How to Cook Without Electricity? If you ever end up in a situation where you don’t have electricity, you need to know how to make a meal for the family. While you can eat protein bars, crackers, and other snacks to hold you off, you don’t know how long you’ll end up going without electricity, and you want to be able to keep things as normal as possible for your children.
So check out these helpful tips on cooking without electricity in emergencies. Believe it or not, there are several great ways to prepare warm and delicious food without a power source.
1. Use an Emergency Camp Stove When Dealing with an Emergency
Did you know that you can buy an emergency portable camp stove and set it aside until you need to use it? It’s always good to have on hand because you don’t know if there will come a time when you don’t have electricity and want to make something to eat. In addition, emergency camp stoves are affordable and easy to use.
It’s possible to order these stoves for less than $10 online. And, if you want to stay prepared for potential emergencies, consider buying more than one. Most of the emergency camp stoves can only get used once, but they work efficiently to heat food quickly.
2. Prepare Food Over the Fireplace in Your Home to Heat Meals Fast
If you have a fireplace in the home, use it to your advantage to prepare food for the family. You can ensure that you always have what you need to start a fire by collecting wood to put in the fireplace and storing it in a safe spot.
In addition to collecting the wood, be sure to have flint and matches to light the wood. Of course, you’ll need to be careful when cooking over an open flame in the fireplace. However, it’s possible to hold pots and pans over the fire to heat the food inside them.
3. Invest in Ready-to-Eat Meals That Can Come in Handy During Emergencies
When you have ready-to-eat meals at home, it’s easy to heat food fast without electricity. You can buy these meals online and at specific stores, such as Wal-Mart. People in the military often consume these meals while on duty and out in areas where they don’t have access to electricity.
The meals can heat themselves when you shake them or press on a specific part of the product. Stocking up on these meals could come in handy if you end up without electricity at the most unexpected moment.
4. Set Up a Campfire Using Wood and Matches
When you have space in the backyard, consider setting up a campfire. You can pile up the wood and use a flint to make a fire. You can hold a pie iron, skillet, or pot over the flames to heat food if you have a campfire going. And, you can even cook some food directly over the flame, such as hot dogs and sausages.
You can make the most out of the situation by preparing some of your favorite foods over the campfire and enjoying the quality time spent with loved ones instead of stressing over the lack of electricity.
5. Use the Grill in the Backyard When You Want Hot, Fresh Food
Don’t forget to use the grill. You may already have a grill in the backyard that you like to use during the warmer months when you might prepare hot dogs, hamburgers, sausages, and more. If so, pour in the charcoal, add the lighter fluid, and ignite the grill to get started.
You can cook many different meals on the grill, including chicken, steak, pork, potatoes, and vegetables. Not only will the food taste good, but it’s also healthier for you because you’re cooking directly over the grill instead of using oil to fry your food.
6. Get a Solar Cooker and Use the Sun to Heat Your Food
Invest in a solar cooker so that you have something to use that relies solely on solar energy to produce heat for meals. Of course, you’d need to put the solar cooker in the backyard or on the front lawn to use the sun as a light source to heat the food, but there’s nothing wrong with that.
Like the other options, you can put the solar cooker to good use by preparing meals with it. It’s the perfect piece of equipment to use when you’d like to bake, fry, or even naturally cook some of the meals you’d like to serve to your loved ones.
Personally we own a Sun Oven and it has been wonderful for cooking and baking, even when electricity IS available.
7. Create a Buddy Burner to Use
When feeling creative, don’t hesitate to create a buddy burner that you can use to heat meals without having electricity. The buddy burner is a device that people in the wilderness often use. You can create it by using a large metal can, corrugated box, and paraffin wax.
While it may sound strange, many people have successfully used these homemade burners to heat food while camping or dealing with a lack of power due to an emergency. If you already have the supplies needed to create one of these burners, you can try putting it together to see how well it works at heating food for you.
Try These Different Methods to Cook Without Electricity
Cooking without electricity may seem impossible, but there are several ways to make it happen. For example, if you have a grill, fireplace or are willing to set up a campfire in the backyard, you can heat food and serve your family. In addition to these options, there are several other convenient ways to get your food hot!
Cooking Without Electricity
So, instead of living off snacks and items that don’t need to be served hot when dealing with an electrical outage, keep things as normal as possible for your loved ones by finding ways to make warm and delicious meals for them. In addition, you can invest in certain electric-free cooking products to put to good use during emergencies when the electricity goes out and stays out for a while.
More You Can Do to Be Prepared
- Non-Power Kitchen Tools For Emergencies
- Doing Laundry by Hand
- Prepare for a Power Outage
- Is It Too Late to Start Prepping?
- How to Prepare for Food Shortages
- How to Buy an Off-Grid Home
