Making your own soup mixes...

Do you remember the "Gifts in a Jar" craze from a few years back?  There were all kinds of cookies in a jar mix recipes as well as soups and chili jar mixes floating around the Internet.  I loved them!  Especially the convenience factor of just adding wet ingredients.

I wanted to carry that concept into my stocking the pantry for difficult times and came up with this idea...

Soup and chili mixes made and sealed up in zip lock bags or food saver bags.  This eliminates the need for so many of my precious canning jars and takes up less storage space.  

I have a Food Saver and would highly recommend purchasing one. They are great for preserving food whether you store dry food like flour or for frozen foods like meat and vegetables.

However if you don't have a food saver you can use heavy duty zip lock bags.

Let me show you how I began this process...

1.  I searched on the Internet for those "Gifts in a Jar" recipes.
Here is a great link...
http://www.recipegoldmine.com/foodgiftsoup/giftsoup.html
This is where I found all my soup mix recipes.


2.  I picked out several recipes and purchased everything I needed to make at least 2 of each recipe.
Please don't skimp on the spices!  They really make the soups taste so wonderful.

3.  I printed out the recipes...laminated and placed them in a notebook I created.

4.  Then I set aside one day to make up the soup mixes.  Spreading out all the dried beans, rice, noodles, and spices.  I carefully followed the recipe and poured all the dry ingredients per recipe in a food saver bag.  I next measured out the spices and placed them in a separate small snack size zip lock bag and then placed in the food saver bag.  I then sealed the bag and labeled with the name of the soup mix.

Remember you can use zip lock bags if you don't have a food saver.  I did this with my Potato soup mix.  Just keep the spices packaged separately from the other ingredients.

Pasta does not like the food saver bags!  I learned this the hard way after trying to seal my Chicken Noodle Soup.  Crushed all my noodles!  So I did put the Chicken Noodle soup in a jar with the spices on top.

The chicken soup is great!  Just bring a pot of water to a boil add cut up chicken, carrots, and celery, the spice mix and noodles.   I made this for a friend who was receiving intense chemo treatments and she later said this soup was the only thing she could eat.

5.  Store the mixes in a cool place preferably a dark cabinet or plastic tub.

6.  When it is time to cook just pull out your recipe notebook and follow the directions.  Most of the recipes can be tossed in the crockpot with a jar of canned tomatoes and some type of meat.

What a great way to add a variety to your pantry!  A hearty bowl of soup or chili with homemade bread...what could be better?

Check out the website I listed and have fun making your own soup mixes.

This post is linked up with the "Homestead Revival Preparedness Challenge".
Please visit this link to learn more ways to be prepared.
http://homesteadrevival.blogspot.com/2011/08/preparedness-challenge-21.html

Preview