DIY Survival Food You’ll Actually Want To Eat

These survival food recipes and DIY preps are exactly what you need when SHTF. The recipes featured here will help you make food with a long shelf life and will keep your family fed in emergency situations.

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Tasty Survival Food Recipes for Preppers

1. Homemade Beef Jerky

Want to know how to make beef jerky? We decided to make our own beef jerky to see just how easy or difficult it was.

We were curious to see how our homemade version compared with what you could buy in stores.

The result? A rich, salty, high protein snack that tastes delicious, far better than most all we purchased!

We were surprised and excited to learn that jerky could be made simply at home and that no expensive tools, ingredients or equipment was required. We love being able to flavor our jerky any way we choose.

The combinations of flavors you have available are as limitless as your imagination with this beef jerky recipe. Click here for the recipe.

2. Chocolate Chia Survival Bars

How to make homemade survival food bars that actually taste good? I have now tried many packaged survival bars and have made a fruit-flavored recipe for homemade emergency food bars with a long shelf life.

I thought to myself, surely there is a better way to make a homemade survival food bar. The fruit Jello bars are good but are awfully sweet.

They also don’t have the nutritional value you can pack into a bar. The solution? Chocolate and Chia seeds.

3. Fruity Survival Bars

Want to learn how to make homemade survival bars? Over the past few months, I decided to try a few varieties, and this is my favorite so far.

The texture is right, the flavor is right, especially if you are a fan of fruity cereal. This taste a lot like Crunch Berries!

You can also try lemon and orange-flavored Jello when making these easy-to-make bars. I guess together, they taste like Trix or Fruity Pebbles.

Frankly speaking, I am a bit of a food critic. If I say these are good, they are good.

Otherwise, I am going to call them edible. These are actually good.

They are not like bricks, and they are not dry and bland.

4. Dried Fruit

Most dried fruit recipes call for dehydrators, but not this one. Using your oven and the chart above you can create your very own dried and preserved fruit that will last much longer than unpreserved fruits.

This will be a project you’ll be happy to complete in a post-event situation, as fruits can be one of the harder foods to come by without access to grocery stores.

RELATED: Food Storage Solutions: Buckets, Lids, and Gamma Seals

5. Jarred Cookie Mix

This jarred cookie mix is one of the less practical items on this list. You’ll need eggs and oil to bake the cookies, and you’ll obviously need an oven or some other convection heat to cook these treats.

Also, these are obviously not going to provide a lot of useful nutrients to nourish your body.

All of that aside, a lot can be said about planning to have some sort of creature comforts around in your planning for an emergency. That, after all, is what this whole list is about!

Not having survival food and gear just to live off of but also to enjoy!

6. Pickled Eggs

These aren’t for everyone. There are people out there who absolutely love pickled eggs and others who won’t even try them.

Though the thought of this food might be a lot to process, do yourself a favor and at least try them! They’re inexpensive to make and preserve tons of protein for a long time.

And you might be surprised by the delightful texture and added flavor created by jarring and pickling eggs.

7. Survival Bread

This recipe is for when you don’t have access to a lot of time, energy, or an oven. Being able to make delicious bread quickly over a stove or grill can add some versatility to your preparation of this important survival staple.

8. Cheesy Bacon Biscuits

Cheese, bacon, and biscuits. Need we say more?

These biscuits won’t be kept as long as something like a hardtack or survival bread, but they taste a heck of a lot better!

This isn’t what you’ll want to store as your main source of survival food supply, but having these around as a treat and taste of normalcy will make your day that much easier to get through.

Check out this survival food video about making your own chocolate chia cookies:

When you plan for a post-event situation, one of the first and most important considerations is how to keep your family fed without access to grocery stores or the luxury of refrigeration. Being able to enjoy your food even in an emergency situation will make all the difference in the morale and good-spiritedness of your group.

Having to eat only foods that are easily preserved and stored for long periods of time does narrow your options, but it doesn’t completely eliminate the possibility of having delicious meals!

What do you think about these survival food recipes? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

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Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in March 2014 and has been updated for quality and relevancy.