Low-cost food preserving practices
Extending the harvest doesn't need to be expensive
Dollar Tree Dinners, who makes budget meals from dollar store food, recently got a lot of pushback for not making more nutritious meals. I have plenty of thoughts about nutrition, food access, and privilege but as someone who has, in my 20s, relied on budget foods as well as food assistance (SNAP is a literal lifesaver) and food banks, I both recognize a lot of the considerations she’s weighing and some of the weird guilt that goes with wanting to eat healthier and not having the budget to buy diverse, nutritious ingredients.
Or, perhaps, even the means to cook those ingredients once you have them (have you ever tried slow cooking a nutrient-dense meal when you’re sharing a kitchen with ten other people in a rooming house?)
As Dr. Sarah Ballantyne notes, when you’re on the severe budget constraints like those proposed in these videos (feeding your family on $20 for 5 meals, for example) the primary concern is to feel satiated and have enough food: That’s it.
What I like about both of their approaches to eating (Dollar Tree Dinners’ realistic recipes from dollar store food, and Ballantyne’s Nutrivore system), is that they take a lot of the guilt and ‘shoulds’ out of the equation.
They say ‘ok, here’s what you have access to, what can we do with that?’ and ask what marginal improvements can be made so you’re getting the best meals you can out of what’s available. But, blessedly, they do this without the kind of weird lectures I used to get at the food bank about eating nutritious meals (while being handed a box of white bread, ground venison, and sloppy Joe mix. That particular week all I had for every meal was venison sloppy Joes. I do not recommend it!)
Yes, we want macronutrients and micronutrients and balanced diets, but the truth is that’s not accessible for everyone, and/or not necessarily accessible to everyone with every meal.
In my case, I eventually lived in an apartment where I could start a garden, and that drastically improved my access to nutritious food (as well as qualifying for SNAP, rather than just relying on the food bank as I had for years). That’s where I first learned how to preserve.
It has me thinking a lot about food preserving advice, too: and how much of it can feel inaccessible when your budget is really tight. Specialized equipment, or even regular access to electricity (or a kitchen) can be barriers for folks.
So how do we preserve food on a very limited budget?
In my 20s, I was food insecure and often went to the food bank for the bulk of my food, infilling a bit as I could with other purchased groceries, leftover food from my job at a cafeteria, soup kitchens, and occasional dumpster diving.
This was also when I learned to garden and to preserve my food: Partly for pleasure, and partly out of necessity. I initially started gardening because I thought it would be fun and would make getting some more vegetables in my diet easier, but I quickly found I had more than I could reasonably use, hence my forays into food preserving. I began with sauerkraut, branching out into other fermented foods, canning, and other practices like salting.
I had to contend with a low budget, small space, and depending where I was living, power that cut off and on thanks to faulty old wiring, and/or a lack of hot water, and/or a shared kitchen.
This meant canning wasn’t always practical, but salting or freezing might be. Or fermenting could happen, but not at a large scale because I had to store what I was making in my room so it wouldn’t get thrown out by neighbors or roommates.
It also meant I wasn’t buying specialty equipment (my first ‘canner’ was my only large pot, which I also used to cook most of my meals), and I reused what I could whenever I could (jars, bands and lids, though note that for canning lids can only be used once and when new, pickle brine, etc).
I spent this morning thinking about some of the lessons from that time, and how food preserving is something that, broadly speaking, is something we learned to do to conserve resources, so is a practice that we can play with to the extent we’re able even when on a restricted budget.
Most importantly: Food preserving does not need to happen at scale to have an impact.
Most of my food preserving happens in small batches: 2 pints of sauerkraut from a head of cabbage that’s about to turn, a few salted egg yolks, one jar of pickles or jam, or a handful of asparagus wrapped up in the freezer.
It may not make financial or ecological sense to fire up the canner to process one half-pint of jam, but you could freeze it. Or you could macerate those berries in sugar in the fridge if you don’t have access to a stove.
Food preserving is a creative process rooted in what you have, what you want, and what you can access. Your preserving practice is based in the possibilities and limitations of your life, and thus isn’t going to look the same as anyone else’s.
Below is an incomplete list of tips for food preserving on a budget (I’ll probably add to it over time). What would you add?
Safety note: Use common sense and trusted sources when preserving food. Learn more about trusted sources here.
A few ideas for preserving small amounts of food on a budget
These techniques use minimal equipment and energy, and in many cases can work with pantry staples (like salt or sugar) that you already have or that aren’t typically very expensive.
Reuse pickle brine to pickle other things (for refrigerator pickling, not canning). If you have a pickle you like the flavor of, save that brine and use it to pickle small amounts of other fruits and vegetables as you have them. You can get at least one more batch of pickles out of most pickle brines, sometimes more, depending on acidity and salinity.
Small amounts of herbs, fruits, or other foods that are about to go bad can be added to vinegar to make shrubs and flavored vinegars. These are delicious, but also very versatile. A search of this newsletter will give you some of my recipes! You can also make infused oils if you use dried herbs and spices.
Macerating fruit: Fruit + sugar, left in the fridge overnight, helps preserve the fruit for longer (and is a good use for fruit you’ve had to cut bruises, etc. from), and gives you a usable product without a lot of time or energy. You can do this with a lot of fruit, or a little fruit. This can use any kind of sugar (but not artificial sweeteners), or honey or agave work too. See a step-by-step guide here.
Freezing: Freezing food is probably one of the most familiar preserving methods to modern folks in industrialized areas with consistent electricity. The key to successful freezing is preparing the food (through blanching in some cases, and through proper packaging) in order to prevent freezer burn and preserve flavor and texture. This website has guidelines for freezing, just do a text search by ingredient.
Kraut-chi: One of my go-to examples for waste makes taste, kraut-chi relies on shredding whatever vegetables you have, massaging with salt, and making them into a sauerkraut or kimchi-like ferment. Here’s how to make it (along with some other low-waste ideas).
Fermentation: Is cheap, simple equipment, can use any salt (yes ideally not with additives but if that’s what you have, then use what you have). I have tons of posts on fermentation, as well as various classes: Just search this newsletter to find some of my recipes.
Salt your food: If you buy or receive a big box of salt, preserving food in salt is a simple, time honored tradition. Think salt-packed veggies, misozuke (miso packed pickles) or salt-preserved egg yolks (paywalled, if you can’t afford a paid subscription let me know and I’ll send you a free trial to read it).
Sun dry your food: While electric dehydrators cost $ and use electricity, sun drying uses, well, the sun, and works great if you’re in a place where you get a lot of it. Here are some best practices for sun drying.
Ask questions: Preserving what you have, and repurposing possible waste (including repurposing containers) is great, but what really works well if you’re feeling stuck is to ask others for ideas too. The internet is full of ideas, though it’s increasingly challenging to sift through the noise and clutter of search results. So asking other food preservers who have experience with small-scale preserving can help you think up new ideas or decipher a new-to-you technique.
Have questions? Leave them in the comments!
P.S. if you want to learn more about reducing food waste and it’s in your budget to learn through a course, Preserving Abundance offers tons of recipes and tips (with more being added throughout the year), along with shifts in mindset and practice that support you in making long-term sustainable changes without feeling overwhelmed (or going broke replacing everything in your kitchen with ‘green’ options).
Fantastic! Very useful. I so wish that everyone in the food and fermentation communities would focus on access and cost, instead of selling $100 bottles of pepper infused soy sauce.
I love my food dehydrator, it had a broken knob when I bought it at a steep discount but functions perfectly as a tempeh incubator and whatever other purpose I choose. Using that pickle brine to extend the lifespan of say, radish or alfalfa sprouts helps quite a bit (I prefer kimchi brine but any brine will do). Maybe there's a chance to make a double batch of brine than what you need for your fix of pickled red onion, just toss that in an empty jar to make things easier next time.