The 2 Canned Goods That Ina Garten Swears By

Here’s a fun afternoon thought experiment: If Ina Garten were to take a peek into your pantry, what would she say?

• Upon sight of your collection of outrageous brownie ingredients: “Jeffrey’s going to love this!”
• After catching a glimpse of your salty snack selection: “Store-bought is fine!”
• Once she has rid your shelves of your “not-good” olive oil: “How easy was that?”

Now let’s zero in on your canned goods selection: Would your favorite staples earn Ina’s seal of approval too?

To determine this, we referenced the holy grail of all internet lists (Ina Garten’s personal list of 26 recommended ingredients) and thoroughly scanned it for some of our favorite shortcut products that require a can opener.

Here are two tried-and-true brands that Ina swears by, and therefore, we probably should too.

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking: We’ve already put Ina’s favorite canned “San Marzano” tomatoes on blast because they’re not the real deal. While we wish these San Marzanos were actually grown on small plots of land in the Agro Sarnese-Nocerino under Mount Vesuvius in volcanic soil, they still make a damn good weeknight Bolognese, so who are we to question them?

If you stock up on these canned tomatoes, you too can make Ina’s orecchiette with broccoli rabe, easy tomato soup and grilled cheese croutons, and her lasagna with turkey sausage.

As far as canned pumpkin goes, the fact that this is one of Ina’s favorites doesn’t surprise us in the slightest. A.) It’s 100 percent “pure” pumpkin, and Ina loves all things that are pure. B.) There have been known shortages of this particular brand of canned pumpkin, so you know it’s highly covetable.

Use this go-to ingredient to make Ina’s pumpkin spice cupcakes with maple frosting, pumpkin flan with maple caramel, and pumpkin roulade with ginger buttercream.

Do you keep either of these ingredients in your pantry?