Your First Swiss Apartment: Stocking the Kitchen for Less

Moving into your first Swiss apartment? You can build a fully functional kitchen — the right tools and a solid pantry — for around CHF 300–400 if you shop smart. Skip the impulse buys, focus on what you will actually use, and lean on discount chains and loyalty programmes from day one.

What equipment do you actually need to start cooking?

The temptation is to buy everything at once. Don't. A handful of quality pieces will cover 90% of what you will cook in the first year.

The non-negotiables

• One large non-stick frying pan (24–26 cm)
• One medium saucepan with lid (2–3 L)
• One large pot for pasta, soups, and batch cooking (5–6 L)
• A chef's knife — one good knife beats a block of bad ones
• Cutting board (wooden or composite; avoid glass)
• A colander, a wooden spoon, a ladle, and a peeler
• A baking tray and an oven dish

Where to buy: Migros and Coop carry decent entry-level cookware. For cheaper basics — cutting boards, peelers, storage containers — check Aligro (if you have access), Otto's, or Landi. Ikea is a reliable fallback for pots and pans at fair prices.

How much should a first-kitchen equipment budget be?

A realistic target for essential equipment is CHF 150–250. This is achievable without resorting to poor quality that will need replacing in six months.

Check Facebook Marketplace, Ricardo.ch, and local Gratisinserate boards — many people sell lightly used kitchen equipment when they move. This can halve your equipment costs.

Which pantry staples should you stock first?

A well-chosen pantry means you can cook a real meal on a Tuesday evening without running to the shops. The goal is versatility: items that work across many recipes and have a long shelf life.

Dry goods

• Pasta (several shapes) and rice
• Lentils and tinned chickpeas or beans
• Oats for breakfast
• Flour and baking powder

Oils, condiments, and spices

• Olive oil and a neutral oil (sunflower or rapeseed)
• Salt, black pepper, paprika, cumin, oregano, chilli flakes
• Soy sauce, mustard, wine vinegar
• Tinned tomatoes — buy a case; they form the base of dozens of dishes

Fridge staples to rotate

• Eggs — one of the cheapest proteins in Switzerland
• Butter and a block of hard cheese (Gruyere or Emmental)
• Garlic and onions

According to foodwaste.ch, Swiss households throw away roughly one-third of the food they buy. Starting with a focused pantry — rather than a full sweep of the supermarket aisle — is one of the most effective ways to avoid contributing to that figure. See also how Swiss expiry labels actually work to use your pantry efficiently.

How much does a Swiss household spend on groceries — and how do you spend less?

The Bundesamt für Statistik (BFS) tracks household expenditure regularly. Food and non-alcoholic drinks account for a meaningful share of Swiss household budgets, with the average household spending in the range of CHF 800–1'000 per month depending on size and location — though single-person budgets can reasonably target CHF 300–450 per month with careful planning.

The three structural moves that reduce costs most reliably:

1. Shop the Aktionen. Coop and Migros each run weekly promotions. Planning even half your meals around what is on offer — through Supercard and Cumulus programmes respectively — adds up to significant savings over a year. See how to build a meal plan around weekly deals for a step-by-step approach.
2. Use own-brand ranges. M-Budget (Migros), Prix Garantie (Coop), and Lidl's standard own-brand range are consistently 20–40% cheaper than branded equivalents for staples like pasta, tinned tomatoes, and dairy. Quality differences are minimal for pantry goods.
3. Visit Lidl and Aldi for weekly staples. Lidl Plus (the app loyalty programme) offers additional discounts. For households near an Aligro or Prodega, wholesale buying of pantry staples makes economic sense once you have the storage space.

Related: what share of a Swiss salary goes on groceries puts these figures in broader context.

What are the smartest first meals to cook — and why does it matter?

The first weeks in a new kitchen set habits. If you rely on takeaway or ready meals while you "settle in", that pattern tends to stick and becomes expensive fast. In Swiss cities, a basic takeaway meal typically costs CHF 15–25. Cooking the equivalent at home rarely costs more than CHF 3–6.

Start with five reliable, cheap recipes that use overlapping ingredients:

• Pasta with tinned tomato and garlic
• Lentil soup (onion, carrot, lentils, tinned tomato, cumin)
• Fried rice with egg and whatever vegetables are in the fridge
• Omelette with cheese and herbs
• Roasted vegetables with rice or bread

These five meals can be made from the pantry staples listed above. Once you can cook them without thinking, adding variety is easy. Batch cooking on Sunday is the next step to reduce both cost and weekday effort.

How can Eini help when you are starting from scratch?

Eini's meal and grocery hub is designed for exactly this situation. Our algorithm scans current Aktionen at Coop, Migros, Lidl, Aldi, Denner, and other Swiss retailers, then suggests meals built around what is genuinely cheap this week — not just what looks cheap on the label. You can set a weekly grocery budget, get a shopping list optimised by store, and track what is already in your kitchen to avoid buying duplicates.

The app is freemium: core grocery and meal-planning features are available to get you started.