# Recipes with only canned food



## mrcuddles

Does any one have any mixtures with just canned food yes with top ramen too Im pretty sure no one realy wants to eat a whole can of beans while your little brother eats chicken noodle soup I wanna no if its posible to make a family meal with that


----------



## CrackbottomLouis

A good one is 2 cans beef stew, canned potatoes turned into mashed with garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper. Put stew in bottom of pan cover with mashed taters bake and wallah...shepherds pie for the fam from 4 cans. I made one for myself last week. 1 can stew and 2 potatoes with spices and ate it for 3 dinners. Wasnt bad. I like to try out stuff I plan to eat


----------



## Hooch

when Im lazy...
heat up a cup of soup, pour out water after stuff is rehydrated. fry noodles in a tad of oil n throw into a bowl of cream of mushroom soup...watch a movie..


----------



## AnonyManx

Well, we have canned ground beef, an assortment of canned tomato varieties, beans, veggies, etc. 

I could make a very respectable chili with only canned main ingredients (and some freeze-dried onions and bell peppers)...

The shepherd's pie option would work as well. I have canned chicken that could be used with veggies and soups for a casserole, or with rice and veggies...


----------



## mrcuddles

Mmmmmm I'm gonna need more cans then tomorrow I shop I'm a newbie at this prepping stuff so I'm looking for recipes getting used to it  thank you all


----------



## *Andi

I guess I'm the one with the problem with your question ... ?

The way I see it ... if you have canned food you have a meal...?

I'm lost ... (again)


----------



## cnsper

A meal for the whole family

1 can kidney beans
1 can pork and beans
1 can green beans (drained)
1 can pinto beans (drained)
1 can lima beans (drained)
1 can corn (drained)
1 cup Ketchup

Now I also add 1 lb of any kind of meat and 2 sweet potatoes but you can eat at hearty meal without those 2 in there.


----------



## Country Living

The struggle I’m having is coming up with various recipes to use the 12.5oz of Tyson white chicken breast chunks that will feed two adults. There's the obvious Mac and Cheese combo (much better with sour cream folded in). On a side note I drain the can and then put the chicken chunks in a small skillet and shred and brown them - otherwise they look and smell too much like..... canned chicken.

I've made a very tasty dinner using the one can of chicken chunks (drained, shredded, and browned in a skillet), a couple of chicken bouillon cubes, probably about three cups of water - put in a pot and bring to a boil. Put about 1/4th cup of Bisquick mixed in with about a half cup of cold water and mix well - make sure you use just enough to make the mixture liquid. This will thicken the water/chicken/bouillon mixture. Pour that mixture into the pot. You might need to add more water if it's too thick (the dumplings need boiling water to "set") Salt and pepper to taste. Use the Bisquick recipe (we halve the recipe) to make dumplings. Now, that was pretty good. I think next time I'll add a third bouillon cube just to see if it makes a difference - probably one of the new herb bouillon cubes).

The next project will be adding fajita seasoning with a bit of water and cooking it down and putting that mixture in a homemade flour tortilla.

I haven't tried browning and shredding the chicken chunks and adding them to gravy to go on top of biscuits.

The time to learn how to cook with food in your medium-term and long-term storage is now. As with most of you, we have canned food, freeze-dried food, and dehydrated food. If you don't have electricity, you need to know how to make just enough of a tasty and nutritious meal so nothing is wasted.

I completely understand mrcuddles question. If I was just starting out and didn't know a lot about cooking or baking, I'd start with bread. Bisquick is your friend. You can make biscuits, dumplings, pancakes - and all you need to add is water. We buy the large box and repackage it into smaller quart freezer bags - it stays fresher longer.

We eat a lot of flour tortillas and that's a very basic recipe. Flour, salt, lard, water. We can roll just about anything up in a tortilla (spouse likes peanut butter) so it's one of our favorite breads.

We like rice so a chicken and rice soup, with bouillon, and some homemade biscuits will be on the menu in the next few weeks. I keep a lot of bouillon on hand - the cube kind. I don't worry about expiration dates since they're in foil wraps. They just seem to stay reasonably fresh forever.


----------



## cnsper

The key is adding other stuff to the chicken to make it go further. The recipe I posted earlier would work good with chicken. I have made it with chicken, beef and bear. There is alot of added protein with the beans in the meal.

Make a stir fry, burritos etc. Add ingredients to the chicken. Add the chicken to Ramen noodles. Make chicken pizza. 

There are a lot of things you can so that only take a few pieces of chicken added to a dish. 

What most people get stuck on is thinking that meat has to be one item on the plate by itself and the veggies separate. Not so, use your imagination. Hell I have some concoctions where I just throw stuff together and see what come out of it.


----------



## Country Living

mrcuddles said:


> Mmmmmm I'm gonna need more cans then tomorrow I shop I'm a newbie at this prepping stuff so I'm looking for recipes getting used to it  thank you all


I realize you're jumping right into recipes. Makes sure you have basic products on hand to add to your cooking delights.

It's easy to spend a whole lot of money on preps&#8230;.that you may not need. You will always need core products. We plan for short-term (<60 days), medium-term (month 3 to month 14). Long-term is anything after month 14. I check the expiration date on all canned goods before they go in the shopping cart. When we get home the expiration date is written in black marker where it can be easily seen. I also write the date I purchased the product, the price, and (sometimes) where I bought it if not from our regular store.

Core products
Flour (kept in the freezer to keep out the bugs)
Cornmeal (kept in the freezer - bugs and extends the life)
Bisquick
Baking Powder
Baking Soda
(Dry) Cultured Buttermilk - in the baking section of the store. Makes great buttermilk biscuits.
Sugar (I buy the 25lb bag and repackage into a 4 gallon food-grade bucket - and fill my canister from that)
Cinnamon (powdered)
Your favorite seasonings

Table Salt (Iodized)
Kosher Salt
Canning Salt
(Note on the salt - I have lots of salt. It doesn't go bad and it may well be the scarce commodity one day).

Course ground pepper
Fine ground pepper

Crisco (3lb can)
Canola Oil (gallon container)
Lard (4lb tub) can be used to make flour tortillas and home-made Bisquick.
Spray oil (canola / olive)
Olive oil

Bouillon cubes - chicken (I've never used the beef so it's not in my pantry)
Mushroom soup - 1,000 uses. Check expiration dates. It seems to go on sale around the holidays. 
Jalapeños - a staple for us; it might not be for you.

Butter - tub 
Margarine - stick
Butter - stick
(Note - we only buy butter that freezes well, such as the 15oz I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. All stick butters seem to freeze well. I keep 12 tubs of butter in the freezer at all times in the freezer and we probably have five years worth of stick margarine and butter in the freezer.)

Powdered milk. I need to explain this a bit more. There are lots of different kinds of powdered milk on the market - some good and some are not good. The only experience for us is the Honeyville Milk Alternative. It's the only milk we've used for the last four years. We live out in the boonies and when we used store-bought milk we would either run out of it or it would spoil. I mix two cups of the Honeyville Milk Alternative (two cups of water and 1/4th cup of the milk alternative) at a time to keep in the fridge for and mix milk if I need it for cooking or baking. The trick to any powdered milk is to mix the powder in with warm water and store it in a glass container in the fridge. Plastic does nasty things to powdered milk, which is why most people don't like the taste of it. It's really only good for about four days after mixing which is why we mix two cups at a time.

I'm sure others will chime in with their opinion. Let me know if you have any questions.


----------



## mrcuddles

*Andi said:


> I guess I'm the one with the problem with your question ... ?
> 
> The way I see it ... if you have canned food you have a meal...?
> 
> I'm lost ... (again)


Lol ok I can understand that and I agree with that you have cans you have food but theirs 3 little girls is my house hold prety much what I wanna say is I want them to have a meal a mixture of things for dinner they will eat whatever it is but I dont think they want to eat a can of beans just for dinner  and some can food has a certain powdery after taste to it that im sure will be an issue with them I wanna be able to give a mixture not just beans one day or bacon and beans the next besides theirs 7 total in this house hold its gonna stink if everyone eats beans


----------



## mrcuddles

Country Living said:


> The struggle Im having is coming up with various recipes to use the 12.5oz of Tyson white chicken breast chunks that will feed two adults. There's the obvious Mac and Cheese combo (much better with sour cream folded in). On a side note I drain the can and then put the chicken chunks in a small skillet and shred and brown them - otherwise they look and smell too much like..... canned chicken.
> 
> I've made a very tasty dinner using the one can of chicken chunks (drained, shredded, and browned in a skillet), a couple of chicken bouillon cubes, probably about three cups of water - put in a pot and bring to a boil. Put about 1/4th cup of Bisquick mixed in with about a half cup of cold water and mix well - make sure you use just enough to make the mixture liquid. This will thicken the water/chicken/bouillon mixture. Pour that mixture into the pot. You might need to add more water if it's too thick (the dumplings need boiling water to "set") Salt and pepper to taste. Use the Bisquick recipe (we halve the recipe) to make dumplings. Now, that was pretty good. I think next time I'll add a third bouillon cube just to see if it makes a difference - probably one of the new herb bouillon cubes).
> 
> The next project will be adding fajita seasoning with a bit of water and cooking it down and putting that mixture in a homemade flour tortilla.
> 
> I haven't tried browning and shredding the chicken chunks and adding them to gravy to go on top of biscuits.
> 
> The time to learn how to cook with food in your medium-term and long-term storage is now. As with most of you, we have canned food, freeze-dried food, and dehydrated food. If you don't have electricity, you need to know how to make just enough of a tasty and nutritious meal so nothing is wasted.
> 
> I completely understand mrcuddles question. If I was just starting out and didn't know a lot about cooking or baking, I'd start with bread. Bisquick is your friend. You can make biscuits, dumplings, pancakes - and all you need to add is water. We buy the large box and repackage it into smaller quart freezer bags - it stays fresher longer.
> 
> We eat a lot of flour tortillas and that's a very basic recipe. Flour, salt, lard, water. We can roll just about anything up in a tortilla (spouse likes peanut butter) so it's one of our favorite breads.
> 
> We like rice so a chicken and rice soup, with bouillon, and some homemade biscuits will be on the menu in the next few weeks. I keep a lot of bouillon on hand - the cube kind. I don't worry about expiration dates since they're in foil wraps. They just seem to stay reasonably fresh forever.


I hear chicken I think bbq chicken/teryaki chicken with rice/grilled chicken with potatoes/chicken and mushrooms or make a burger or pizza


----------



## Country Living

I'm now thinking of a Bisquick pizza crust, some spaghetti sauce, canned chicken (drained, etc), cheese, a few other things from the fridge and a cold beer when the pizza somes out of the oven. 

Oh, chicken nachos. Canned chicken would work reasonably well for that. The list just keeps getting better. 

We should have rules stipulating you HAVE to make the item with whatever you have in the house. No cheating and running to the store. That's how you get creative with your preps.


----------



## Jerry D Young

JDY Tin Can Soup

2 beef bouillon cubes
4 bay leaves
2 cans roast beef with gravy
3 cans diced potatoes
3 cans diced tomatoes
1 can early sweet peas
1 can diced or sliced carrots
1 can whole kernel corn

Start with a cup of water in a six-quart stock pot or other large pot, add the bouillon cubes and bay leaves.
Add the various cans of meat and vegetables.
Stir well.
Bring to boil, reduce to simmer.
Simmer about an hour to blend flavors, stirring occasionally.
Serve with saltines.

Makes ~5 quarts


----------



## Country Living

Jerry, what brand of roast beef with gravy do you use? Is it salty?


----------



## Jerry D Young

I prefer the Hormel brand, but have used some others that were okay. The Argentina sourced ones were pretty good.

Like most commercial canned goods, the sodium is high for a single serving of the meat alone. 740mg or 31% of Daily requirements. It doesn't taste at all salty to me, and I'm pretty sensitive to the taste.

But since there are 4 servings in the two cans, divided up among 5 quarts of the soup, the salt contribution of the meat is pretty small. I don't add much extra salt, if any, to the soup due to the salt in the canned foods. 

But I don't use much salt at all anymore. Most of the people I know would want more salt in the soup than it has from just the canned ingredients and bouillon cubes.

Hope this helps.

Just my opinion.


----------



## mp5girl

When we were really broke, I came up with a broad recipe that provided enough options that we could eat for less than $5 a meal. It's easy!

1: Pick a canned meat (chicken, tuna, salmon, ham, etc)
2: Pick a can of veggies (mixed works best IMO)
3: Pick a cream soup (Cheese and Tomato are also good options)
4: Pick a starch (noodles, rice, mashed potatoes, or biscuits)

Prepare your starch first. Next combine meat, veggies, and soup. Do not dilute the soup as directed on the can though. You'll want to do this as you make it to tweak the consistency. Once those are incorporated, either pour over or mix in your starch. 

Example: Cream of chicken soup, canned chicken, mixed veggies, and noodles! 

Another example: Cheddar soup, canned ham, green beans, over rice!

It's a great way to make a bunch of varieties all using pantry items.


----------



## mrcuddles

Sooo simple


----------



## milfordmarty

Canned black beans
Rotel tomatoes
Canned corn
Cumin
Cayenne
Salt and pepper
Shredded chicken
Cilantro

Serve over rice


----------



## kejmack

You would use canned meat the same way you use fresh meat. With canned chicken, you can make chicken soup, chicken teriyaki, chicken lasagne, chicken casserole, etc.


----------



## lanahi

I think it would help a lot if you had something like flour, rice, macaroni, cornmeal, etc, to extend the possibilities of your canned goods.

Canned chicken and cream of chicken soup or chicken gravy can make a lot of good sauces to go with anything, like over canned potatoes as gravy or over rice, biscuits, or noodles. 

Canned potatoes are found whole, diced, or sliced and can be fried with canned bacon, Vienna sausages, or Spam for a hearty breakfast. Maybe add canned cheese, canned jalapenos, etc.

Chicken shish-kabobs with vegetables for the grill.

Meatless chili with canned chili beans, canned tomatoes, and spices. Or add vegetable protein "meat" to the chili. In chili, TVP can't be tasted much because of the spices.

Canned cheese sauce for nachos, macaroni, etc. There is a canned cheese dip that I like, (Fritos brand), that is very rich and thick...with or without jalapenos...next to the chips in the store usually. Macaroni and cheese is one of kid's favorites, and this dip goes a long way.

Add canned chicken to other canned chicken foods, like chicken noodles, etc, to make it go further and give more protein to vegetable soup.

The people who make B&M beans also make a very hearty and heavy canned Boston baked bread, with or without raisins. It is very filling and nutritious. I love it especially hot. Goes well with soup or anything else. It's like a molasses bread. You could eat it with peanut butter or jam too.

Canned vegetables are the base for a good soup, casserole, or side dishes. Add canned cheese to beef it up.

Chicken pot pie with vegetables. 

Burritos or tacos with refried beans, canned cheese, canned jalapenos, taco sauce.

Tuna, with water or oil, is also useful in a wide variety of dishes, as is Spam and Vienna sausage.

Some places have crackers in tins, which would be a way of using peanut butter, tuna, jam, and other spreads.

In your canned stocks, you should have some packed with water in case water is short, and many that will take little or no cooking. 

Also have sources of fat and protein, like meat. A pail of lard would be valuable when fat is scarce, and it can be stored indefinitely. Also, butter flavored Crisco might be good for frying.

What I do when I pick up a can of something is to also add a can or two of something that can be added with it in the menu.


----------

