 I'm obsessed with these curry nuggets that are now dripping on my clothes which is lovely and now I will need to go wash my hands. Hi, I'm Nisha and I'm a vegan food blogger. You can find my recipes at rainbowplantlife.com. I teach home cooks how to make really flavorful, delicious vegan food and I live in San Diego, California with my partner Max. This is my fridge story. What does my fridge say about me? I feel like it says that I'm an organized person which is somewhat true and also somewhat misleading. My bedroom doesn't look like that. My closet doesn't look like that but my like work planner does look nice and organized. So like I'm messy in some parts of my life and I'm very hyper-organized in other parts of my life. So condiments always go on the first shelf. Sometimes they sneak into the second shelf like right here. Lots of yogurt dips and things like that go in the second shelf. This is the shelf where things just kind of go if they have no place and this larger shelf usually has like leftovers and things I'm cooking. This is my vegan meats drawer, meats and cheeses, lots of stuff in there and then produce produce. I keep a lot of store-bought condiments on this side of the fridge. One of my favorites is the tomato etcher which is like an Indian kind of chili sauce. Another thing I have here is Thai soy sauce. So obviously you can get regular soy sauce at the grocery store but if you're cooking a Thai specific dish or a Chinese specific dish or Japanese specific dish I think it's really worth it to go visit a local store if you have one because they are different than your standard supermarket soy sauce. I've been vegan for over five years. My partner however is not but he does have a few non-vegan things peppered in here like there's some regular butter in here alongside my vegan butter but I do all the grocery shopping so he gets what he gets. What vegan food items are people sleeping on? A lot of them. Deep fried tofu puffs, tofu cakes sometimes they're called. These are really really good in noodle soup so like a pho or a Thai noodle soup a Malaysian noodle soup. I don't know if people are sleeping on these I feel like they're pretty popular but the hot Italian beyond sausage is so good. Follow your heart feta These are really a good substitute for feta cheese and super affordable full fat oat milk. There are lots of oat milks out there I know that like everybody probably has tried oat milk but the full fat stuff is just way way way better. This is one of my most used vegan ingredients Miso paste it's obviously used in non-vegan food as well but a lot of times in plant-based cooking you're missing the umami so you don't get that from the animal-based foods the cheese is the meats that really strong savory meaty quality and umami is found in Miso paste and that's why I use it a lot so I use it in all kinds of things soups stews even things like mashed potatoes just a little bit to bring in that savory rich mouthfeel that you often miss in plant-based foods. My favorite item in my fridge right now that's tough because there are probably several this which is a tofu tikka masala that I cooked yesterday that I'm testing out for my youtube channel and it's really really good I think when you're eating plant-based food it's often easy to get into a rut and I feel like a really good condiment can just like bring your whole meal together. All right first things first preserved lemons I like using them in all kinds of things salad dressings sauces condiments they had a really unique zing to your food so I always have them in my fridge also pickled onions they add it's really nice pop of freshness and they balance other flavors and I really like the crunch from the onions. Another thing I love to do for meal prep even if I don't do like a formal meal prep is to have one or two really good sauces I call them everything sauces so the two I have in my fridge this week are chipotle aioli and cilantro pesto you can just like put it on pasta or even beans or lentils and it just like makes everything super flavorful and this one has cilantro instead of basil and lime juice instead of lemon juice I really like making chipotle aioli so it's really creamy it's smoky it's spicy so it's really good for tacos burritos burritos things like that. What's your favorite vegan condiment? Let me know in the comments. It's not even really a food item it's uh well you eat it but it's a cultured coconut probiotic that's like really really good for your gut and that is definitely the most expensive item in my fridge because it has to be like shipped from Canada. Another fancy item I have in my fridge these are locally made vegan cheeses from a company called Scratch House they sell them at my favorite pizza restaurant here in San Diego called Donna Jean. It's never really fall in San Diego because currently it's 80 degrees but I do have a Fall inspired treat in my fridge it's pumpkin bread I mean you can't really get more fall inspired than pumpkin bread it's got a vegan cream cheese frosting and some pumpkin seeds on top. A few tips if you are trying to stock your fridge and you are new to plant-based cooking one is that there are so many great vegan substitutes on the market butter like earth-balanced butter you can find at most grocery stores it's affordable and it tastes pretty much just like regular dairy butter I've got like five different vegan yogurts in my fridge and sometimes you just kind of have to experiment but that's also why there are food vloggers who share that kind of stuff this one is like the best it is pricey but it is so good and I will just eat it plain or with fruit when you go plant-based you're gonna be eating a lot more vegetables so why not make it fun and find new ways to jazz up vegetables in a way that maybe you haven't tried before I used to think I hated eggplant because the only version I really had was like super greasy way down eggplant parmesan but then I started buying like skinny eggplants these are Chinese eggplants or Japanese eggplants or even ones from the farmer's market and they get really nice and jammy and tender when you cook them down I like to store my fresh herbs especially the soft ones wrapped in damp paper towels like this so this is cilantro I've had it for a week and it still looks pretty good and I do that for parsley as well I don't think I have anything scary in my freezer because I've only lived here for a year I do have a large collection of ice packs which is just an indication of how often I injure myself oops I try to save vegetable scraps that I'm not going to use and eventually make vegetable broth so this is fennel stalks this is my mushroom bag which sounds like something that it is not it's just the little bits and scraps from mushrooms that I cook all the time and don't want to use in the actual dish but I don't want to throw them away I save these to make mushroom broth frozen cauliflower I would probably put it in like a curry or something where I just like need to add a little more extra veg so that tofu tikka masala I was talking about I have a little bit of it frozen here just so I can test it because I'll get questions from readers and viewers all the time like can I freeze this dish I don't really like the term guilty pleasures I try not to think of anything that's plant-based as bad or as good and I try to eat what my body and what my mind tell me to and what they're in the mood for and I enjoy my desserts and my pizzas but I also enjoy lots of vegetables and whole grains and so I feel like it all just kind of bounces out in the end I do have some frozen cookies in here because sometimes I will bake like three dozen cookies and they can't all be eaten at once some things I store in my freezer instead of my fridge or my pantry are big quantities of nuts and seeds because they do go rancid fairly quickly so if you're brand new to cooking Indian food at home and you just want to get a little introduction into what it's like I would really try my red lentil curry it's wholesome but it's really indulgent it's great with rice or any sort of flatbread it's a complete dinner and everyone really loves it all this talking has made me hungry so it's time for some pumpkin bread if you like what you saw today be sure to follow my channel on youtube at rainbow plant life whose fridge do you want to tour next let me know in the comments below and subscribe to the spruce eats for more fridge stories