10 Pantry Essentials Every Rower Should Have

The 10 pantry essentials every rower should have are oats, porridge pots, pasta, pasta sauce, tinned tomatoes, malt loaf, honey, cereal bars, electrolyte mix and squash. Oats and pasta do most of the work, and if your budget only stretches to two items, buy those. The rest make it easy to eat around training when you are tired and short of time.

What each staple gives you

These are rough figures, rounded from typical UK labels. Treat them as a rule of thumb and check your own packet.

Staple	Portion	Rough carbohydrate	Best used
Oats	50 g dry	30 g	Before morning sessions
Porridge pot	1 pot	30 g	At work or in the kit bag
Pasta	100 g dry	70 g	Evening before hard work
Pasta sauce	Half a jar	15 g	Quick dinners
Tinned tomatoes	400 g tin	15 g	Stews and chillies
Malt loaf	2 slices	30 g	Bag snack
Honey	1 tablespoon	15 g	On porridge or toast
Cereal bar	1 bar	20 g	Emergency snack
Electrolyte mix	500 ml at 6%	30 g	Long sessions
Squash	1 glass	Varies	Drinking more water

1. Oats

Porridge made from oats is a reliable pre-training breakfast. It is filling, easy to digest for most people and can be made with milk or water. Add banana or honey for extra carbohydrate, or stir in a spoon of peanut butter for fat and a little protein.

For an early session, make overnight oats. Mix about 50 g of oats with yoghurt or milk and some fruit in a jar before bed, and leave it in the fridge.

2. Ready-mix porridge pots

These do not replace plain oats, but they are handy in a kit bag or at work. Add hot water or microwave with milk. Check the label, as some flavoured pots are high in sugar.

3. Pasta

Pasta is the classic carbohydrate base for the evening before a long or hard session. Cook a batch and use it across several meals, keeping it in the fridge for up to 48 hours. Wholewheat gives you more fibre, but many rowers switch to white pasta the evening before a race to keep the meal easy to digest. Our guide to meal prep for rowing shows how to batch it safely.

4. Pasta sauce

A jar of sauce turns pasta into a meal in minutes. Choose one with vegetables, and add tinned beans, grilled chicken or lean mince for protein. Check the salt: NHS label guidance counts more than 1.5 g of salt per 100 g as high and 0.3 g or less as low.

5. Tinned tomatoes

These are cheap and do a lot. Use them for sauces, stews and chillies with rice, potatoes or pasta. A tin of chopped tomatoes, a tin of beans and whatever vegetables you have makes a decent dinner for two or three people.

6. Malt loaf

This is a traditional rowing club snack: sticky, sweet, easy to carry and eaten with or without butter. It is a simple source of carbohydrate before or after training, and it survives being squashed at the bottom of a bag.

7. Honey

Honey is quick carbohydrate for porridge, toast or tea, useful when you need energy and do not want a heavy meal. It is still sugar, so use it around training rather than by the spoonful all day.

8. Cereal or granola bars

Bars are convenient, but some are mostly sugar. The NHS counts more than 22.5 g of sugars per 100 g as high, and many bars will pass that, which is fine around a hard session and less useful as a daily habit. Bars with oats, nuts and fruit tend to be more filling than those that are mostly syrup.

9. Electrolyte drink mixes or gels

These can help in sessions of more than about an hour, or when you are sweating heavily. A drink with about 6% carbohydrate holds 60 g per litre, so 500 ml gives you 30 g. Practise with them in training, not on race day, because some stomachs react badly to concentrated sugar. Our hydration guide covers when you need them.

10. Squash or cordial

Squash makes plain water more palatable, which helps you drink enough. Choose a low-sugar one for general drinking, and keep a small bottle in your bag.

Building meals from the list

Meal	From the pantry	Rough carbohydrate
Pre-training breakfast	50 g oats, honey, banana	70 g
Post-training snack	2 slices malt loaf, glass of milk	40 g
Quick dinner	100 g pasta, half a jar of sauce, added protein	85 g
Long session, per hour	500 ml electrolyte drink	30 g

The numbers help you judge a portion. A British Rowing recovery target of 1 to 1.2 g of carbohydrate per kg of body mass after training works out at 75 to 90 g for a 75 kg rower, so the snack above needs a proper meal soon after it. On easy days you need less. It helps to know which kind of session you are fuelling: why rowers do interval training explains the hard days, and how to increase your stamina on a rowing machine covers the steady ones.

For the wider picture, start at the nutrition hub. Long outings need more planning, and our guide to fuelling for long-distance rowing goes further.

If you have a medical condition, allergy or specific dietary need, ask a GP or registered dietitian before changing what you eat.