How to Make a Holiday Meal from Canned Goods
Morgan Rogue 10.31.22
With the holidays coming up and inflation on the rise, plus more whispers of constant shortages of this and that, I think it’s time we got creative with our meals.
I am a big fan of cooking from scratch and cooking at home. We incorporate canned foods into our cooking regularly for a variety of reasons. We eat a mix of canned, fresh and frozen.
So for a holiday meal, we’ll need to get creative and think outside the box.
First, figure out what you normally eat during holiday meals.
Our holiday meals typically look something like this:
- A main protein, either ham or turkey
- Green beans
- Stuffing
- Potatoes
- Sweet potatoes
- Mac and cheese
- Rolls
- Some kind of dessert, usually an apple pie or pumpkin pie
So if we look at these options, most of these foods can easily be transformed into amazing meals from canned goods.
Let’s break down the foods:
Protein
Let’s say we’re going to do ham. You can get a canned ham. From there, you could add a simple honey glaze over it, bake it for 5-10 minutes or even heat it on the stove top, and viola, you have a delicious ham for your meal. Of course, if you want to buy a ham or turkey and simply freeze and cook as normal, that is obviously still an option if possible for you.
Green beans
We normally do something called baconized beans where I use canned green beans and cook it together with bacon. Simple. and Because we freeze bacon bits, we can easily add in the bacon with the canned green beans to make something almost identical. If you prefer to do a casserole, you could easily whip up a casserole with canned green beans, cream of mushroom soup, french fried onions and some milk (can also reconstitute dry milk). Easy peasy.
Stuffing
This ones easy: boxed stuffing! While not a canned good, the boxed stuffing can actually last a long while when unopened. Just add water and you’re good to go.
Potatoes
No fresh potatoes? No problem! Get some canned potatoes and whip it up into a delicious side dish. You can take the canned potatoes and make it into yummy mashed potatoes with milk (can reconstitute dry milk) and butter (can reconstitute powdered butter). Warm it up and you’re all set. Yum!
Sweet potatoes
The sweet potatoes from the can are already so delicious, not much you really need to do there besides warm them up and if you want, place some marshmallows on top.
Mac and cheese
While also not a canned good, boxed mac and cheese isn’t so bad. You don’t need to succumb to Kraft, there are tons of options out there that are healthier. Or make it from scratch which is super easy. Pasta, milk, butter and cheese. Bam!
Rolls
I usually make rolls from scratch, but they also make canned bread which makes it super easy to just open, place on baking sheet and bake. Badda boom, badda bing. You can also buy rolls and freeze them, taking them out the day of or the day before the holiday meal and warming them up right before you eat.
Dessert
If you’re planning to make a pie, you can buy pre-made pie crust in the cans or in the freezer section or even in the baked goods isle. Or you can make the pie crust from scratch because that’s really easy, too. They also have pie crust in a box where you can just add water. Then you can get canned pie filling, whether it’s pumpkin, apple, cherry, etc. It’s ready to go right from the can or maybe you might need to add some spices like for the canned pumpkin, but it usually has a recipe right on the can.
There’s an entire holiday meal made from canned and non-perishable food items.
Of course, you can change this up to fit your needs, but this was just to show you that a lovely meal can be made from canned and non-perishable food items.
How will you get creative with your holiday meals?
