Commercial survival food — like MREs and freeze-dried food — is a nice option, but it can be expensive. Today we’ll take a quick look at a fast, easy, cheap and delicious recipe for do-it-yourselfers. This recipe resembles a shortbread, so it’s delicious even to the kids, but with more fiber, protein, and complex carbs, it’s much more nutritionally balanced.
Qualities of good survival food
- Dense – you want to carry lots of calories in a small package
- Tasty – if you’re going to eat the same thing every meal, it had better be good
- Durable – you need something that stores well. This recipe contains no preservatives, but you can give it a long shelf life by dehydrating it completely, like hard tack. That will make it hard to eat, but at least you won’t starve. Note: The high fat content of this food makes it harder to store. Refrigerate until needed.
- Easily reproduced – sure, you can buy survival food now, but what if you have no choice but to make it someday? This recipe is cheap and easy. Just watch the video.
SnoMan’s Survival Food Recipe
- 5 cups flour – can be anything except self-rising, since you want it to be dense. I grind my own soft white wheat and barley. You can use rye, red wheat, bread flour, or just plain all-purpose flour.
- 1 cup buttermilk or yogurt – adds protein and a rich, creamy flavor
- Water as needed – depends on the type of flour. For best results make a stiffer dough as for hardtack, but I used a sticky batter in the video, and it was delicious. Might not store as long, though.
- 1 – 2 teaspoons salt
- 1/4 cupRapadura or other sugar
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 5 tablespoons extra-virgin coconut oil
- 1-2 cups chopped nuts, seeds, and dried fruit. I had dates, pecans, flax seed, and almonds. Last time I had cranberries, sunflower seeds, and coconut. Use whatever you like!
- Bake at 350 F (325 in a convection oven) for 30 minutes
Recipe substitutions
If you don’t have some of the ingredients in the recipe, just adapt it to what you have!
- Plain milk instead of buttermilk
- Cottage cheese instead of yogurt
- Olive oil or butter instead of coconut oil — makes the bread more crumbly, so add more flour to compensate
- Use whatever nuts, seeds, and dried fruit you like
Let us know about your favorite recipes by commenting below.
~SnoMan
Hi, I made some of your Hard tack from one of your video’s and added some spices,cranberries,nuts and they were very good eating. Even with upper and lower dentures I was able to eat them and I have passed on this receipe to many others. Thanks always enjoy any info you send to me. Going to OK in a couple weeks and plan on doing some field trials on survival.
That’s great Lou. That hard tack is a versatile food too. Glad you enjoyed it. And good luck at the trials — be sure and let us know how it went!