Key Points:

  • The ingredients in Step 7 are all the necessary fats, oils, sugars, milk, and miscellaneous items that you need to put food storage meals and recipes together.
  • Purchasing these items when on sale, then rotating through your stored supplies can save you time and money.
  • Find ways to use these ingredients in your everyday cooking, start learning how to make things from scratch. Check out our “Using Your Long Term Storage” video for some ideas on how to do this.
  • Look at our article “What Can You Do With YOUR Food Storage” to see what additional items you can make by adding these items to your storage.
  • Determine the quantities of each food item you will need to store. For more information, see BabyStep 4.

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Fats and Oils:

  • Salad Dressings can be store bought and stored, or you can make your own oil and vinegar-based, or mayonnaise-based dressings with items you have on hand in your food storage. Be aware of expiration dates on store bought salad dressings.
  • Cooking Oil such as canola, or vegetable oil can be used in most bread recipes. Unless they have been specially treated, *unopened* cooking oils have a shelf life of about a year.
  • Shortening has a longer shelf life than oils, it is reasonable to expect an unopened metal can of shortening to have a shelf life of eight to ten years if kept reasonably cool, particularly if it has preservatives in it.
  • Mayonnaise can be used in baked dishes, pasta salads, salad dressings, and much more. Although it isn’t necessary to sustain life, it sure makes things taste better. Mayonnaise has a shelf life of 2-3 months.
  • Peanut Butter provides protein and monounsaturated fats (the good fat). Peanut butter has a shelf life of 6-9 months.

Sugars:

  • Powdered Fruit Drink comes in many different flavors and can be used in daily use and in times of emergency as stored water can have a funny taste. Powdered drink mixes can be stored for up to 3 years if unopened.
  • Brown Sugar can be used in many baked goods and even some bread recipes. It can be stored up to 6 months. Be careful to seal it tightly between uses if you have opened your sugar. Some people choose to store white sugar and molasses to make their own brown sugar to avoid dealing with shelf life issues.
  • Molasses and Corn Syrup are used as sweeteners in many recipes. Store according to your families needs. Molasses may be something you have never used, nor ever will use. If this is the case, don’t feel the need to store it. If you choose not to store brown sugar, you will want to store MORE molasses in order to make your own.
  • Flavored Gelatin is used in molded desserts and salads and to thicken cold soups.
  • Jams or Preserves is covered in Baby Step 8 (Fruits and Vegetables)
  • Granulated Sugar is used in almost all food storage recipes and is very important to store. Sugar has a shelf life of 20+years.
  • Honey is another sweetener found in a lot of food storage recipes. Honey is more expensive then sugar and usually acts as a substitute for sugar in breads. Some people feel it is healthier to use honey than sugar.

Powdered Milk:

  • Nonfat Dry Milk is much cheaper then regular milk. To make your nonfat milk taste better, try adding 1 tsp of sugar, and 1 tsp of vanilla to a gallon. This tip is from the author at everydayfoodstorage.net. She let us taste it at her house and it was actually GOOD!
  • Evaporated Milk can be stored in cans, or made from nonfat dry milk. To make a 12 oz can of evaporated milk from dry milk, mix 1-1/2 C. Water and 1/2 C. + 1 T. Dry Powdered Milk and blend very well. For more tips on using dry milk to make sweetened condensed milk and buttermilk click here.

Miscellaneous:

  • Baking Soda, Salt and Baking Powder are used in most recipes and if unopened have indefinite shelf lives. Definitely make sure to keep these ingredients on hand for your favorite recipes.
  • Active dry yeast is the form of yeast most commonly available to noncommercial bakers, as well as the yeast of choice for situations where long travel or uncontrolled storage conditions are likely.
  • Instant yeast appears similar to active dry yeast, but has smaller granules with substantially higher percentages of live cells. It is more perishable than active dry yeast, but also does not require rehydration, and can usually be added directly to all but the driest doughs.

Other Dairy (Optional):

  • Powdered Eggs can be used to create a lot of different recipes that will help you have variety in your diet in an emergency. They are also cheaper than regular eggs so rotating them into your regular cooking makes a lot of sense.
  • Butter can be purchased in powder or canned form. We don’t recommend canning your own butter due to health reasons, but commercially canned should be fine. Storing butter is not very cost effective so we don’t recommend storing a lot of it or making a large effort to rotate it into everyday cooking.
  • Sour cream is available in powdered form if it is something you really would miss if you were living in emergency circumstances. We don’t find it necessary but some people may wish to store keep a little on hand just in case.


Tools From Our Sister Sites at FunWithFoodStorage.NET:

EverydayFoodStorage.NET: Training Page on Cooking with Powdered Milk
EveryDayFoodStorage.NET: Traing Page on Cooking with Powdered Eggs
EveryDayFoodStorage.NET: Milk Conversion Chart
TheFoodStorageShopper.NET: Training Page on Buying Baking Ingredients

Online Resources:

Emergency Essentials – long term foods available in the store or online
Honeyville Food Products – purchase long term foods online

  • Very nice information and tips!
  • missjacki
    How long does yeast keep? It seems to me that it wouldn't keep very long...
  • ds1951
    Just saw that great tutorial on milk and saw the blurb on Magic Mix. How long will your Magic Mix (white sauce) keep in the fridge?
  • Thank you good information.
    I must to bookmark this page indeed.
  • lisafortner
    While in Wal-Mart over the weekend I saw something I have never seen or heard of before...powdered buttermilk. It came in a small can, just like shortening does. I thought that would be a good addition to the food storage closet.
  • Lisa, You can also make buttermilk by just adding one tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice to 1 cup of regular or powdered milk. This is what I like doing so I don't have to store a separate ingredient. Plus I NEVER have buttermilk on hand so it is WAY convenient!
  • lindasorden
    Great tip this one is going in my food storage notebook Thanks
  • Linda Sorden
    recently found an a rticle on the web that tells how to can butter here
    http://www.endtimesreport.com/canning_butter.html i had bever heard of that they call it sunshine in a jar :) what a nice thing to have on your shelves.
  • Linda, We have seen some stuff about canning butter before but have also heard that there are some safety issues with it so we haven't wanted to recommend it to our readers until we could research it more.
  • dorothysandaker
    Baking powder will lose its power over a relativly short period of time, but if you want to make your own BP just mix 2 Tablespoons of Cream of Tarter and 1 Tablespoon of Baking Soda. These two items will store indefinately. I wouldn't want to be with out them.
  • What a great tip. I never knew that baking powder wouldn't last very long, and I definitely didn't know the recipe to make your own. I've got lots of cream of tarter and baking soda on hand so this is great news for me! Thanks for sharing.
  • linzjen
    I have a container of canola oil that I bought at Costco a little while ago. It is not past the expiration, but has a darker coloring to it than when I first bought it. How do I know if the oil I have is bad? I'm affraid to use it. :)
  • HW
    I store powdered eggs, but they are more expensive in my area than regular eggs, so I only rotate when necessary. I don't think storing butter is necessary since most recipes you can substitute oil or shortening, both of which store well.
  • We don't rotate our eggs too often either. It's good to have for an emergency but not a huge benefit to rotating. We offer butter as an option because some people really enjoy having spreadable butter on their homemade bread so it could be a nice touch to have in an emergency. That's why they are under the "optional" section. Just things for people to think about.
  • Kim
    This is a great list. I would add a good selection of spices and spice blends too. With these you can really improve the flavor of pantry basics. Here is a link to some of my favorites:

    http://allaboutfoodstorage.com/?s=spices
  • Jodi -- Food Storage Made Easy
    Kim, we talk about spices and condiments as part of step 8. We kind of consider them comfort foods since you don't really NEED them but they sure are nice to have! We definitely agree that it is something people need to store!
  • Jennifer
    Tracy - There is a recipe for French toast using powdered eggs and powdered milk in the book 'Emergency Food Storage and Survival Handbook'.
    I'm not the author (nor do I get anything from mentioning the book), so I'm sure it would be bad of me to post the recipe - but it's on page 222 if you get the chance to buy it/look at it. The author ( peggy layton) also has a book spcifically about cooking with storage foods, but I don't have it or know if it's any good.
  • Tracy in Utah
    We try to keep about a case of powdered eggs on hand all the time and bake with them regularly. But, we dont know how to use the powdered eggs to make French toast. Any ideas? Thanks.
  • Jennifer
    Here is a website so that you can can your own butter: http://www.endtimesreport.com/canning_butter.html

    Michelle - You can use a dutch oven to bake some breads using chorcoals or fire. Just make sure to get the kind with the sunk lid for the coals. Also, here is a website for an ouside 'oven'/stove/canner that you can make yourself:
    http://www.omick.net/cooker/cooker.htm
  • Michelle
    Hope this doesn't sound ignorant, but how would you bake bread if you lost electricity? Unfortunately we don't have a gas stove. I am at a loss as to what I would do with these big bags of wheat/flour with no oven.
  • kdonat
    Michelle, I had similar thoughts as we aren't big bread eaters. Biscuits, pancakes, tortillas, and other "small" sized quick breads can be done in a covered skillet over some form of "canned" heat (buddy burner, alcohol burner), or use a solar oven . Another concern when the power is out is cooking items that will use the least amount of fuel to do the job.

    There are several sources for creating buddy burners (Girl and Boy Scout Handbook, You-Tube,), alcohol stoves, and solar ovens (mine started with the mylar type windshield reflector that you normally place on your car dashboard and other items from my kitchen).
  • Merry
    Try to find a good inexpensive solar oven. They work great!
  • Morning Sunshine
    hillbillyhousewife.com has some great recipes for dry milk: yogurt, cheese (including the cottage cheese Heather was looking for - it is under the heading for "curds and whey."), and hot cocoas.
  • Angel
    Along with the canned butter, there is dried butter in #10 cans. I have not tried it yet but it is something to look into for longer term storage.
    Gotta have butter for the bread right! :o)
  • Kristen
    My husband's family grew up drinking powdered milk. I gave it a go when we got married and we've found that if you add anywhere from 1/2 to a whole can of evaporated milk to a gallon of powdered milk, it makes it taste a little more creamy.
  • Liz
    You can substitute dry milk in most soft cheese and yoghurt recipes. Here is a recipe for a soft farmer's cheese: http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/Cheese/Far...

    Very easy to do, and tastes better than store-bought.
  • Heather
    An older sister told me she once took a class on how to make cottage cheese from her dry milk... unfortunately she couldn't remember the details. Do you have any info on making cheese from powdered milk?
  • John
    It seems that you are missing out on butter. I saw something called Red Feather Canned Butter, which is a big part of a lot of recipes and American cooking. I' m not selling the stuff, but if the power went out, I'd like to have the comfort of my favorite spread on my home made bread.

    Just be advised it's a bit pricey per case.
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