s super helpful for us when we are at the store as we can take a look into our fridge and check to see if we need to restock on certain items in case we forgot to log them.
• Calendar syncing – Chris and I now are able to see both of our calendars at once. We start our day in the kitchen so it’s helpful for us to check our calendars when we are making our morning beverages.

There is so much more we can say about the refrigerator, and overall we are really happy with it! If you want to learn more, you can check it out here. Now let’s dive into our fridge and freezer!

We also thought it would be helpful to highlight which items we restock often and consider staples in our household. We will also put an asterisk (*) next to all of those foods 🙂

– What’s In Our Fridge –

Condiments and Random Ingredients

Who doesn’t love condiments? We use these ingredients for a plethora of things, and I also want to note that since we are food bloggers, we do have quite a few condiments because sometimes we need to get specific ones for recipes we are making.

but here is what we have:

• Vegan green curry paste
• *Ketchup
• *3 kinds of mustard (not necessary, 1 will do lol)
• Relish and Pickles – for sandwiches and hot dogs
• Vegan butter (Earth Balance spread and Melt sticks)
• *Better Than Bouillon Paste – a vegetable broth paste that helps us when we need broth in a pinch! We use the vegetable base, vegan chicken base, and the vegan beef base.
• *Tamari
• Vegan Mayonnaise – for sandwiches, sauces, and vegan chickpea salad
• Vegan Worcestershire
• Sun Dried Tomatoes
• Vegan Date Caramel – homemade, find our recipe here (link).
• Active Dry Yeast – we use this in our homemade bread.
• *Maple syrup – for baking and pancakes.
• Capers – we got these for our homemade vegan caesar dressing.
• Lots and lots of hot sauce – Chris loves hot sauce, so we always have a few kinds. We currently have Yellow Bird. Papaya Hot Sauce from our trip to Aruba and Co>op Sauce.
• Vegan Buffalo Sauce from Jupiter Rings
• Annie’s Vegan Barbecue Sauce
• Vegan Hoisin Sauce – from a local asian market. Not all are vegan so be sure to check the ingredients!
• Vegetarian Oyster Sauce – from a local asian market.

Produce

Our produce will vary based on the season, availability, what comes in our Imperfect Produce Box that week and what we need for certain recipes we are making. This week, this is what we have:

• *Berries: We currently have strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries. To be honest, we usually only buy one kind and we only have all four of these because we needed them for a recipe shoot.
• *Citrus – we store citrus on the counter but if it starts to get too ripe or if we have a half that we need to put away, we pop them in the fridge.
• *Herbs (Parsley) – We trim the bottom of our fresh herbs and store them in a glass of water as you would flowers. This helps them stay fresh longer.
• Asparagus – we store the asparagus the same way we do the parsley, in a cup of water. Since it is tall, we store it on the door.
• *Greens – we always have some sore of leafy greens in the fridge and this week it is curly kale.
• Cauliflower – we steam this of Berry and add it to his food, he LOVES it.
• *Green Beans – we buy these in bulk so we store them in a bowl in the fridge.
• *Carrots
• *Zucchini
• *Celery
• Cucumbers
• Bell Pepper
• *Ginger
• *Leftover onion
• *Tomatoes – we store tomatoes on the counter but if they start to get too ripe or if we have a half that we need to put away, we pop them in the fridge in a reusable bag.
• Mushrooms – we buy these in bulk so we store them in a bowl in the fridge.

Beverages

• *Homemade nut or seed milk – we change it up depending on what nuts or seeds we have, but this week we made almond milk!
• *Store-bought almond milk – our favorite is the So Delicious Almond Cashew milk, it has minimal ingredients, nothing funky AND it’s good!
• Beer – we are huge beer lovers in this house so we make sure we are always stocked up! Our favorite local brand is Modern Times
• Svelte Cappuccino Protein Shake – This isn’t something that we drink often, just something fun Chris got in his Vegan Cuts Snack Box.
• Zevia – stevia sweetened calorie-free soda when we are craving a sweet and bubbly beverage.
• Good Belly Probiotic Juice
• *Kombucha

Leftovers

My #1 tip for leftovers is to keep them visible. This way they don’t get lost in the fridge and go bad before you are able to use them up. A few tips:

• Some people find it helpful to keep the leftovers at eye level so it is the first thing that they see. Our fridge isn’t too full so we still see them on the bottom shelf.
• Try using see through containers so that you can get a visual of the leftovers that you have without having to open them. I realized that Chris and I are less likely to use up our leftovers when they are in an opaque container. We have this Pyrex set from amazon and we love it!
• Some of what we have now: vegan chili, black rice, quinoa, steamed vegetables, chickpeas and homemade breakfast bars.

Specialty Products aka Faux Meats and Cheeses

These products are by no means a “necessity” when it comes to a vegan diet, they are just nice to have it we want to spruce up our meals a bit or make specific dishes.

• *So Delicious Mozzarella Shreds – we love using this for homemade quesadillas and pizza
• So Delicious Vegan Yogurt
• Tofurky Deli Slices – our favorite way to spruce up a sandwich!
• *Hummus – use this to spread into sandwiches, on toast, as a pasta sauce (watered down with almond milk), as a dip with raw veggies, in wraps, in pita pockets, etc.
• Vegan Sour Cream – use this to top vegan chili, tacos, burritos, etc., just as you would regular sour cream
• *Vegan Sausages (Field Roast Frankfurters) – we slice these up, add them to a pan with sautéed onions and garlic and serve them alongside Filipino garlic fried rice.
• *Tortillas – we love using these for wraps and keep them in the fridge when the package says to.

– What’s In Our Freezer –

Our Freezer is filled with a bunch of random things, so we just thought we would group them into one list since

• *Bread – our favorite brand is Dave’s Killer Bread and we store it in the freezer to preserve the bread. Quick tip: be sure to cut the bread into slices before freezing. When ready to use, just toast the bread in the toaster or oven and it will be perfect!
• *Sweets – we always have some sort of ice cream in our freezer. We currently have the So Delicious ice cream sandwiches and ice cream bars.
• Madame Shugah Gluten-free Cookies
• So Delicious Coco Whip – basically vegan cool whip, it is great on desserts!
• Filo Dough – leftover from a past recipe, still trying to figure out what to do with it!
• *Frozen Bananas for smoothies
• Stasher bags filled with – pretzel balls, tamales, frozen fruit and aloe vera frozen into cubes (we add them to smoothies)
• *Vegetable scraps (we save these to make vegetable broth)
• We also have a stash of items that we have saved for “a rainy day”: Frozen vegan sausages, BeLeaf vegan “fried eggs”, Cena Vegan Barbacoa, frozen vegetables, frozen soups, and frozen vegan fish sticks.

– What We Use to Store Our Food –

• • Pyrex Glass Rectangular and Round Food Containers
  • Pyrex Mixing Bowls with Lids
  • “Food Huggers” – reusable food savers that we use this instead of plastic wrap and it works well!
  • Stasher Bags – we use these in place of zip lock bags
  • Avo Saver – our favorite way to store our avocado !
  • Jars (we have jars from Kerr, Ball, and we have also reused jars from pasta sauces, pickles, nut butters, etc.)

We hope that this blog post helps and gives you a better idea of how we eat! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below and don’t forget to check out Samsung and their badass refrigerators!

Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by Samsung Home Appliances, but all opinions shared remain our own. page may contain affiliate links, which simply means that I earn a commission if you purchase through those links, but your price remains the same. Thank you for supporting Sweet Simple Vegan!