With encouragement from public officials to stay home, many members of the community are now digging deeper into their food pantries in search of their next meal. Two questions loom:
“Is this still safe to eat?” and “What can I make with this?”
Answering the first one has confounded people for decades due to confusing date labeling. However, there are answers. We find the best ones can be found on StillTasty.com.
Still Tasty is the go-to resource for all your burning questions about the true shelf-life of food. Featuring an immense database of food items, the site gives you timeframes based on guidance from reputable sources that conduct studies on food storage and safety as well as guidance directly from food manufacturers. They pull all of this together and make sense out of what can sometimes be confusing, conflicting and contradictory information.
For each item, they provide an up-front timeframe and tips to help you get the best storage life out of the item at home, whether fresh, frozen or canned. It’s also full of practical food storage tips, like this guide on where to store fruit. There’s a Q & A page and great articles that provide sometimes hard to find answers, like this must-read article on expiration dates. This is an especially important resource for people receiving food assistance, as donated food are often items with a short shelf-life or may be slightly past the “Best By” or “Use By” dates on the package. Not only still safe to eat, but it’s still tasty, too!
Now that you can be confident that what you’re looking at is still safe to eat, let talk about what you can do with it. Here are our top tasty recipes for common food items that sometimes need a creative jump-start.
- For a different take on canned tuna, try these Tuna Quesadillas or Tuna Boats.
- Put peanut butter down as an entrée tonight with Noodles with Peanut Sauce or for a great snack, try these Energy Squares.
- Garbanzo beans, also called chickpeas, are used in this flavorful Garbanzo Bean Soup and these delicious Roasted Chickpeas.
- Try this White Bean Chicken Chili using canned chicken, canned beans and canned tomatoes instead of the fresh stuff. We’ve been making it this way for years and think you’ll love it, too!
- These Apple Oatmeal Muffins and Applesauce Waffles are sure to be a hit with children at home and are great recipes for them to help you make.
- The humble canned black beans really shine in these flavorful Black Bean Salsa Sliders and our Simple Southwest Salad.
Many more recipes just like these are available in our GoHealthy Recipe Library. Whatever you end up serving up, just remember to keep calm and open a can.
