A few simple storage food recipes using TVP

I’ve been playing with TVP quite a bit lately. I’ve found it to be very versatile and one of the cheapest shelf stable alternatives to meat out there. You can buy #10 cans of freeze dried ground beef for $60 a can (if you can actually find someone who isn’t backordered by 3 months) or you can get TVP for a fraction of that and not have to worry about getting put on a waiting list. Before you go all out and buy a 10 year supply on Amazon I encourage you to find a store in your area that sells the 10 oz bags of Bob’s Red Mill just so that you can try it out. You may not like it. Anyway, onto the recipes.

Red Chili:

1 cup TVP
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
1 15 oz can tomato sauce
1 15 oz can pinto beans
2 tbsp dried onions
2 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp red chili flakes
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano

This is a pretty basic chili recipe. Just dump everything into a pot, bring it to a boil then let it simmer for a couple of hours. You can tweak this recipe quite a bit with fresh ingredients and it will taste a lot better. If you’re getting deep into your larder, though, then you probably won’t have many fresh ingredients left.

Pasta Sauce:

15 oz can tomato sauce
1 6 oz can mushrooms
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tbsp dried onions
1/2 cup tvp

Once again, dump everything into a pot, bring it to a boil and then let it simmer for an hour or two. Boil up a pound of pasta of your choice and you’ve got a good family meal. Are you noticing a trend yet? Using TVP and canned/dried ingredients eliminates most of the prep and precooking involved in recipes using raw ingredients. Making things from scratch with fresh ingredients definitely tastes a lot better but it may not be feasible in an emergency situation.

“Beef” and bean burritos:

1 cup chicken stock (or water with a bullion cube)
1 6 oz can tomato sauce
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup TVP
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 15 oz can pinto beans
tortillas

Combine everything but the pinto beans, bring it to a boil and then let it simmer. Add some flour a little bit at a time while simmering until you get a thick consistency. Once your “meat” filling is finished put 1/4 cup of pinto beans onto a tortilla. Cover the pinto beans with the “meat” filling and then roll up your burrito. Obviously, you’ll need to know how to make tortillas to use this recipe in an emergency but that’s for a future post.

So as you can see working with TVP isn’t rocket science. If you can boil water then you can use it in all kinds of recipes. I’m still working on burgers, meatballs, meatloaf and a few other recipes. Once I get those down I’ll share them. I’ve even seen people doing things like fried chicken nuggets. That could be interesting.