How I Preserve Food: Meals in a Jar

There are so many ways (and reasons) to preserve food (scroll to the bottom of this post to see a blogger round-up of tons of great food preservation posts). While most people think about canning or dehydrating when they think about food preservation, we wanted to touch on something a little different today. We are firm believers in having a fully-stocked “home store” not just for every day convenience, but also in case of a long term emergency situation. We blog about this a lot over at Food Storage Made Easy.

You can dehydrate or purchase freeze-dried/dehydrated single ingredients and store them on the shelf with the intention of making meals out of them. But how often do you actually put together a meal and try it out? Are you going to wait until there is an emergency before you realize you don’t have all the right flavorings to complete a meal? We can beat those battles by putting together Meals in a Jar! These jar meals are great for:

• Zero prep dinners on a busy night
• Quick and easy meal for someone in need
• Church or group activity to make a lot at a time and each take some home
• Make lots of jars to keep in your long term food storage as meals

Here is one of our favorite recipes converted to a meal in a jar. I’ll include some cute labels and conversions for doing big batches below.

THRIVE CHICKEN CHILI RECIPE

Ingredients
3/4 c. Freeze-Dried Chopped Chicken
1/2 c. Instant Black Beans
1/2 c. Instant Brown Rice
1/2 c. Freeze-Dried Sweet Corn
1/4 c. Freeze-Dried Chopped Onion
1/4 c. Freeze-Dried Green Chilies
1/4 c. Freeze-Dried Diced Tomatoes
2 T. Thrive Tomato Powder
2 T. Chicken Bouillon
1 tsp. Ground Cumin
1 tsp. Chili Powder
1 tsp. Garlic Powder

Instructions:
Add all ingredients to a quart-sized mason jar in order listed above. Add one oxygen absorber or seal the jar with a FoodSaver Jar Attachment. When ready to cook, bring 8 cups of water to a boil. Add ingredients and let simmer for 15-20 minutes. Delicious served with tortilla chips or cornbread.

To download labels for your jars CLICK HERE.

To make 15 jars of this recipe using Thrive ingredients (with some product left over on a few of the items) you would need to purchase the following products:
1 #10 Can Freeze-Dried Chopped Chicken
1 #10 Can Instant Black Beans
1 #10 Can Instant Brown Rice
1 #10 Can Freeze-Dried Sweet Corn
1 Pantry Can Freeze-Dried Chopped Onion
1 Pantry Can Freeze-Dried Green Chili Peppers
1 Pantry Can Freeze-Dried Diced Tomatoes (use a little less than 1/4 c. or else buy a #10 can)
1 Pantry Can Thrive Tomato Powder
1 Pantry Can Chicken Bouillon
1 large jar Ground Cumin
1 large jar Chili Powder
1 large jar Garlic Powder

Join us as we share different reasons and methods of how we preserve food to create a long-term storage plan for our families. Click on each link to be taken to a new blog with helpful information and tips.

Mom with a PREP – How to Dehydrate Ginger and Make Ginger Powder
Preparedness Mama – Make Jam Without Pectin
Mama Kautz – Dehydrating
Busy B Homemaker – Freezer Jam
Ed That Matters – Anyone Can Do It: Fool Proof Food Storage
The Apartment Prepper – Easy Marinated Mushrooms
The Homesteading Hippy – How to Use Your Pressure Canner
Montana Homesteader – Making and Preserving Cherry Pit Syrup
Are We Crazy or What – How to Dehydrate Cherries
Your Thrive Life – How I Preserve Food: Meals in a Jar
Melissa K Norris – Re-Usable Canning Tattler Lids-Do They Really Work?
Real Food Living – Preserve and Store Grains with Dry Ice
Cooke’s Frontier – Smoking
Homestead Dreamer – Water Bath Canning
Evergrowing Farm – How to Preserve Red Chile
Survival Sherpa – Modern Mountain Man MRE’s
The Backyard Pioneer – Fermentation
Trayer Wilderness – How We Preserve Food
Living Life in Rural Iowa – Vegetable Soup
The Organic Prepper – How to Make Jam without using added Pectin
Homesteading Mom – How I Preserve Broccoli and Goat Cheese Soup
A Matter of Preparedness – How I Preserve Using Mylar Bags

-Jodi Weiss Schroeder
http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net