Preparedness Gift Ideas for the Kitchen to help you give the gift of preparedness to your family and friends for Christmas, birthdays, weddings and more!
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Small Budget Preparedness Gifts for the Kitchen
($25 and under)
1. CANNING EQUIPMENT
Not just for the canner, but for stocking dry goods, leftovers, salads, and more. These Ball half-gallon sized storage jars are great for stocking dried foods in the pantry. And they make a pantry Pinterest pretty, especially with the new colors of jars they have.
Pro Tip: Be sure to go with the wide mouth jar to make filling easier!
2. MANUAL CAN OPENER
Whether you decide to go with an ordinary manual can opener or give a P-38 can opener for putting in emergency bags, this is great gift for a brand new family starting a home. One of the worst things to happen to families is to rely on canned goods to get you through an emergency, only to find the only way they have to open those cans when the power goes out is an electric can opener. Maybe this is a gift you’d just throw in as a stocking stuffer, but it is a great preparedness gift for the kitchen – both practical and preparedness specific.
Pro Tip: Do not buy ones from the dollar store. While they may be useful, they are not practical in the long-term because they are so cheaply made they actually can bend and break.
• More info:  Off-Grid Alternatives to Everyday Kitchen Tools
3. BULK FOODS
Do you remember pound parties? Families would give showers to new couples of a pound of flour, a pound of salt, a pound of sugar, and so on. You can give bulk foods as a way to help build a prepared pantry of foods that are used everyday. Look alternatives like chocolate, beans varieties, wheat berries, flax seed, dried milk, freeze dried meats and fruits/vegetables, freeze dried eggs or butter, and oatmeal.
4. MANUAL COFFEE GRINDER
Not only is this great for grinding your own roasted coffee beans, it is great for grinding your own seeds for spices and beans for small servings of flours, it’s great for powdering dehydrated foods, especially greens to add to smoothies for a punch or kick up your nutrient quotient in other foods.
5. HAND-HELD VACUUM SEALER
Food Saver, Ziplock and other brands are now coming out with hand-held vacuum sealer machines that work with zip top type bags and deli containers and don’t require the use of a huge machine. The bags are generally reusable and can be a great addition to a small home that has no space for a large machine. It can help store produce, dehydrated products, items to extend the growing season, seeds, and more! The prices vary between brands, but since I love my Food Saver, and I know the items will last longer than a season, I’d suggest them over no-name brands.
6. MANDOLIN
A mandolin is a great tool to prepare foods, especially if doing lots of them, to slice for dehydrating or canning or even serving as snacks. While knife work makes quick work of small quantities, sometimes a mandolin makes slicing and shredding even easier!
• Read: 150 Preparedness Stocking Stuffer Ideas
7. CAST IRON SKILLETS
Cast iron is a must for all families, not only for the benefit of iron added to your diet, but because it’s a great utensil that can be transferred between a typical kitchen set up to an outdoor set up if need be. But it does take getting used to, and not everyone will love your thoughtfulness. However, if you have a budding chef, someone really interested in outdoor cooking, or someone willing to begin to make that transition to a preparedness lifestyle, this is a great gift idea! Be sure to pick only American made cast iron (such as Lodge) instead of imports from China.
• More info: My 5 Must Have Cast Iron Favorites
8. OFF GRID COOKING SOURCE
While it may be a bit weird for those folks who can’t imagine not cooking in their kitchen or the big grill out back, a backup cooking system is a must, especially for those households powered only with electricity and no working fireplaces. This small rocket stove is a great way to cook meals using very little in the way of materials. It just takes a few twigs to get a good soup pot going. It’s definitely not the norm, but can be a great alternative. You can read more on my review and how I used the rocket stove here.
As an alternative, a simple propane burner will be a little more familiar for some. These sit right on the edge of the budget, but are so easy.
9. FOOD STORAGE CONTAINERS
Whether bulking up supplies of zip top bags, investing in a pantry storage system or reusable storage containers, this is an area that new families are lacking and would be a good boost to help them in food storage. I really love using the tall cylindrical canning jar type containers, but the round shape wastes space if you’re trying to pack it all in. But these containers are fabulous AND they include a vacuum sealing gadget that lets you remove the excess air and makes food last longer (this is also a great introduction into vacuum sealing food for long-term!
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10. FERMENTING KITS
Fermenting is another way that’s really gaining in popularity to preserve foods from the garden. Many are afraid to start because they just are overwhelmed by the process, but this small fermenting kit can be a great way to get started fermenting for anyone.
11. GAMMA LIDS
These lids are wonderful for helping store food items. Gamma lids are made to create an air-tight seal on 5 gallon buckets where yous store bulk grains, excess foods, emergency supplies and more. We’ve begun using them in creating a 5 Gallon Bucket gift pack for family and newlyweds.Â
• Read More: The Emergency Bucket Gift
12. COOLERS
No, we aren’t preparing for a football game, but coolers are awesome for emergency preparedness! If your power goes out, coolers are a way to help preserve foods until you can eat them or process them before they go bad. They’re a great way to transport food during an emergency, and great for car trip to have your own food in case you get stuck on the road with no access to store-bought or local restaurants.
13. FIRE EXTINGUISHER
No, it’s not a romantic gift, but definitely one that many homes do not have in their kitchen. Because the majority of house fires actually start in the kitchen, it’s a great way to introduce the preparedness concept to family members to get them started!
14. EMERGENCY LIGHTING
I don’t know about you, but I hate to cook in a dark kitchen! If the power goes out, Dominos may not be able to deliver, and you’ll want to begin to think about how you’ll use up the food in your fridge before it goes bad. Ideas would be candles, hurricane lamps, oil lamps, flashlights, etc. Our favorite is this adjustable folding lantern that can be placed in a few different positions to give you task lighting or room lighting, whichever you need. It is battery powered, powerful, and our go-to light in an emergency.
15. MINI HEAT SEALER
This mini bag sealer seemed like a gimmick item when these first came out years ago, but since I’ve adjusted my thinking about how to preserve foods, this is an amazing little gadget!!! It reseals bags! Think of potato chip bags and the like. Instead of just using bag clips to try to keep bags closed, remove the air and reseal them!!
16. FIRST AID KIT
Sure, we all keep first aid kits in our bathrooms or linen closets, but how many of us have one in the kitchen? Instead of walking all through the house to find a bandage or other supplies, having a small kit in the cupboard can really help immediately. Include a few bandages, some pressure dressings, alcohol wipes and the things to help you stop bleeding until you get to your big kit or head to the hospital for stitches <grin>.
17. SPROUTING KIT
Greens are hard to get in the winter when you don’t have a winter garden planted, and selections aren’t great at your grocery store. Growing them in a home is super easy with a sprouting kit. And you can grow sprouts from a variety of seeds like lentils, broccoli, and more. (thanks to Prepare America for the suggestion to the list!)
18. MEALS IN JARS / FREEZER MEALS
If you are already doing meals in jars from your dehydrated/freeze dried foods (see this post for a ton of ideas to create them), make extras to give to friends. Additionally, if you do freezer meals in bulk, consider giving those to a family to help them build their pantry. These are wonderful gifts from the heart that might not cost you much.
19. OFF GRID COOKING SOURCE
While it may be a bit weird for those folks who can’t imagine not cooking in their kitchen or the big grill out back, a backup cooking system is a must, especially for those households powered only with electricity and no working fireplaces. This small rocket stove is a great way to cook meals using very little in the way of materials. It just takes a few twigs to get a good soup pot going. It’s definitely not the norm, but can be a great alternative. You can read more on my review and how I used the rocket stove here.
As an alternative, a simple propane burner will be a little more familiar for some. These sit right on the edge of the budget, but are so easy.
20. BOOKS
Here is a list of books that are great to have for a prepared kitchen. Some are cookbooks/process books, some are books how how to be prepared for your family as it deals with the kitchen and the rest of your life. They are all books that are in my Prepared Library.
- Putting Food By  by Hertzberg, Greene & Vaughn
- The Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook by Tammy Gangloff (reviewed here)
- Dehydrator Bible by MacKenzie, Nutt & Mercer
- Mary Bell’s Complete Dehydrator Cookbook by Mary Bell
- Ball Complete Guide to Home Preserving by Judi Kingry
- Food Storage for Self Sufficiency and Survival by Angela Paskett  (read review here)
- Simply Canning: Survival Guide to Safe Home Canning by Sharon Peterson
- The Organic Canner by Daisy Luther
- Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition and Craft of Live-Culture Foods
If you’ve given the gift of preparedness, what are things you’d add to the list?
Katy Willis is a writer, lifelong homesteader, and master herbalist, master gardener, and canine nutritionist. Katy is a preparedness expert and modern homesteader practicing everyday preparedness, sustainability, and a holistic lifestyle.
She knows how important it is to be prepared for whatever life throws at you, because you just never know what's coming. And preparedness helps you give your family the best chance to thrive in any situation.
Katy is passionate about living naturally, growing food, keeping livestock, foraging, and making and using herbal remedies. Katy is an experienced herbalist and a member of the CMA (Complementary Medical Association).
Her preparedness skills go beyond just being "ready", she's ready to survive the initial disaster, and thrive afterward, too. She grows 100% organic food on roughly 15 acres and raises goats, chickens, and ducks. She also lovingly tends her orchard, where she grows many different fruit trees. And, because she likes to know exactly what she's feeding her family, she's a seasoned from-scratch cook and gluten-free baker.
Katy teaches foraging and environmental education classes, too, including self-sufficient living, modern homesteading, seed saving, and organic vegetable gardening.
Katy helps others learn forgotten skills, including basic survival skills and self-reliance.
She's been published on sites such as MSN, Angi, Home Advisor, Family Handyman, Wealth of Geeks, Readers Digest, and more.
Last update on 2024-04-28 at 02:31 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API