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So you’ve beefed up your home security, you’ve gathered plenty of emergency supplies, and you’ve stocked your pantry with lots of survival food. Now you’re ready to ride out the next disaster… Or are you?
Just because you have months or years worth of emergency food doesn’t mean you’re ready to live on it. Cooking without power is easier said than done, and it takes practice. So instead of cooking the fancy meals you love so much, you should focus on recipes that are simple and easy to make.
And since you probably won’t have a working fridge or freezer, they should be recipes that either don’t make a lot (so your family can eat it all in one sitting) or store well at room temperature. Here are 13 popular survival recipes that fit the bill.
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Bannock
Bannock, sometimes called skillet bread, is a round, flat unleavened bread that is associated with Scotland and northern England. Although you can adapt a bannock recipe for the oven, it is meant to be cooked in a skillet over a campfire or in a fireplace.
Ingredients:
- 4 cups of all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp. of salt
- 1/2 tsp. of baking soda
- 1 tbs. of sugar
- 1 3/4 cups of dried fruit
- 1 tsp. of chopped rosemary
- 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk
To learn more, here is how to make bannock.
Beans and Rice
Beans and rice is easy to make and it offers your family a complete meal in a survival situation. If you have bacon, you can add it for flavor and more protein.
Ingredients:
- Equal parts dry beans (such as Pintos, Great Northern or black beans) and rice (not quick-cook or instant varieties). pintos, great northern, or black beans)
- Salt and pepper (about a teaspoon per cup or to taste)
- Water (three times as much as you have of beans and rice)
Directions:
- Rinse the beans and let them sit overnight.
- The next day, bring beans to a simmer and let them cook for about two hours until they are starting to get tender.
- Add rice and cook for about another 30 minutes.
- If available, add spices or garlic to taste.
Biltong
Biltong is a traditional South African food that consists of dried and marinated meat. Whereas jerky is often smoked, biltong is cured with vinegar, salt, and spices, and then it’s air-dried. Also, you can make biltong from a large variety of cuts of meat.
Ingredients:
Here is the complete recipe for bitlong.
Corn Dodgers
Corn dodgers are basically just round bits of cornbread that you bake in an oven. They’re great with soup, stew, or gravy.
Ingredients:
If you’d like to make it, here’s how to make corn dodgers.
Dried Fruit
You can get many of the essential vitamins and minerals you need to stay healthy in a survival situation by eating dried fruit. In addition to canning your summer and fall bounty, why not consider frying some of it?
It’s a great everyday snack and it stores well for an emergency. You can use a dehydrator if you have one or you can use your oven. You also can dry fruits in the sun during an emergency situation.
Ingredients:
- Fruit of your choice
- 1/2 cup of lemon
- 1/2 cup of water
It’s fairly easy to make. Here is some DIY dried fruit.
Hardtack
Also called hard bread, ship’s biscuit and even tooth dullers, hardtack has been a survival food for many centuries. The Ancient Roman army had a version of the hard biscuit, and Admiral Nelson’s men had barrels of them on their ships. Here in America, we recognize hardtack from the many mentions of it Civil War letters, poems, and songs.
The basic recipe for hardtack always includes flour, water and perhaps a bit of salt or sugar. The resulting baked wafers have an incredibly long shelf life. Hardtack is, well, hard—and quite bland. That’s why soldiers and sailors would soak them in coffee, soup, or grease to soften them up and make them more palatable.
Ingredients:
- 5 to 6 cups of flour
- 1 cup of water
For more info, here is the full recipe for hardtack.
Hoover Stew
This recipe became popular in the early years of the Great Depression and was named after President Hoover. Many people blamed him for the fact that many foods and ingredients simply weren’t available in the stores, even if you had money.
However, the ingredients in this recipe were usually easy to find, so people combined them into a stew that is surprisingly good. If you can’t get any fresh hot dogs, you could replace them with Spam or canned Vienna sausages.
Ingredients:
- 16 ounces of macaroni or your favorite pasta
- 2 cans crushed tomatoes (15 to 16 ounces)
- 1 can sweet corn (15 to 16 ounces)
- 1 can pinto beans (15 to 16 ounces)
- 1 pack hot dogs (16 ounces)
- 1 tsp dried Italian herbs
- 1 Tbsp garlic, diced
If you’d like to try it, here’s how to make Hoover stew.
Jerky
Forget about those thin packaged versions you can buy at the supermarket or convenience store. They are filled with all kinds of unnatural preservatives. Homemade jerky is a high-protein, easy to make, and portable survival food.
You begin with strips of lean meat of your choosing – from beef to venison to other wild game – and then follow a simple process of marinating and then dehydrating. If you do not have a dehydrator, you may use an oven for drying. In fact, many people think oven-dried jerky has the best flavor.
Ingredients:
- Beef: Of course. It’s best to use a high-muscle low-fat cut.
- 1 cup wine, you can also substitute beer or soy sauce. Use what you have.
- 1 cup apple cider vinegar, you can substitute lemon juice.
- 2 tsp. sea salt, omit if you decide to use soy sauce.
- 1 head minced garlic, or at least 6 cloves.
- 1/4 cup brown sugar.
- 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce.
- 1/4 tsp. pepper.
- 1 tsp. dry mustard.
- 1 tbsp. liquid smoke.
- 2 tsp. spices, I used oregano and basil. You can use any standard garden spice (chives, parsley, turmeric, ginger, mint, rosemary…).
Here is the full beef jerky recipe.
Peasant Bread
Homemade bread is great, but it can be difficult and time-consuming to make. Peasant bread, on the other hand, is easy to make and doesn’t require any kneading at all. In fact, the whole preparation process takes less than an hour. That’s why it became so popular, especially during the Great Depression.
Ingredients:
- 3 cups of warm water
- 2 tbs. of sugar
- 1 tbs. of active dry yeast
- 1 1/2 tsp. of salt
- 3 cups of wheat flour
- 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
Here is our complete peasant bread recipe.
Pemmican
Created by Native Americans, pemmican is often called the ultimate survival food.
Its name comes from “pimi,” the Cree word for “grease” or “fat,” and traditional pemmican is made from deer, elk, bison or moose meat. Lean beef can work well too. A concentrated blend of fat and protein from lean, dried meat, pemmican has been known to keep for decades.
Ingredients:
- 2 pounds of bacon and a 1 pound of suet or beef tallow (beef fat) which should give you about a cup of rendered fat
- ¼ pound (4 ounces) of jerky
- The remaining crispy, fried bacon from your rendering
- 1 cup of raisins
- 1 cup of craisins (dried cranberries)
- 1 cup of peanuts
- ¼ cup of honey
- 1 teaspoon of Kosher salt
If you’d like to try it, here’s how to make pemmican.
Ration Bars
You also can make your own ration bars to have on hand in an emergency. They’re not the tastiest food, but they are calorically dense with lots of fat and protein. The energy they provide will keep you going all day.
Ingredients:
If you’d like to try them, here’s how to make emergency ration bars.
Spotted Pup
Spotted pup is a type of rice pudding that was popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It’s not just sweet—spotted pup is very filling, making it great for breakfast as well.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups cooked rice
- 1 1/3 cups milk
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 1 tbsp butter
- 2 eggs beaten
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup raisins or dried fruit
If you want to try it, here’s how to make spotted pup.
Survival Soup
If you’ve stockpiled a lot of rice and beans, this is the recipe for you. It combines rice and several types of beans to create a rich and filling soup.
Ingredients:
- 8 oz (1 cup) of rice
- 2 oz (1/4 cup) of red kidney beans
- 2 oz (1/4 cup of lentils
- 2 oz (1/4 cup) of split green beans
- 2 oz (1/4 cup) of chickpeas/garbanzo beans
- 2 oz (1/4 cup) of black beans
- 8 cups of water
- 5 packets of beef bouillon
If you’d like to learn more, here’s how to make survival soup.
Conclusion
As you consider survival food preparations, here are some important factors to keep in mind:
- Price
- Nutritional content
- Caloric content
- Minimum one-year shelf life
- No refrigeration required after opening or single-serving sizes to reduce spoilage
- Minimal cooking requirements – Heat and eat or just open and eat
- Ingredients and flavors your family already likes (an emergency is not the time to experiment with new things if you don’t have to)
Rather than waiting for a disaster before making these survival foods, why not go ahead and make them now? Most of them will last months, if not years, and will be ready to eat when you need them.
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