When disaster strikes, you need to be ready for the worst-case scenarios. A hurricane can obstruct road access, preventing you from going to the store. The pandemic brought panic-buying of many food items like flour, bread, yeast, oats, milk, and eggs during the early stages of COVID-19. It’s helpful to have easy 3-ingredient recipes for preppers to make use of a garden and food storage when going to the store is not an option.
Easy 3-Ingredient Recipes for Preppers
Below are ten recipes are ones you can make with three easy ingredients or fewer.
1. Gnocchi
Ingredients: potatoes, eggs, flour
Gnocchi looks like pasta, but it’s more like a dumpling. It’s an easy recipe for preppers because it only requires three ingredients: potatoes, eggs, and flour.
To make gnocchi, start by baking your potatoes. An hour to 70 minutes at 425°F should do the trick. Poking holes in the potatoes with a fork will help them cook through evenly. Once they’ve finished, scoop out the insides into a bowl. Put the potatoes through a sieve while they’re still hot. Once they’ve cooled down, add your egg and flour to the sieved potatoes and mix into a dough.
Now, it’s time to shape the gnocchi. Cut the dough into inch-sized pieces. Take each gnocchi piece and press it against a fork to make an indentation. Dipping your fork in flour will help prevent the gnocchi from sticking. Once you’ve prepped your gnocchi, you can refrigerate or freeze them until you’re ready to cook.
Cooking the gnocchi is the easiest part of the process. Fill a pot of water and bring it to a boil. Drop in the gnocchi and let the dumplings cook until they rise to the surface. It should only take about two minutes, then let them cook for 20 more seconds. When they’ve completed cooking, serve them with pasta sauce or freeze them for up to two months.
2. Energy Bars
Ingredients: dates, oats, warm water
In emergencies, you may have limited supplies to feed yourself and others. If you don’t have access to an oven or cooking appliances, you still have to find ways to make food. These energy bars are a practical way to get carbs for energy without using an oven. Also, they’re sweet and taste like a dessert that is healthy for you.
All you need to make these energy bars is warm water, dates, and oats. If the dates are hard, try soaking them for a while. Put the dates and oats in a food processor with half the water. Pulse until the ingredients combine, but don’t overmix them. You can add more water to adjust the consistency. Once you’ve finished, flatten your mixture onto a flat pan and refrigerate for at least four hours.
3. Baked Salmon
Ingredients: salmon, lemon juice, Italian seasoning
Baked salmon is an excellent choice for dinner if you’re a seafood lover. It’s easy to prepare in a frying pan, oven, air fryer, or another favorite cooking tool. For this recipe, you’ll bake it in the oven. This method is easy and requires only a tiny amount of prep. You only need three ingredients: salmon, lemon juice, and Italian seasoning.
Put your salmon fillets on a sheet pan and squeeze lemon juice over every piece. You can let the fish marinate in the lemon juice for an hour or proceed with the rest of the recipe. Sprinkle about two teaspoons of Italian seasoning over the fish and bake at 400°F for about 15 minutes.
4. Fried Scallops
Ingredients: scallops, butter, minced garlic
Scallops are delicious mollusks you can provide for yourself and your family. They’re an excellent option for preppers because they contain protein and are easy to catch. Look in the shallow waters close to estuaries and bays. One pound will yield around 100 pieces, depending on the kind you gather.
One of the easiest ways to cook scallops is by pan-frying them. The only ingredients you need are scallops, garlic, and butter. Take half a stick of butter and melt it in a pan on medium-high heat. Stir in about two tablespoons of minced garlic until it becomes fragrant. Place the scallops in the pan, cooking for two minutes on one side and one minute on the other.
5. Roasted Potatoes
Ingredients: potatoes, olive oil, salt
Potatoes are one of the most nutrient-dense foods a prepper can eat. They have vitamins, minerals, and fiber and are versatile in many dishes. Potatoes are terrific for preppers because you can grow them in your backyard. Access to spuds and other crops is essential during wartime because their prices could spike in the store at a moment’s notice.
One of the easiest dishes to make for this crop is roasted potatoes. For this recipe, you’ll need potatoes, olive oil, and salt. You can add other seasonings and garnishes, but this is the bare-bones version. Cut two pounds of potatoes into cubes and coat them with two tablespoons of olive oil. Sprinkle salt on the potatoes and bake them at 400°F for about 30 minutes or until tender.
6. Salsa
Ingredients: tomatoes, white onion, jalapeño
This recipe is for the preppers who enjoy salsa and want to make it at home. This dish goes back to ancient civilizations when the Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas made their versions of what people now call salsa. This three-ingredient version is easy to make and includes crops you can grow at home.
For this recipe, you’ll need four tomatoes, one white onion, and one jalapeño. Start by halving two tomatoes and cooking them in olive oil on medium-high heat. Cut the onion into quarters and put them on the grill or pan.
For the other two tomatoes, you’ll cut them into quarter-inch cubes and put them in the bowl. Add diced jalapeño to the bowl and your cooked tomatoes and onions, and then mix. For best results, let the salsa sit in the fridge and chill for a few hours or overnight.
7. Powdered Milk Yogurt
Ingredients: warm water, non-instant milk powder, unflavored plain yogurt
Powdered milk is a staple for preppers. You can use it for baking, cooking, and any recipe that calls for milk. Some people say powdered milk tastes better when you add it to recipes rather than mixing it with water to make milk. This basic powdered milk recipe is ideal for those who want to make yogurt at home.
Start by slowly pouring your water into a blender and blending at a low speed, adding your milk powder. Once it’s smooth, add the yogurt and blend again for a few seconds. Now, you need to incubate the yogurt. There are multiple ways you can do this. One option is to put the yogurt in jars and place the containers in warm water (between 110°F and 120°F) for eight hours. After the time is up, put the jars in the fridge to chill.
8. Split Pea Soup
Ingredients: peas (frozen or fresh), onion, olive oil
When the weather gets cold, soup is an excellent option for preppers. It’s inexpensive to make and can warm your body when the snow hits. This split pea soup is vegan, high in protein, and tastes delicious. Peas and onions are easy to grow in a garden, so you may be able to avoid the grocery store during emergency times to make this soup.
Start by drizzling olive oil in a large pan and adding chopped onions once the oil is hot. After about five minutes, add your peas to the pot. Fill it up with enough water to cover the ingredients. Let the soup simmer for about 10 minutes. Now, take the soup and blend it up, adding salt and pepper if necessary.
9. Sponge Cake
Ingredients: eggs, sugar, cake flour
Even in SHTF scenarios, you may crave sponge cake. This dessert serves those with a sweet tooth and dates back to the Renaissance, specifically in Italy, around 1420. The best part is that sponge cake is easy for preppers because you’ll only need three ingredients: flour, eggs, and sugar.
Start by separating six eggs into two different bowls. Add half a cup of sugar to the whites and another half cup to the yolks, beating both until thick. Pour your egg yolk mixture into the egg white mixture and then fold in a cup of cake flour. Once you have your batter, pour it into two pans but don’t overmix. Bake at 350°F for about 30 minutes.
10. Banana Bread
Ingredients: ripe bananas, cake mix, eggs
Banana bread is a popular dessert, snack, and breakfast item for whenever you want to eat it. If you have ripe bananas that you need to eat soon, banana bread is an excellent excuse to eat them and not let your bananas go to waste. Another plus is that this recipe only requires three ingredients, so it’s easy to make.
Start by mashing your bananas in a bowl. They should be easy to mash with a fork if they’re ripe. Add your cake mix and eggs and mix all the ingredients. Pour the batter into a loaf pan. Bake at 350°F for 45 minutes. You can test the bread by sticking in a toothpick to see if it has finished baking. Cool for about 10 minutes before cutting into the loaf.
Easy 3-Ingredient Recipes for Preppers
A three-course meal is probably far from your mind when you get into sticky situations. When disaster strikes, you’ll need recipes requiring only a few ingredients that are easy to access in your stockpile, your garden, or your farm.
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