Keep a keto emergency food supply stocked in your pantry and freezer in case for times of food shortages, natural disasters, or other emergency situations ever come your way. Take care of yourself and your family by preparing your home with shelf stable foods, emergency keto snacks, and storable foods that will last without refrigeration.
If you know you do best on a keto diet or a carnivore diet, this list is for you!
The modern age of convenience, fast food, take out and microwave-ready meals leaves us vulnerable and dependent on others for not only essential nutrients but also basic meal prep.
It’s sad to see the disappearance of larders and well-stocked pantries as people move to tiny homes and sky-high apartment buildings.
People grab frozen, microwave-ready meals instead of spending the time to meal prep, food court soups instead of homemade stews, and fast food keto meals instead of easy keto recipes made in their own kitchen.
Don’t let your hard work of keto adapting, avoiding keto flu, and reaching your low carb goals get sabotaged by being caught unprepared in times of emergency.
If you finally learned how to get results on a keto diet, do everything you can to protect your health!
Table of Contents (click to view)
Shelf-stable keto foods
Under emergency and disaster conditions, we need bioavailable nutrients to support our physical and mental demands. Animal foods are the most important in this situation.
Store these nutrient-dense foods in your pantry:
- Pemmican
- Organic bone broth
- Canned wild-caught fish (sardines, tuna, salmon, mackerel)
- Tallow, lard, ghee or other shelf-stable animal fat
- Jerky or biltong (sugar-free)
- Meat sticks
- Dry sausages
- Aged cheese
- Herbs and spices
- Bottled water
- Mineral water
Save the hassle of making pemmican yourself and buy it online from Steadfast Provisions. Their bars are made with ingredients sourced from family-owned grass-fed beef ranches in Oregon, USA.
Use the coupon code PRIMALEDGEHEALTH for 5% off the entire order.
This is the ultimate nutrient-dense adventure or survival food, reliable anytime, anywhere.
- Great taste
- Shelf-stable, grass-fed ingredients
- Convenient portions
- Travel-friendly nutrient-dense food
Anyone on keto knows of the importance of electrolytes. Salt is an obvious necessity for electrolytes and trace minerals. Choose a quality mineral-rich salt to store in your pantry or larder.
If you need to regulate your intake further, have a bottle or two of magnesium glycinate in 400 mg capsules.
Canning at home is a good way to stock up on a lot of food at once and preserve your own food supply. Take note of safety precautions and proceed accordingly. Can low carb vegetables, fruit, sauces, and even meat.
Support Your Immune System
In times of stress, our immune systems can get seriously taxed. Fermented cod liver oil and grass-fed desiccated organ meat capsules will support immune function and provide important nutrition.
If you live in a place without much natural sunlight during the year, consider having enough liposomal Vit-D3 with K2 for everyone in the home. Liposomal forms are highly assimilated.
Keto Emergency Snacks & Pantry Essentials
- Cheese crisps
- Coconut chips
- Coffee
- Pickles
- Canned full-fat coconut milk (unsweetened)
- Pork rinds
- Dark chocolate
- Coconut flour
- Olives
- Macadamia nuts
- Walnuts
- Pumpkin seeds
- Nut butter
- Coconut butter
Coconut oil and olive oil are two plant-based fat sources that are often used in keto cooking. They have a long shelf life and can be added to your collection too.
There are many types of coconut products to eat on keto. All of them do well at room temperature and will last for a long time.
Download and print out my full shopping list for Keto Pantry Staples and you’ll know exactly what to get!
Low Carb Foods that Last without Refrigeration
Many of these foods are also handy to keep at your work or in your car. If you’re out a lot, having staples like these nearby can help you adhere to a keto diet long-term. You won’t be so tempted to go off plan when you have appropriate food choices available.
These foods aren’t completely nonperishable but they will stay fresh for a while without refrigeration.
- Beef tallow
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Pickled eggs
- Lard preserved eggs
- String cheese
- Avocados
- Sauerkraut
Storable Keto Food: Earthquake and Disaster Prep
Storable food is storable food and good for many reasons. We always need to eat eventually don’t we?
Keeping your pantry stocked and having nutrient-dense staples on hand makes weekly trips to the grocery store easier and serves as a sort of safety net if you ever need to live off of your own supplies.
Hopefully, it never comes to a “worse case” situation but it never hurts to be as prepared as possible. Of course, if a serious life-threatening decision lays in front of you, don’t be afraid to eat nonketo food!
Natural disasters happen and if there is one in your area, you want to do the best you can for yourself and your family.
Keto Hiking, Backpacking and Camping Meals
Any low-carb food you have for emergency preparedness will double for hiking, backpacking, and camping meals also.
The main goal for all these situations is to have nourishing, non or semi-perishable food that will last without refrigeration.
Keep an eye on the storable food you have. Most things expire eventually so making some sort of rotation to kick out the old and refresh with new would be a good idea.
Don’t let anything go to waste. Whenever something is reaching the end of its shelf life, plan a camping or backpacking trip and enjoy the food in the great outdoors.
Homemade Keto Cooking from Scratch
It’s well established this far into the post that having a moderate stockpile of food in your home at all times is useful for practical and emergency-related reasons.
Now I want to show you what to do with these ingredients.
We’ve grown very decadent as a culture and many of us have lost the skills to do simple things such as cook homemade meals from scratch.
I wrote two keto cookbooks designed as training manuals to teach everyone the simple ways of nourishing ourselves with essential ketogenic foods. They are excellent guides to learn the basics of from-scratch meal prep. If you don’t already have a copy, order one now!
In addition to the 250+ keto recipes in the books and my collection of easy keto recipes on the blog, here a few more to wet your whistle.
The recipes are recommended for food preservation purposes or because they use common pantry staples.
Homemade Keto Cooking from Scratch
Fermented foods are an excellent way to build up your home supply of preserves. Kept at room temperature or in a cellar, foods are prepared for long-term storage via the process of lacto-fermentation.
This egg-free granola is dry-baked, so it can last on the counter for weeks!
Lacto-fermented sauerkraut is naturally a probiotic-rich fermented food. Flavored with any of your favorite herbs, crunchy cabbage is transformed over time into a soft, tangy, spritzy addition any entree. Sauerkraut may be kept to ferment at room temperature in a crock and last for many months.
Everyone will love this homemade sugar-free ketchup recipe! If you want to reduce sugar, or are looking for keto low carb ketchup, this is for you. Just a few minutes prep with simple pantry ingredients, and it tastes just like the regular kind!
This dark chocolate Flourless Keto Brownies Recipe is an utter delight! Made entirely from pantry staples, these can be made with what you have on hand. Each bite will taste so good, no one can tell they are sugar-free!
Keto Italian Pizza Zucchini Bake is a humble supper, prepared in less than half an hour, and full of low carb pantry staples. Layers of zucchini and onions with grilled chicken are topped with marinara, cheese, and pepperoni.
Your whole family will love these easy Air Fryer Chicken Fajitas. Homemade seasoned juicy chicken breast with smoky veggies makes a healthy and tasty weeknight dinner that comes together in less than 20 mins and taps i a serious dent in your spice cabinet!
Make Ahead Freezer Friendly Family Meals
It feels good to have a freezer stash of ready made meals. Having precooked (or uncooked meat) meals ready to reheat and serve with minimal action from me is a huge reassurance. Aside from emergency preparedness, make ahead meals are useful when you get sideswiped with a busy day or just don’t feel like making something from scratch.
Make Ahead Freezer Friendly Family Meals
This collagen-rich, super meaty beef stew is slow-cooked in a crockpot, flavored with carrot, onion, and thyme. It's a nourishing meal for lunch or dinner, any day of the week. Made with minimal prep work and you can't help but feel good when you see this budget-friendly recipe stocked in your freezer.
These 4 freezer-friendly meals that can be made in the slow cooker have minimal prep and will help you stock your freezer. They are all warm, comforting, family-friendly, and delicious.
Nourish your body with a slow-cooked Beef Bone Broth rich with immune-supporting properties that you need in times of stress. It freezes well long-term and can be added to any recipe that calls for water.
These 5 Easy Low Carb Marinade Recipes for Chicken are the perfect way to meal prep for the week to come. Staying low carb and getting a delicious meal on the table has never been so easy thanks to these freezer-friendly options.
Organ meats are some of the most affordable meats and happen to also be some of the most nutritious parts too. This nourishing combination of ground beef, liver and heart baked into a meat pie is simple and satiating. Make every bite count with this recipe, you get a great nutritional bang for your buck.
Learn how to make taco soup on the stove - it takes only 20 minutes + 5 ingredients! The whole family will love this easy low carb taco soup recipe with ranch dressing. Double the recipe and save leftovers in the freezer.
Easy sheet pan eggs to feed a crowd, made in just half an hour. Perfect for breakfasts, lunches, and make ahead meal prep. Batch this recipe and store the extra in your freezer.
Forget the fancy ice cream machine and grab a trusty mason jar for this no-churn keto ice cream recipe. Ice cream is a great way to freeze a lot of calories in a super delicious form.
Even your picky eaters will love these chicken nuggets. Pull them out of the freezer, just like usual. They are not only keto, but they are also low carb, gluten-free, and paleo too!
No Bake Keto and Low Carb Recipes
If it happens that the grid goes out and there is temporarily no electricity or gas for a while having a camping stove with portable gas tanks and knowing how to build a cooking fire would be helpful.
Failing that, some no-bake recipes made from pantry staples may come in handy until you can figure out a source of heat.
It’s hard to make entire no bake meals but these snacks and high fat recipes will keep you going while you conserve resources and keep a clear head to think up a plan.
No Bake Keto and Low Carb Recipes
Pemmican combines the two most essential ingredients for human health: animal meat and fat. This is a long-lasting, keto carnivore recipe for survival situations, backpacking, and camping because it is so nutrient-dense and won’t spoil, smush or spill.
Take homemade pemmican to the next level with organ meats like liver and heart. Pack it in your emergency food kit and add it into your backpack next time you head out on the trail.
Need easy no cook recipes that use shelf-stable ingredients? Keto energy and protein bars pack a nutritious punch and don't need refrigeration.
With 6 keto staple pantry ingredients, you can make Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups for a quick mental and physical energy boost and = Plus, they taste delicious!
Take your overnight oatmeal to a new level of nutrition and enjoyment with this recipe! Overnight, this Low Carb Oatmeal becomes gentler to digest and more nutritious.
Blend a simple keto chocolate pudding in less than 10 minutes. It’s a filling high-fat recipe with important nutrients like potassium, magnesium, and selenium.
Cinnamon Roll Easy Protein Balls made in just a few minutes with a few simple ingredients you already have on hand. These are an excellent snack or high-fat, low-carb protein-rich breakfast.
No bake Keto Coconut Macaroons are a quick fat bomb recipe you can make with basic keto pantry staples in just a few minutes. It’s a delicious mix of salty and sweet flavors with a splash of coconut. Made with just 6 ingredients and one bowl clean up is super easy!
These no-bake keto brownie bites are not only super fast and easy, but they are made entirely from keto pantry ingredients you probably already have stocked.
Thank you for sharing, this is such a great list! I also like that you included a whole bunch of recipes that we can make as well.
The two go hand in hand, I’m so glad it can be useful for you!
Such a great, and helpful list! And perfect timing. Now I can stock up and not have to go to the grocery store as often. Thank you for sharing!
Great list. Thank you!
Thanks for taking the time to say so! Have a great day Mindy <3
This is such a great list and perfect for this time. I’m not on a keto diet but can definitely use this. Thanks for sharing
These are healthy and practical foods for all diet types. We all need animal protein and fats!
What a timely article. We have never thought that we would be needing this, but this quarantine has definitely taught us to learn to prepare ahead.