I’m getting really tired of my food expiring before I make anything with it, and I want to quit buying anything that can’t be frozen or last several months in the cupboard.
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Here’s one that’s lazy, pretty much foolproof, and uses all canned food from the pantry. (If you know what it’s called, good for you.)
- Add oil to stockpot, put in anchovies, dried red pepper, and garlic, fry it up a little bit until it smells good.
- Add in a can of crushed tomatoes, drained olives, and caper. Boil, then simmer.
- Cook some spaghetti to al dente(approximately 6-7 minute, SALT THE WATER, DON’T OIL THE WATER)
- Drain the pasta and mix into sauce, add olive oil and Parmesan to taste, serve.
Seems like a pretty good dish, I’ll have time to try it some time. Thanks for the suggestion!
Oh yes! Puttanesca is the only time I’ll eat anchovies. This is a tasty dish.
Beans and rice, and dry spices, countless varieties of beans and even rice will keep the dish from feeling stale and samey.
Not specific answers for recipes, more of here’s some fundamental ideas look online, so for example if I said flour, water, yeast, salt that is bread. Remove yeast you have crackers. Add baking soda you have soda crackers. Add olive oil, you have pizza dough exct.
Flour
Water
Beans
Oats
Nuts
Wheat Gluten
Oil
Dried fruit
Dehydrated vegetables
Sugar
Salt
Rice
Oats
Peanutbutter
Jelly
Tyme or other spices
Lentils
Corn meal
Baking soda
Vinegar
Baking powder
Yeast
Coffee
Tea
Dehydrated meat?
Now, I don’t know your situation but if you need food and you are in a financial bind not just looking for stuff that doesn’t expire. Check out your local food bank/pantry. There’s no shame in that.
Personally I do a lot of canning and foraging for things. So food storage is pretty important. I don’t buy a lot of groceries. There are a lot of options for long lasting food, but too many to share.
I definitely would look up homesteading and some recipes from that.
Ah, I’m not doing this because of money or anything. I’m just getting frustrated whenever I buy an onion for a recipe, and it goes squishy before I can actually cook the thing. If I can get rid of all the stuff like that from my diet, then I’ll be happy.
Thanks for the homesteading suggestion, though. I’ll keep that in mind when I’m searching for recipes online. That community might also have some nice tips for how to live like this.
Try dehydrated onions.
Canned milk, jarred tomato sauce or pesto, pasta, frozen vegetables, frozen shrimp or chicken. Cheese lasts a while and you can put it in the freezer if you don’t care about texture (such as for cheese sauce). Whole wheat pasta is a while grain and decently healthy and significantly more filling than white pasta. You can make white sauce or mac and cheese with the canned milk.
Most meat can be frozen when packaged without fair (look for tubes instead of flat packages). Flash frozen vegetables are pretty good. You can also portion and package meats for the freezer yourself, it just takes a while and you may want to get a vacuum sealer.
Dry whole grains and dry beans or legumes are the good basis for vegetarian diets, and together will make a whole protein. Just don’t forget B12 or also eat meat. Both whole grains and legumes go bad after about a year on the shelf but will last much longer in the fridge or freezer (depending on how bulk you are buying). Oils will also go rancid eventually, especially olive oil or sesame, I keep those in the fridge too but they will last a few years like that.
I want to note that non-whole grains last longer, such as white rice or white flour, due to the oils and proteins (and most of the nutrients) removed.
Soups and stews can be made in advance, portioned for a few meals and frozen. You can use meat, beans, canned tomato for chili. Lentil soup doesn’t always need much else aside from stock and seasoning.
If you make or buy fresh bread, you can let it completely cool, then slice it, then put it in as air tight a bag as you can and freeze it. This is great for toast but not as great for sandwiches. You can do the same with bagels, defrosting them in the microwave until still cold and then put them in the toaster. Frozen bagels make for decent sandwiches, maybe because they are already supposed to be chewy.
A soup portion with a side of grain or bread is pretty filling and delicious.
You can probably freeze Burger buns and treat them as I’ve described bagels, using them for burgers. Pickles are jarred and last a long time in the fridge.
“American cheese” lasts a very long time in the fridge. Unwashed eggs lasts about a month out of the fridge and a few months in the fridge. Use some frozen sausage for breakfast sandwiches.
Frozen vegetables usually have a slightly cooked texture, so cooking them is better. Roasted broccoli or cauliflower from frozen is pretty good. Served with a side of beans and rice with a baked chicken breast from frozen and that’s a big delicious healthy meal. Don’t forget to season and maybe use hot sauce.
Thank you! That’s so much useful info! I’m definitely saving this comment for later.
Chickpea curry is made entirely with pantry items and is very delicious. You can throw in non-pantry items if you have them but they are not necessary
https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a57629/chickpea-curry/
Spam musubi is a popular snack in Hawaii that’s also entirely pantry food. I love spam but not everyone does; if you want pantry meals though chances are you would be okay with it.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/49785/spam-musubi/
Obviously canned soups are a good pantry meal source, no special recipe there
Flaked ham or tuna cans with Mayo & relish (or chopped celery if you have them) are delicious to eat on any type of crackers
https://www.food.com/recipe/simple-ham-spread-397918
That’s what I can think of for now haha
Those are some great suggestions, thanks!
Vegetarian chili. Chick peas, various beans, tomatoes, and a jar of spaghetti sauce. Get some frozen precut onions and sweet corn, or whatever you’re into. Good standby meal, takes 20 minutes to put everything together and it tastes even better left over.
Season with garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, and chili powder. Add a little brown sugar (or white) as well to cut the acidity.
That sounds pretty good! I’ll save your comment for later, so I can try it sometime. Thanks for the suggestion!
Lentil soup. The only fresh ingredient is the greens (and you can freeze them to use later). The finished soup can be frozen.
2 cups black beluga lentils (or green French lentils), picked over and rinsed
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
1 28- ounce can crushed tomatoes
2 cups water
3 cups of a big leafy green (chard, kale, etc), rinsed well, deveined, finely chopped- Boil the lentils for 20 minutes, drain and set aside.
- Saute the onion until soft
- Add everything else except for the greens; bring to a simmer
- Stir in the greens and cook for another couple of minutes
- Adjust seasoning
Looks interesting! Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll save the comment so I can try it out someday.
1/2 cup rice
1 cup water
1-2 cups misc frozen veg and frozen cooked meat (e.g. sandwich ham)
stock cube and/or spices
Stick the water and frozen stuff in a pan and bring to the boil, stick the rice in and bring back to the boil with the lid on, boil for one minuite and turn the hob off/take off the heat and don’t move the lid. Don’t touch it for fifteen minuites. Fluff and serve
That sounds great! Thanks!
You can replace the rice with 1 cup of couscous, but you need more spices as it’s rather bland otherwise
Thankfully most spices are shelf stable so as long as you find some spices you like you’re also good for years. I personally couldn’t live without cumin or garlic powder.
They will go stale and lose potency, but yeah they’re not gonna go mouldy or anything for the most part
b e a n s
Boil ‘em,
mashbake ‘em, stick ‘em in a stew…
Vegetarian chili - canned or dry beans and lentils, tomato sauce, canned veggies if you want. It’s versatile enough that you can make it differently every time.
Sounds great! I’ll try it sometime
Casseroles are what you want for the long shelf life plan. Most are ground meat and canned/frozen vegetables/soup. Most also freeze well, so you could pre make and reheat them when you want them, especially if you don’t want to spend a week eating the same casserole. You can get a bit more variety than just pasta and sauce or Mac and cheese this way.
Most every ingredient in bread (cake, cookies, pancakes, etc) can be stored long term if you want to just make bread when you need it, but that is a lot of effort.
I hadn’t thought of that, but that makes sense.
Chilli con carne:
- chuck frozen mince in a pot with some oil & spices
- chuck in a tin of chopped tomatos
- chuck in some frozen veg
- chuck in some tomato puree
- chuck in more spices
- simmer for like 15-20 minutes
- eat (with tortilla chips / rice / cheese / etc)
That sounds great! I’ll definitely try that. Thanks for the suggestion!
wouldn’t that be chili sin carne?
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0 idea, but it’s tasty
Since you’re open to frozen, you can cook almost everything. Applebees entire menu almost starts frozen.
There’s relatively few things in the culinary world that cannot be frozen. It’s like, a really small list. Like, you’re not really supposed to freeze bread, it does change it a little. But you can. And you won’t notice the difference in french toast or a panini.
It seems pretty limiting from my perspective. Can’t use milk or eggs or cheese, and most dipps don’t freeze either. Can’t use lettuce, most vegetables and fruit become tasteless as soon as their frozen, and bread can only be frozen once or twice before it becomes inedible, and it takes two full days to thaw each time.
Most of my diet is noodles of various kinds, soups, and frozen meals.
What would you suggest? Applebee’s doesn’t operate in my area, and I’ve never been to one. What kinds of food would work?
Is this the US we’re talking about? And what kinds of foods do you like?
You’re right that there is a list of things that cannot be frozen, ingredient-wise. But when you compare the size of the list of things that can be frozen vs cannot be, you will find the “can be” list is many, many times larger. While clearly you will still need some non-frozen things, milk and lettuce are excellent examples, these are the exceptions, not the rule.
You can cook almost everything. If its a food dish (just about), you can make it from 98% non-perishables. So, we’re gonna have to narrow it down here unless you just want me to start listing the worlds foods one by one.
I live in Saskatchewan, Canada. I don’t need specifics, though it’s nice when they are given. I am mostly looking for ideas on what kinds of food would work.
I get what you mean, though. There’s certainly a lot of options, and a recipe doesn’t do me much good if it uses ingredients that I can’t get.
I guess, “what’s your favorite recipes that fit this theme?” Might have been a better question. I’m just frustrated that every recipe I find online has things like “fresh garlic” or “whole onion” or even worse “lemon zest” (what do you do with the rest of the lemon? There’s not exactly many recipes that use it) so I have to find another that doesn’t have anything “fresh” in it.
Personally, I’d go ahead and buy fresh stuff, in fair quantities, and cook it up into finished dishes. Then throw these into some reusable containers for freezing and later reheating. You can do this really well with things like chili, stews, soups, stuff like that. Can cube up fruit and then freeze the cubes for smoothies, and honestly I’d just go ahead and buy pre-frozen vegetables and berries and stuff. That all tends to be fairly decent, though it varies. Uses are whatever you want, they’re all versatile. Breakfast omelette, throwing some into a soup you’re getting tired of, quick roast to eat as a side, whatever.
And yeah, I feel your pain. Frankly, I usually end up squeezing the lemon into some water, just to not waste it. That’s the best I have for that one. lol
Some waste is unavoidable sometimes, onions are a good example. You kinda need em, but if you don’t use them periodically they definitely go bad and generate clouds of fruit flies. My best advice for that is advance meal planning, where you’re buying for specific dishes you have planned in the next few weeks. Really, this entire approach boils down to advance meal planning, now that I think about it…
I hadn’t thought of the fruit thing, so I’ll definitely be doing that. I’d imagine that buying a mango or something would be a lot better if I just sliced it and froze the slices. Same with bananas since peeling them after you freeze them is always such a pain.
Yah, advance meal prep is definitely a skill I need to get ahold of, same with meal planning.
I’ll look for some frozen veggies next time I go shopping. I usually only buy it when I’m making soup or something, but if I can find some of the non-mixed stuff (only carrots, for example) then that would be great.
Really? I feel like bread keeps pretty well in the freezer!
It comes out stale, but if you toast it it;s fine. Even just reheating it works somewhat
It really depends on the quality of the bread and the loaf packaging. Bread and bread packaging differs greatly across the world. The lighter the bread, the more likely it is too dry out quickly. The packaging needs to prevent it from freezer burn, a high quality bread bag does more then a piece of plastic that’s supposed to let the bread air out.
Give it a try, buy a heavier bread and stick it in a good plastic bag. Should last a week easily. Make sure your bread is pre cut as cutting frozen bread is not fun.
They sell frozen bread at Walmart (at least garlic bread)
The only thing I’ve encountered that I’ll never freeze again is cream cheese.
Applebees entire menu almost starts frozen.
That’s not the greatest way to encourage someone.
I agree with beans & rice, that is the framework for a million great meals.
Whole canned tomatoes are very helpful to have around. Also canned coconut cream and the little cans of curry paste.
Triscuits crackers and nuts are good things to have on hand if you need snacks with calories.
If you are willing to buy lemons, oils, spices, and onions and garlic, you will be able to have a very vibrant and delicious healthy diet with canned or dried beans, canned tuna and sardines, canned tomatoes.
Most recipes can actually be made from non perishables. Meat can almost always be easily frozen and you can either buy frozen veg or cut some up to throw in a freezer bag. Additionally you can use canned veggies too. You can also freeze minced garlic and ginger in ice cube trays as well.
For cheeses you can buy them pasteurized so they remain sterile until opened. You can also sterilize a lot of things very easily. Put food into a glass jar, boil in the microwave and cap very tightly (it’s gonna be hot!). Make sure on the lid that the center has sucked inwards so you know there’s a vacuum. If it hasn’t then it’s not gas tight and will mold.
For fresh herbs try to put the stem in a small cup of water if possible. If you find the herbs going bad then chop them up and let them dry in open air on a sheet, put into a spice bottle and use later.
There are some videos about freezing your ingredients, and food by Ethan Chlebowski on YouTube.
Oh and if you really want to go crazy you can get a can of nitrogen gas. If you have any dry ingredients in the pantry that go stale or taste oxidized you can fill an air tight bag with nitrogen gas. You can also do this with dry spices and an air tight spice jar. Otherwise spices will lose their flavor overtime and after 6 months or so you’re basically sprinkling dust on your food
