As we continue Dry Pasta Jan + our focus on pantry cooking, we’re bringing Noah Galuten – a James Beard Award-winner and #1 New York Times bestselling cookbook author– into our Pasta People fold.
Noah has become synonymous with home cooking that utilizes ingredient staples. His debut solo cookbook, The Don’t Panic Pantry Cookbook (AA Knopf, 2023), was inspired by his series, Don’t Panic Pantry, that launched during the early days of COVID when we were all, umm, panicking. Over its four-year tenure, Noah recorded hundreds of different videos with recipes that spanned from classics to dishes that encouraged viewers to reach beyond their comfort zones. Each was informed by his expertise as a chef and experience opening beloved Los Angeles restaurants like Bludso’s BBQ and Cofax, where he developed its cult-hit breakfast burrito.
Noah’s Instagram + digital platforms continue to be a source of approachable culinary wisdom – even when he’s filming alongside celebrated colleagues and chefs like Nyesha Arrington.
Today, he’s spilling his pantry’s secrets, along with the recipes you need to cook now.
Earlier this month, we opened up our cabinets and shared some of our pantry staples. What are your top ten, most-used ingredients? And what’s the most embarrassing item in your pantry?
Wow, well it changes a lot depending on what I'm working on, or obsessing over. But in general (and in no particular order):
1. Olive oil. I buy the largest amount of the best one I can find and then get deeply alarmed by how much olive oil is going through my family's bodies on a regular basis.
2. A good dried pasta, like the one from Flour + Water, which I wish was for sale in more grocery stores near me so I could impulse buy it more often.
3. Canned whole, peeled tomatoes. I love Chris Bianco's from Bianco di Napoli.
4. Smoked Maldon Salt — just a classy closer for a lot of food.
5. Soy sauce. Kikkoman is my everyday brand, but then I like to find smaller batch, more obscure ones too.
6. Granulated garlic. I use this a ton on grilled food that I want to add flavor to quickly. I also love it sprinkled onto mayo on a salami sandwich.
7. Good black pepper. Grinding good black pepper is delightful.
8. Whole oat groats from Hayden Mills in Arizona. Yes, I'm that dad who now hand-cranks my family's oats through a German oat flaker called a "flicfloc" every morning, and I can't recommend it enough.
9. Rancho Gordo beans. All of them, any of them, all the time. King City Pinks are my favorite bean of the moment.
10. Rice. I usually keep some short-grain Japanese rice and jasmine rice on hand at all times. I also love this Tamaki Haiga short-grain rice, a sort of half-milled rice that splits the difference between white and brown rice. It's nutty and nutritious but also takes on the textural characteristics of white rice.
Most embarrassing? All of the stuff buried in the back of the deep pantry that I've re-purchased because I didn't know it was back there, and now I have way too much of it. I'm talking to you, ketchup, chili crisp, mayo and mustard.
Your breakfast burrito at Cofax has become an essential LA dish. Beyond that AM icon, what recipe(s) are you most proud of developing?
I love writing recipes. I forget what I've made a lot too, but at the moment, I absolutely adore the Summer Heirloom Pasta Fazool from The Don't Panic Pantry Cookbook, because it takes all of the flavor of raw, perfect summer tomatoes, and infuses them with the flavor of cooked garlic and basil, and then just becomes the summer pasta and white bean soup of your dreams.
Walk us through your “Shift Notes.” What’s a day-in-the-life like for you?
These days I'm working from home writing cookbooks, so it fluctuates a lot depending on where I am on a given book. At this precise moment I'm working on my next cookbook for AA Knopf, so it usually involves waking up, trying to meditate before my kids wake up, then making everyone breakfast (freshly flaked oats!) and a Health Sludge smoothie, before getting my daughter ready for preschool. After drop off, I enjoy a cup of coffee with my wife or at my desk, write up the previous day's work, then get into the kitchen and try to develop some new recipes for the book. If I am very lucky, I develop a recipe that is great and ready in time for lunch; followed by another one that is ready in time for dinner. This is incredibly rare, but boy is it cool when it works out. After that it's family time, put the kids to bed, and then try to watch a movie before I fall asleep.
Your dad is a legendary, Grammy-winning record producer. What album is playing while you’re in the kitchen cooking?
My dad is very cool. When I'm cooking, I usually try to pick something that fits my mood at the moment. But if I'm just casually cooking for fun before people are coming over, sipping wine, there are few things more satisfying than Françoise Hardy's Tous le garçons et les filles.
What’s your go-to pasta recipe?
My go-to pasta recipe is a tough one. But it is probably one of three pastas in The Don't Panic Pantry Cookbook: pasta with broccoli and anchovy; spaghetti marinara; or pasta fazool. If I'm 30 and single and trying to impress a date, it's bombolotti all'amatriciana. (I’m now neither of the first two things, but still always trying to impress my wife.)