Budget Friendly Meals From the Prepper’s Pantry

Fill your root cellar, pantry or kitchen cabinets with lots of canned goods and other long-lasting food staples. Image courtesy Shrewsberry from Pixabay.

Shop Your Pantry Recipes

I’m starting a new food and cooking section on The Creative Cottage blog. I’m calling it Oma’s Prepper’s Pantry and coming up with recipes that can be made by “shopping” ingredients in your own pantry and fridge. I came up with this idea a few months before the current COVID-19 Coronavirus health scare but it’s especially important now that social distancing rules are in effect.

Do you stockpile lots of perishable and non-perishable essentials at your homestead? Even canned goods go bad after awhile. The idea for this series came after I visited my mom in upstate New York one winter. FYI: my kid’s grew up calling her Oma (Nana was already taken and she felt too young for grandma, but that’s a tale for another time).

Oma’s a Food Hoarder

I couldn’t believe how much food my mom had stored in her laundry room, kitchen cupboard, freezer and refrigerator. She kept going to the local grocery store every day or two to buy more stuff because she thought she didn’t have anything to eat. But that wasn’t true.

I started going through all her cabinets and found tons and tons and TONS of food. Unfortunately some of the canned goods were WAY past their prime – even found a can of Campbell’s Cheddar Cheese Soup that was 8 years past it’s expiration date – YIKES! And don’t even get me started on the science experiments I found in her fridge and freezer.

Freeze-dried food is a great option for the prepper’s pantry. Image by CSU-Extension from Pixabay.

Keep Your Perishable Supplies Fresh

Anyhow, that got me to thinking that, even if you are a prepper and stockpiling food, it doesn’t have an indefinite shelf-life. You have to rotate your supplies and use everything before its expiration date. Think of it like keeping inventory fresh in a retail store environment – first in equals first out. Keep track of what you have, when you bought it, where you stored it and at least estimate a need to be consumed by date. You can use a simple spreadsheet, label maker, notebook or whatever method works for you.

So, after going through Oma’s stash of food, and getting rid of the really old, yucky stuff, I made a list of what she had in stock so I could start planning out some meals. The great thing is, a snow storm was predicted which meant we probably wouldn’t get to the store for a day or two so I started planning and creating meals with stuff she already had on hand.

Backdoor Survival has a great post on this very topic – Best Prepper Recipes: What to Do with Stockpiled Food so, I’m not the only person that was wondering how to keep your food stash fresh.

Oma’s Prepper Pantry Recipes

My mom can eat full-on gluten containing foods but for health reasons, I’ve recently started my own personal gluten-free journey. When I’m making a dish with pasta I usually make regular pasta for my guests and a gluten-free version for myself. For other recipes I try and sneak in gluten-free biscuits, bread, dumplings or whatever and see if anyone notices a difference.

Here’s a quick list of a few of the prepper pantry meals I’ll be posting up in the next few weeks and months. Once each recipe goes live on The Creative Cottage blog I will re-visit this post and add the links:

• Hearty Corn Chowder
• Classic Salad Nicoise
• Pasta with Puttanesca Sauce
• Three Bean Turkey Chili 
• Classic Green Bean Casserole
• Gluten-Free Blueberry Muffins
• Slow Cooker Pot Roast
• Roasted Red Pepper Bruschetta
• Quick and Easy One Pot Spaghetti
• Crunchy Egg Salad
• Mini Chicken Pot Pies
• Tuna Tomato Boats
• Spicy Tuna Wraps
• Tuna Noodle Casserole
• Tuna Melt Sandwiches
• Bell Peppers with Spanish Rice
• Easy Taco Salad
• Good Old Macaroni and Cheese
• Classic Tomato Soup with Grilled Cheese
• Grilled Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwiches
• Oven Roasted Root Vegetables
• Cinnamon Oatmeal with Dried Fruit
• Overnight Oatmeal in a Jar
• Cowboy Eggs – AKA Eggs in a Basket
• White Beans on Toast
• Loaded Sweet Potatoes 
• Mediterranean Salad
• Lemon Quinoa with Peas
• Delicious Vegetarian Buddha Bowls

The bonus of most of these meals is that they are easy to make and don’t cost a lot of money!

Do you have any great ideas for keeping your stash of perishable and non-perishable food supplies fresh and using up what you have on hand in various recipes and dishes?

Leave a comment on this post – I’d love to hear your ideas!