How will people cook a traditional dinner to celebrate the holidays after the fall of civilization? Grocery stores will be barren husks, so we’ll have to get creative on how we serve up a holiday meal.

Why is this important? Why celebrate at all?

Survivalism is serious, but it doesn’t always have to be. Serving a holiday meal is a great way to boost morale and treat your family for surviving to the holiday season. Your family needs a pleasant distraction to remind them that it’s still possible to have a tiny semblance of normalcy, even in the middle of a catastrophe.

I’ve been thinking about this since last Christmas and came up with a few recipes that may be helpful after the SHTF. A few things to note before we get started are:

• These holiday recipes come from the Survivalist Cookbook I plan to release in the coming months.
• The recipes assume you have stockpiled, foraged, grown, stolen[1], or traded for the listed ingredients. In most of my recipes I call for “vegetables” because I don’t know what you’ll have after the SHTF. Specific ingredients are mostly a suggestion, and you’ll have to substitute that ingredient with a similar item if you don’t have it.
• These recipes assume that you have a working oven, or know how to bake using a campfire. I have baked using fire and it’s doable, but requires a lot of practice to know where to place the pot or oven container to achieve equivalent temperatures. I may publish an article about campfire baking in the near future.

Holiday “Turkey”

Not everyone lives where wild turkey can be found, so you’ll probably have to use a large bird and pretend it’s a turkey. After all, it’s the thought that counts.

Ingredients

• 1 “turkey” or whatever large bird you can catch or kill
• 2 cups of diced vegetables (Preferred: onion, celery, and garlic)
• Stuffing (I keep instant stuffing bags in my stockpile, but a basic stuffing recipe is below.)
• General Seasoning Mix

Directions

1. Clean the bird and rub with general seasoning mix.
2. Lightly oil the bottom of a roasting pan and place vegetables on bottom.
3. Place “turkey” on top of vegetables and cover with a lid or aluminum foil.
4. Bake (roast) in a 350-degree oven for about 15 minutes per pound (that’s assuming you can weigh it). If you have a small bird, it may not register on most scales, so it’s best to cook it for at least 1 hour.
5. Remove the lid or covering during the last 15-30 minutes to brown the skin.
6. Ladle out 1 cup of the drippings and vegetables from the bottom of the roasting pan into a large bowl, and mix in instant stuffing. No additional cooking is required for this simple stuffing. If you don’t have instant stuffing mix, then please see the next recipe.
7. Serve and be thankful you’re alive.

Prepper Holiday Stuffing

What’s a holiday dinner without stuffing? If you don’t have the stuffing mix the last recipe calls for, you can still serve a side of stuffing even if you only have crackers or hardtack.

Ingredients

• ½ pound saltine crackers or hardtack (use best estimate, 2 sleeves or about 80 crackers)
• 1 cup diced vegetables (onion, celery, and garlic)
• 2 teaspoons of Italian seasoning (equal parts: sage, thyme, and rosemary)
• 1 to 1½ cup broth or pan drippings
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Crush crackers and set aside. If using hardtack, this may be difficult depending on how dense it is. I find it’s easier to crush hardtack by putting it in a Ziploc bag and beating it with a hammer.
3. Heat oil in a pot, and add vegetables and seasoning. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until the onions turn translucent.
4. Remove vegetables from heat and stir-in broth or pan drippings.
5. Add crushed crackers or hardtack and mix well.
6. Evenly spread the stuffing into an oiled baking dish.
7. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the top is slightly brown.

Notes

• The vegetables should equal about 1 cup when diced. 1 cup should be equal to 1 small onion and 1-2 stalks of celery, and garlic is so miniscule it barely counts. If the vegetable mixture makes more than 1 cup, use it! You may not have a working refrigerator, so don’t waste food trying to follow the recipe with exact measurements.
• If the stuffing looks a little runny after Step 5, add a little more crushed bread. Usually, 5-10 crackers are enough to soak up any excess liquids.

Canned Holiday Ham

The traditional holiday ham may be a thing of the past… unless you own a farm with pigs or happen to kill a wild boar. If you are hankering for some holiday ham, get creative and open a can of Dak Premium Ham to celebrate the holidays. You can even peel open the lid of the can to bake the ham inside the can itself.

Ingredients

• 1 can of Dak Premium Ham (Spam is an okay substitute)
• ¼ cup sugar (brown sugar is preferred, but regular sugar works)
• Optional: 1 teaspoon powdered cinnamon and/or nutmeg

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F,
2. Bake the ham for about 15 minutes.
3. If using cinnamon/nutmeg, combine with sugar while the ham bakes.
4. Remove the ham from oven and sprinkle or rub sugar until it’s covered on all sides.
5. Place ham back into the oven and bake for another 15 minutes.
6. Slice and serve. For better presentation, try slicing it length-wise and diagonally.

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Those are my survivalist-themed holiday recipes. Again, they are from a cookbook I plan to publish in early 2024. You can find the print edition here.

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[1] Crime/Violence Disclaimer: The author does not condone violence or breaking any laws, nor does the author support vigilante justice. The intention of this article is to educate readers on how to improve personal survivability during a theoretical disaster, and does not promote or entice anyone to steal, loot, or commit any other crime in any ordinary circumstance.