🫙
Cook the Bulk Aisle: A Menu From the Bins at Dill Pickle Food Co-op
One trip to the bulk section at Logan Square's Dill Pickle Food Co-op covers the backbone of 90+ dishes on our menu. Here's the staple-by-staple map, with recipes for every bin.
The bulk aisle at Dill Pickle Food Co-op in Logan Square is the cheapest organic pantry in Chicago — if you know what to do with the bins. This page is the map: nine staples, and for each one the dishes on our menu built around it. Fill a cart once and 136 of our 152 recipes are within reach.
Bulk-aisle basics: bring clean jars (get the tare weight at the register first), buy small amounts of anything new, and check price-per-pound against the packaged shelf — bulk usually wins by 30–60%. Dry beans and grains keep for months in sealed jars.Rootful is an independent recipe site — we feature Dill Pickle because we shop there, not because of any affiliation.
Lentils (red, green, brown & black)
The best protein-per-dollar in the store. Red lentils collapse into soups and dal; green and brown hold their shape in salads and wraps; black (beluga) are the fancy ones worth it for a wellington.
26g proteinMushroom Walnut Bolognese
25g proteinCrispy Red Lentil Waffles
24g proteinMushroom Lentil Sloppy Joes
Chickpeas
Buy dry, cook a big pot, freeze in 1.5-cup portions — the texture beats canned and the sodium is zero until you add it.
24g proteinBuffalo Crumbles Bowl
23g proteinWest African Peanut & Sweet Potato Stew
23g proteinLoaded Hummus Dinner Plate
Black, white & kidney beans
The burrito-bowl and soup backbone. Dry beans from the bin cost roughly a third of canned.
30g proteinChipotle Tempeh Burrito Bowl
30g proteinMojo Pulled Tempeh Bowl
24g proteinBlack Bean Breakfast Burrito
Rolled & steel-cut oats
Breakfast for a week from one scoop: overnight jars, baked oatmeal, power bars, granola.
24g proteinHemp & Blueberry Overnight Oat Jar
24g proteinBlack Bean Meatballs in Yellow Pepper Cream
23g proteinSmoky Black Bean Burger
Brown rice, quinoa & farro
The bowl grains. Quinoa is a complete protein; farro brings the chew; short-grain brown rice does breakfast, sushi bowls, and sticky rice alike.
40g proteinHot Maple Crispy Seitan
30g proteinChipotle Tempeh Burrito Bowl
30g proteinMojo Pulled Tempeh Bowl
Buckwheat, amaranth & polenta
The underrated bins: gluten-free pancakes, ancient-grain porridge, and grits worth crisping.
28g proteinBlackened Tofu over Creamy Corn Grits
21g proteinSavory Spinach Mushroom Crêpes
17g proteinCreamy Polenta Breakfast Skillet
Nuts & nut butters
Walnuts for bolognese, cashews for every cream sauce on this site, almonds for ricotta, peanuts for the sauces you'll want to drink.
38g proteinLemon Dijon Seitan
31g proteinTofu Rockefeller
27g proteinSpicy Peanut Ramen with Crispy Tofu
Seeds: hemp, chia, flax, sesame & pepitas
Small scoops, outsized returns — protein toppers, egg-replacers, puddings, and crunch.
40g proteinRefuel Rice Bowl with Seared Tofu
28g proteinCrispy Orange Sesame Tofu
27g proteinCocoa Cherry Recovery Smoothie
Dates & dried fruit
Nature's binder for no-bake bars — and every one of our recipes shows a stevia swap if sugar isn't your friend.
20g proteinApricot Chickpea Tagine
16g proteinAlmond Date Power Bars
15g proteinCarrot Cake Overnight Oats
One cart, one week
A practical starter run: a pound each of red lentils, chickpeas, and brown rice; half a pound of oats, quinoa, walnuts, and cashews; a scoop each of hemp and chia. That single trip covers breakfasts (overnight oats, quinoa porridge), lunches (lentil soup, chickpea caesar), and dinners (walnut bolognese, chana masala) — every one organic, under 500mg sodium, with the protein itemized on the card.
Produce, tofu, and tempeh round out the cart from the coolers a few steps away. Browse the full menu with the nutrition printed on every card, and if you want new bulk-aisle dishes weekly, the newsletter is free.
Keep reading
- 💪 Where Do Vegans Get Protein? A Complete Answer, With Receipts
- 🧂 Low Sodium Vegan Meals: Why We Cap Every Dish at 500mg
- 🍃 Sugar-Free Plant-Based Cooking: The Stevia Playbook
- 🫘 Is Soy Bad for You? The Tofu Question, Answered With Studies
- 🚿 How to Wash Pesticides Off Produce (And What Washing Can't Do)
- 🏋️ Do You Need Meat for Protein? The Fallacy, the Trial, and the Strongman
- 🥛 How to Make Tofu From Scratch: Soy Milk, Coagulants, and the Press
- 🧈 Make Your Own Soy-Free Tofu: Chickpea, Red Lentil, Pumpkin Seed & Hemp
- 🥡 High-Protein Vegan Meal Prep: A Week Above 25g Per Meal