As traditional foods cooks, our Four Corners Pantries are usually well stocked, but did you remember to include these 10 Essential Prepper Pantry items for complete preparedness?

Watch the “10 Essential Prepper Pantry Items You Need to Stock Up on Now for Total Preparedness” video

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Table of Contents

The Four Corners Pantry consists of your Main Working Pantry, Refrigerator, Freezer, and Prepper Pantry.

Four Corners Pantry

As I describe in my 10 Essential Prepper Pantry Items video, your Four Corners Pantry consists of your:

  1. Main Working Pantry—Where you stock non-perishable foods
  2. Refrigerator
  3. Freezer
  4. Extended Pantry—Or what we nickname “The Prepper Pantry“. This Extended Pantry has four sub-pantries:
    • Backup Pantry—Extra non-perishable foods to restock your Working Pantry.
    • Emergency Pantry—Two weeks of food you can prepare without electricity and clean running water.
    • Healing Pantry—All the supplies you need to make natural remedies.
    • Survival Pantry—”Forever Foods” that can see you through the most difficult of circumstances

10 Essential Prepper Pantry Items

Here are the 10 Essential Prepper Pantry items you want to make sure that you stock up on now for total preparedness:

  1. Beeswax—Be sure to include this important item in your Healing Pantry since it may not be easy to find at the last minute when you need to make a natural remedy.
  2. Dried Herbs—If you can only stock one dried herb, make sure you choose oregano. This herb serves culinary and medicinal purposes, with powerful research to back up its benefits! After oregano, stock thyme. Thyme is one of the most common herbs used when making homemade cough medicines. (I also talk about a third herb to stock in today’s video.)
  3. Tallow/Olive Oil—If you have to choose only one form of fat, be sure to stock tallow. You can use this shelf-stable fat for cooking and for making health and beauty aids, including face cream and foot cream. And if tallow is new to you, I show you how easy it is to render tallow from suet. Plus, adding extra virgin olive oil to your pantry is a smart move. It’s highly nutritious and also very helpful when making herbal oils and salves.
  4. Honey—Be sure to keep pourable honey and creamed honey on hand. Pourable honey is useful when making natural remedies, and creamed honey makes a sweet treat in place of sugar candy. Also, keeping some Manuka honey on hand for medicinal purposes is an excellent idea. And if you are ever battling a cough, you can make a honey-based cough syrup.
  5. Chickpeas—These beans, also known as garbanzo or ceci, are the best dried beans to keep in your pantry. You can soak, cook, and eat them as is tossed in olive oil and oregano. Or you can turn them into hummus or add them to soups and stews. Plus, you can ground chickpeas into a gluten-free flour and use the flour to make flatbreads.
  6. Dried Mushrooms—Whether you buy them dry or dry them yourself, having dried mushrooms on hand is essential for adding a meaty taste to foods—at a fraction of the cost—when you are low on meat. And even the humble white button mushroom is nutritious!
  7. All-Purpose Flour—As traditional foods cooks, we often forget about stocking all-purpose flour (white flour or plain flour). But this type of flour can come in handy for making or feeding our sourdough starters and also making Hardtack—the ultimate survival cracker.
  8. Canned Diced Tomatoes—If you can only stock one type of canned tomato, make sure they are diced tomatoes. As I talk about in today’s video, this type of tomato is extremely versatile, and you can use it in variety of recipes.
  9. Dried Beef—You can stock canned chicken, tinned fish, and even roast beef in a can (if you can find it), but dried beef is affordable and has an indefinite shelf life! If you run low on food and money is tight, dried beef can come to the rescue. For example, you can turn it into old-fashioned tasty chipped beef on toast or simply dice the beef to add it to a salad or soup.
  10. Salt—As traditional foods cooks, we always seem to have sea salt on hand, but we might forget to stock plain old iodized table salt. If we were in a situation where we couldn’t get a good supply of foods containing iodine—such as fish—we could avoid goiter (swelling of the thyroid gland) by simply adding a bit of iodized salt to our diet. So be sure to have some iodized salt tucked away in your pantry. And don’t worry if you don’t use it right away. It won’t go bad; it’s a “forever food”!

The following sections provide additional information and recipes on how you can use your 10 essential Prepper Pantry items.

Learn More About Growing and Drying Herbs

The study of herbs and their medicinal properties is a favorite subject of mine. I enjoy reading books by Rosemary Gladstart, such as Rosemary Gladstar’s Medicinal Herbs: A Beginner’s Guide, where I learned about some of the best herbs to grow, how to dry them, and how to make immune-boosting foods and natural remedies using herbs.

Learn more about medicinal herbs, drying herbs, and making natural remedies:

Survival Garden Seeds

In my research into the best herb seeds (vegetable seeds too!), I discovered Survival Garden Seeds and their extensive collection of heirloom seeds. If you’re looking for high-quality, open-pollinated, non-GMO, and non-hybrid garden seeds, be sure to use my special MARYSNEST discount code to be able to get 10% off any of the three following products:

Learn More About Tallow

As I discuss in today’s video, you can use tallow in a variety of recipes. It has a high smoke point and stores well. If you’re thinking about rending suet to make your own tallow, watch the following video:

More Ways to Use Honey

If you would like to learn how to use honey in your Traditional Foods Kitchen, check out the videos below:

Using Chickpeas in a Traditional Recipe

You can never go wrong keeping chickpeas in your pantry. Along with using chickpeas to make a tasty hummus, you’ll also love adding them to this traditional Northern Italian dish:

In today’s video, I talk about how you can grind dried chickpeas to make a gluten-free flour. If you’re intersted in gluten-free flours, check out the following videos:

Nutrient-Rich Mushroom Broth

In addition to being an excellent substitute for meat, mushrooms also add an incredible umami flavor to any dish. And if you want a change from bone broth or vegetable broth and super mineral broths, try making the broth recipe below:

Beyond All-Purpose Flour

As traditional foods cooks, we certainly want to remember to stock all-purpose flour, but we also want to make sure that we have plenty of whole grains on hand. Learn more about stocking whole grains and turning them into flour in the informational videos below.

Grind Your Own Flour with the Mockmill

When it comes to electric grain mills, after I did A LOT of research, I decided to buy a Mockmill. And am I so happy I did! The Mockmill is a very affordable but beautifully crafted German-made mill that stone grinds grain with settings ranging from 1 to 10—fine to coarse ground grain.

Learn more about Mockmill electric grain mills for making fresh flour and their Flake Lover’s Flaker that flakes whole grain in minutes. (This is not a sponsored post, I bought the Mockmill products that I show you, and I’m a happy user of their devices in my kitchen.)

Putting Tomatoes to Good Use

As I shared earlier, your best bet when it comes to stocking canned tomatoes is diced tomatoes, but you can also put any type of canned tomato to good use in your traditional foods kitchen. Check out these tomato recipes below:

Going Beyond Dried Beef

It’s always smart to have a few jars of dried beef on hand in your pantry, but when you have fresh meat, be sure to try this stew!

Salt and Microplastics

When it comes to stocking up on salt, yes, we want to make sure that we have some iodized salt on hand for emergencies. But for everyday use, we primarily want to rely on salt that has the fewest microplastics. Learn more about microplastics and using salts here:

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Download Your Free 36-Page Pantry List

For an extensive list of the traditional foods you can make and purchase to stock your pantry, be sure to download my free 36-page Traditional Foods Pantry List. This comprehensive eBook is full of links to recipe videos, helpful articles, and more!

And if you’re looking for a printed book full of my traditional foods recipes that shows you how to create a traditional foods kitchen, be sure to order your copy of my new bestselling book, The Modern Pioneer Cookbook.

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Comments

  1. Nice summary. I failed the first guess though I am stocked with Beeswax. Not so sure about the dried beef, do you have a recommended source. Though if I have enough good power days this summer – I can just freeze dry some.

    I guess water is more of a survival item than pantry. But we have found over the years that on a well and with unknown issues during a storm – keeping a large supply of drinking water stored is also critical.

    Thanks for all your lessons

    Reply

    1. Hi Kathy,

      Thanks for your kind comment, and I’m so glad you already have beeswax in your pantry.

      I’m not sure of an online source for dried beef. (Maybe other sweet friends can leave a comment on recommended places.) I buy a lot of my beef and beef bones online from US Wellness Meats and and fish from Northwest Wild Foods. If you haven’t tried them before, I have discount codes available on my Shopping Guide page.

      Yes. Water is essential to have in your extended pantry, and I discuss it in several of my pantry videos, including the Top 15 Prepper Pantry Items You Need to Buy NOW at Costco. I like that you keep an ample supply of drinking water. It’s better to have more water than you think you’ll need, especially for unexpected emergencies or to give you the ability to share with extended family and friends.

      Thanks so much for being a sweet friend! 🙂

      Love and God bless,
      Mary

      Reply

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