Author of How to Prep When You’re Broke and Bloom Where You’re Planted online course
There are tons of charts out there that will tell you how many calories your family might need when you rely on your food pantry, and they can be very helpful. But sometimes, translating that into actual meals is a little bit tricky. After all, you don’t want to end up eating canned peaches, tuna fish, and french-fried onions for dinner. It’s important to create meals, not just stash food.
Here’s a way to work on building your food supply so that you’re sure to have balanced meals that your family will enjoy.
I like to create meals
This may not sound exactly groundbreaking, but my favorite way to build and maintain my food supply is by building MEALS, not simply stockpiling random foods.
Here’s an example.
A favorite meal of ours is a pot of chili with a loaf of homemade bread. The basic ingredients fresh are:
- Ground beef
- Can of crushed tomatoes
- Can of pinto beans or kidney beans
- Bell pepper
- Onion
- Spices
- Flour
- Yeast
- Sugar
- Salt
- Water
So, if I wanted to make the same meal shelf-stable, I’d replace the ground beef, the bell pepper, and the onions with freeze-dried versions. These can be acquired already freeze-dried – you can get ground beef, bell pepper, and onion in #10 cans. But to save more money and still get the same great flavor, I generally use dehydrated peppers and onions. I either dehydrate it myself or buy it already dehydrated. You can also pressure-can ground beef to use in recipes – the instructions are in this book.
Obviously, the ingredients above can be used in more than just chili – they’re also prime ingredients for spaghetti sauce, sloppy joes, and many more meals.
Plan an emergency food menu
You can plan a menu to base your stockpile around using your family’s favorite meals as inspiration. When you’re cooking, think about how you could translate what you’re making into a shelf-stable meal.
- Could you make it ahead of time and pressure can it? (I explain how to safely can your own recipes here.)
- Could you substitute the perishable ingredients for shelf-stable ones using freeze-dried or canned goods?
- Are there any meals that highlight beans as the protein source that your family loves? That’s a thrifty way to make a shelf-stable meal. Think about baked beans, black bean enchiladas, minestrone, Cajun red beans and rice, lentil casserole, chickpea curries, and more.
Try to come up with 10-20 favorites that you can use in a rotation at a time you’re relying on your pantry.
Now, break it all down.
- Write down your favorite recipes, including quantities, and note how many servings YOUR family gets from this meal. I never go by what the cookbooks say for the number of servings – I base it on what my family actually eats.
- Next, review the recipe and determine how to make it shelf-stable. Canned goods (either home or storebought), alternative proteins (like beans instead of meat), freeze-dried food, and dehydrated goods are all options.
- Calculate the ingredients you need, then break it down into the number of meals it will provide for your family.
Remember, you won’t be using an entire #10 can of freeze-dried beef for one meal. Freeze-dried beef in a #10 can will make the equivalent of 22 four-ounce servings of ground beef. So that can will be able to be used for multiple meals.
When you put your goods away, you can group them into ingredients for meals or put them into categories. But if you’re building your pantry by creating meals, it’s very important to keep a running inventory and replenish as needed. You don’t want to use up all your canned crushed tomatoes during good times and leave yourself lacking during bad times.
Here’s what it might look like if you were grouping it by meals. Using a cardboard box, add:
- #10 can of ground beef
- 12 cans of pinto or kidney beans
- 6 cans of crushed tomatoes
- Packets of dehydrated onions and bell peppers
With that, you’ve got approximately six pots of chili. If you want, you can write the name of the meal and the number of servings on the outside, and you can even print off the recipe.
Create meals to organize your existing supplies
Before you drop huge amounts of cash, go through your existing supplies and group them into meals. You’ll probably find that you’re missing some important ingredients for most meals, but by grouping things together ahead of time, you’ll be able to easily fill in those gaps just a little bit at a time.
Maybe you need some freeze-dried or canned chicken to go into your famous chicken-rice casserole.
You might not have enough split peas to go with your shelf-stable smoked pork for multiple batches of soup.
Are you short on seasonings? Veggies? Protein?
By breaking things down into meals it will be very clear what you need.
There are a lot of different ways to build a pantry.
You may have a different theory for pantry building, and that’s absolutely fine – we should all do what works for us. I don’t rely solely on creating meals, but it’s a big part of my strategy. I love that it provides some comfort and continuity and it also helps me to focus my dollars and efforts in a way that I know my family will enjoy. If you’re looking for more pantry-building ideas, check out this article.
Do you have any shelf-stable meal ideas to share in the comments? Do you build your pantry meal by meal, or do you go about it differently?
Let’s discuss it in the comments section.
About Daisy
Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging, adventure-seeking, globe-trotting blogger. She is the founder and publisher of three websites. 1) The Organic Prepper, which is about current events, preparedness, self-reliance, and the pursuit of liberty; 2) The Frugalite, a website with thrifty tips and solutions to help people get a handle on their personal finances without feeling deprived; and 3) PreppersDailyNews.com, an aggregate site where you can find links to all the most important news for those who wish to be prepared. Her work is widely republished across alternative media and she has appeared in many interviews.
Daisy is the best-selling author of 5 traditionally published books, 12 self-published books, and runs a small digital publishing company with PDF guides, printables, and courses at SelfRelianceand Survival.com You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter.
I have 3 gal buckets( bakery frosting buckets) of dry beans, white rice, and pastas. On the shelves are pints of home canned milk, butter, ground beef, tiny meat balls, half chickens I raised(split chicken lengthwise in half and it fits a quart jar that is well filled) add 2 teaspoons of chicken bullion and fill to the neck of the jar with hot water.) process by directions for your altitude, pints of pressure canned ham ready for a pot of beans- split pea soup, deviled ham on sourdough sandwiches or diced into a pot of white gravy for biscuits and gravy, pork patties lightly fried and seasoned in a chicken broth and stacked into wide mouth quart jars( can be fried a bit and serve with mashed potatoes and gravy made with the liquid from the jar), soups and thicker stews that can be stretch with pasta or rice or stews served over rice or mashed potatoes, I sometimes can tomato pasta sauces with chunky veggies and ground or finely diced meats, and lots of soups are ready to heat and eat unless you need to stretch them with a starch. I have powdered eggs, dry milk, and freeze dried veggies. I’ve made lots of applesauce plain and with cinnamon, winter squash purée seasoned ready to add milk and egg for pie filling or to add to wintertime soups. I’ll can potatoes or sweet potatoes before loosing them to too long in the cool room. Onions and garlic or chives are stored two ways, braided and hung or diced and dehydrated. Chili spices and other seasoning blends are dehydrated then powdered and blended to what I’ll use in cooking. I even do an omlet blend that is simply added to eggs and a bit of milk or cream and scrambled. My pantry is made to fit my easy cooking style and love of multiple herbs for seasonings. I grow and hang a lot of things to dry from the rafters of my little garden shed. I keep a coffee grinder for herbs only and a separate one for coffee. I buy little cloth drawstring bags for seasonings and for teas. I wash and reuse many for just me. I have some larger ones for bouquet garni or for bay leaves that cook in liquids then are removed. I’m continually adding more perennial edibles and medicinals to the flower beds, hillsides, and garden. In my head those count as part of the pantry. I also make sun dried jerkey, as do my native neighbors. It is done during the hottest part of summer. Corn is saved from the garden as raw dry seed, dry roasted ears for adding to soups, raw dried for popping, and some dried and hung in a dry place still in the husks for tomallie making later. Peppers are dried green or red and some of the hotter ones are hung to keep as ristras to cook from in the kitchen or pantry. Bell peppers and onions are diced and dehydrated then stored in vaccumn sealed jars and part of the onions are powdered. Chives are dried on window screens in a shaded but hot place then stored in jars also. Garlic is stored in the ground, dried diced for cooking and in whole cloves to powder. It’s all with easy meal preparations in mind. I might wish for a freeze dryer but I’m getting along just fine with a dehydrator I sometimes use and air drying many things. Dried fruits are often added to chicken and rice dishes or rehydrated for simple deserts.
Im now growing blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, huckleberries, blueberries, grapes, red and black currents, gooseberries, sambuccas , crabapples, apples, peaches, pears, cherries, quince, and more. Ready to plant are natives persimmons, paw paws, and others I’m trying out here. I have a dozen hazelnut bushes growing. And even two supposed to be cold hardy olives and Chicago figs. I tried brown figs but we are a bit too cold for them even though they were sold as being for this zone. I planted my hardy Pom granite in a large pot so it can be brought inside for winter.
I’m looking for more chickens and rabbits this spring. My hens except three are getting old. My last two rabbits died of old age this winter. They were over 10 years old and not breeding anymore but were my pets.
Great ideas! It seems that I’ve focused solely on individual items and not actual meals that we eat. This would likely cause me to fall short on some freeze dried or dehydrated items. Once I get my recipes together I think I’ll take it a step further and put the ingredients together in jars with the recipe printed. One of our fave recipes is lentil tortilla soup which could easily be pre measured into jars.
Clergylady-Wow! That’s an impressive list!
My favorite shelf stable recipe:
1) malted barley grain
2) hops
3) yeast
What..? Beer is food.😁
Dear Jim,
We need preppers like you in Venezuela.
Stay tuned and keep safe.
Jose.
This was a good article. I’m putting a lot of food aside but need to focus on your ideas of actual meals. With this article you’ve gotten me interested now in pressure canning, so far all I’ve been doing is water bath. Thanks for inspiring!
Lori H
I thought when I first used my pressure canner it would paint the walls with items I had inside. It has taken time for me to adjust from water bath to pressure canning. It is such a blast now that I probably would can everything! My problem is where would I store all of this food in the jar. I have only been doing this for less than a year, and I started after the age 65+.
I have learned from U tube videos, using them as my teacher. I have put up butter, milk, half & half, meat. Did a type of stroganoff in the canning jar. My one niece said it was not spice enough, well it was my first attempt at this type of meal & they were my test subjects.
I use this canner as it is the easiest to learn ‘how to can correctly’. The Presto is easy to use, and I am teaching my youngest niece how to use it. I have the other one, it is in the hall closet maturing lol.
Bottom line is knowing how to cook. You don’t need to be a gourmet chef, just able to good tasty meals for you and whoever.
I think this is a great strategy for folks struggling with what to store. My food storage consists of ingredients, basically meal components because I’m one of those people who can throw together meals based on what I have. I am creative that way BUT I still tend to store basics. We can up our yearly garden produce and buy some things in bulk. Keep up the storing folks, we are gonna need it!
Dear Melissa,
After quite some time of being single, I am one of those who can be creative to throw together meals with whatever I have in the fridge. I have even surprised myself :D.
So my wife and I are getting tired of looking at our canned prep goods on our shelves. Even though we rotate them and rotate the cans upside down, down side down twice/year, we’re just tired of looking at a wall of cans. Also, were using a lot of our freezer beef, lamb, pork and poultry.
We have made a double stovetop meal almost every night for the past two weeks and pressure canned everything for fast meals through the fall and winter as that is our busiest time of year in our shop. This way it’s easier for my elderly father to just grab a meal for one on the wall pantry in a pint jar if we are still working.
I do the cooking and she does the sterilization and canning. So far we have made 24 quarts of different pasta sauces, 16 pints of NY style marinara, 24 quarts of turkey broth, 36 quarts of beef broth, 12 quarts of chili, 7 pints of chili, 6 quarts of beans and bacon, 16 quarts of turkey, 7 pints of turkey, 12 quarts of Hungarian beef goulash, 4 quarts of Hungarian veal goulash, 12 quarts Hungarian lamb ragout, 14 pints of sloppy joe, 6 quarts of bbq brisket, and 4 quarts of pork chops.
It’s a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. We’re waiting for the pressure cooker right now to load a new batch of baked beans. It’s satisfying to see the preps getting used and not collecting dust.
Nice article Daisy, Been trying to get my house in order. Been getting the basics for the past few yrs. Have been dehydrating, pressure and water bath canning. Have been using and rotating my stored items. Learning new recipes, keeping the ones we like and stocking up accordingly. Did well with our garden this year with the usual tomatoes, bell peppers, zuccinni, cucumbers, egg plant, and varies herbs/spices. Will take your suggestion and fill in the gaps to be able to make more meals with my pantry.