How to Make Your Own $5 Homemade MREs 

Remembering my days in military back 45 years or so a couple of items to throw into the MRE should be. A book of matches wrapped in wax paper and sealed with wax, a a small ration of toilet paper. Also if you can find it some canels or chicklet gum. A couple of those peppermit gum rocks easily overcame the horrid taste of the Lima beans and ham or the ten pound pound cake. A single use handi wipe or sanitizer wipe in foil packet would also be advisable.

My favorite homemade mre can of pork and beans

Shelf stable and temperature resistant candies like Skittles are a great addition. Plain M&Ms if you need a chocolate fix. Sugar free gum can act as a toothbrush, distract from hunger when on the go, and chewing has a known calming psychological effect.

Great video. Couple of things I like to add: Sailor boy pilot bread. I take 3 of them, which is a good serving size for a pouch of tuna or chicken. Put it in a small mylar bag. You can either pull a vacuum on it and seal it, or you can add an oxygen absorber and seal it. Lasts darn near forever. Tortillas. Fold in half, which unfortunately will put a crease in them, but cannot be helped. Add an oxygen absorber and seal. Should last a year or more. You can use regular store bought tortillas. This would work really well for using a tuna, chicken, or pulled pork pouch to make a wrap. You can also add things like ready-to-eat rice or pasta instead. Any of these would boost your carbohydrates and calorie count way up. Dollar tree has some excellent snacks that could be repackaged in mylar for long life. The Combos and the Corn Nuts are exactly the same as the ones in MREs, both available in various flavors. If you repackage them in mylar and add an oxygen absorber, they will last a long time. Us old guys remember the very early MREs with the freeze dried fruit square. They were a favorite. They are still good 40 years later if you can find one with a good vacuum seal. If you want to do your own, Dollar Tree and Walmart both sell various freeze dried fruit pouches such as apples, bananas, berries, etc. It's not a square of styrofoam like the old MREs, but they are still delicious. They last a really long time as long as they are sealed up. Big fan of peanut M&Ms. Calorie dense, good mix of carbs, protein, and fat.

One thing you might want to do, is when putting an O2 absorber in with something that is hard and has sharp edges, like beef jerky, wrap the beef jerky in a paper towel before putting it in the mylar bag. Then when the oxygen is removed and you have a tight vacuum seal, the sharp edges on the beef jerky or rice in my case, doesn't slowly start poking holes in your bag. The paper towel acts as a nice buffer or padding, and you have extra towels if needed. Keep up the great work.

If you have a vacume sealer with a hose port, and either a jar sealer or canister set, you can put the unused oxygen absorbers in a Mason jar and vacume seal them until you need them. Keeps them good for a very long time.

Great idea, like the packaging. Oxygen absorber for the jerky or you will get moldy jerkey. Need to logically lay out your bfast, lunch, and dinner so each of your packs makes daily sense.

Think about adding a couple of the individually packed sugar and powdered milk for the coffee loving folks. Yep, I drink milk with coffee... 😁 This will also add a few calories as well as the instant boost of energy from the sugar. Not long carbs but still, more energy and they don't take up much room in the pack. Otherwise, excellent idea you've got going there!!

You can reuse those bags even stuffing with insulation materials to filter water. Those resealable bags look good

"Prepper Happy Meal". You sir, have just coined an excellent phrase. Well done!!!

I got things down to more meals ready to cook than ready to eat. You can still get cheap dehydrators out there so you can make cheap backpackers meals that just need rehydration, you can put water in them while you are setting up your tent and then they just need warming up. You also have more choice about what is in them including your level of spices you prefer.

Great video Dale…lots of good ideas!

I did a shopping trip to the Dollar Store and for $22.00 I got (almost) enough stuff for two 24-hr rations. I put in some green tea, napkins, individually sealed wet wipes, gum and flossers, and some Nando's plastic wear kits (when you get take-out they throw them in the bag) and an U.S. MRE dessert (cinnamon roll), so let's say $26.00 for a 24-hour MRE. Breakfast is cold, lunch can be cold or heated (I included one MRE heater), but you have to boil water for dinner (pasta mix + tuna fish or chicken). (I also built another 24-hour ration out of stuff I had already in my car and pantry. I don't have a vacuum sealer, so I just packed them in Gallon Ziploc Freezer bags with a few desiccant packets that I got out of my multivitamin bottles. It was a fun exercise, and now I have 72-hours worth of food for my Car emerg. kit.

Nice video Dale; looking forward to my turn to start doing these kind of things. Love the squeaky noise in the background. Assuming that your dog wanted to play. 😊

Brilliant, I'd only put biscuits and nut bars in my bag before, I'll give it a go which will save me some money when I go walking and sleeping outside rather than popping in a shop. Thanks, Stefan, Channel Islands.

Awesome idea. I'm going to make some this weekend.

Looks great Dale, I want one now

Wet wipes, one enclosed single per your MRE's

Actually IMPRESSIVE 👍

This is nice you are able to personalize your to go meals mre"s are very limited. 😊

Cool video. I recommend you further break down (take off cardboard package) the main portion of the meals (beef stew, Tuna fish, etc..) Before you vacuum seal it. This consolidates the packages allowing more room for your rucksack or wherever you store these items. 👍🏾

New sub here! Love making my own MRE's! Great video!

Great video, Dale! 👊🏼

fantastic ideas

So much fun!

We put peppered jerky or shelf stable bacon pieces, mashed potatoes/stuffing/noodles/rice, dehydrated veggies, gravy powder, dehydrated onion, powdered garlic, salt and pepper. Plus some oil. Canned clams, oysters, muscles, pouch of fish, with coconut milk, mashed potatoes, powdered butter, plus salt and pepper and herbs.

Just found your channel, great information 👍

Thank you for sharing. I will give Walaby a try. I have bags from another vendor I need to get through first. Keep prepping.

Great video!!! Well done 👍 like those bags gonna order some I'll give you a plug!

Some good ideas here.

As much as I love seafood I'm really leery of keeping them as preps. I know the best by date isn't set in stone but as someone who has had to deal with the aftermath of badly expired seafood- I am a stickler for going by the date. Those fruit jellies are great. The sugar and citric acid will keep them a long while and they're loaded with vitamin c

Protein or meal replacement powder would be a good addition.

Enjoyed the video just subscribed 👍🏾

One thing that might be good to pack into these is a handful of Vitamin tablets to have with each meal. Maybe even use Vitamin C gummies as a fruit snack alternative.

On certain items, remember, you are eating to survive in a possible battle situation. Only put in what you can eat quickly, and maybe even just snack size. For just camping fill em up. There's oatmeal packets, crumbled bacon, dried fruit (both dehydrated, and freeze dried), small amounts of powdered eggs, and milk for breakfast might be a thought as well. Maybe try some multi vitamins for the adults, and kids. Maybe I'm just thinking on the survival side, but ounces make pounds, and pounds make pain...

One thought on the 2 year lifespan of your packaged meals: Those Austin crackers will likely still be edible, though the peanut butter filling tends to develop a rancid flavor as they get older due to the oils in the peanut butter. You may want to swap those out for something else if you intend to make meals for long term storage. Also, I notice that you don't seem to include a starch option to go with the Great Value meat packs. Some options I would consider are the VeeTee rice packs (these look identical to what is included in Japanese JSDF rations), or the BARILLA Ready Pasta packs (These just happen to fit into a FRH bag). Both could be consumed cold, but I find they taste much better when heated. Both of these are staples in my office "I forgot my lunch again" food stash.

I think I would add a Capri Sun.

love people who make videos that dont know what theyre talking about

just bought a case of mres 12 bags cost 65 $ thats with shipping and handling thats 5.42 ea 1 bag has everthing you need to keep you going a full day need to shop around ate 1 that was 8 years old .... still good people say their too heavy i weighed 1 1 lb 8 oz so those people that say mres a bad choice ... dont know what they are talking about

i think a mylar bag is like 1-2 dollars per bag in my country, so it's expensive. wish i had better prices here in norway.

The Hormel microwave meals if you out them on the dash of your car in the sun it heats the up pretty good.

Concerns with shell and changes of temperature

Love the idea, choice of foods kinda socks though.. 😂

Good video

So it's like making a sac lunch in a mylar bag instead. Interesting idea

Good video.

Always factor in water and how u can heat stuff up

3:50 Canned food: "Am I a joke to you?"

You can also boil those complete meals and water just don't open them up put them in the hot water let them boil

Mine are 17 but a little higher but their 24 hour and what it costs when I get a vacuumed sealer it makes them last longer.and portion out snacks and fruit.ziplocks for the utilities and drinks.

Those hormel meals are pretty good, I keep a few in my toolbox at work for when I forget my lunch, but we have a microwave. I’m not opposed to cold food. Not those are absolutely disgusting cold. There is just too much congealed fat in them.

Idea: cook your pasta and dehydrate them..then you don't have to cook them- just hydrate in hot water

Taste test the Completes. My favorite is the spaghetti. Don't care for most of the others as have an institutional kind of taste. : )

you can bring your cost down significantly with the amazon vaccum food bag sealer. its also half the price.

Hi, this will be my 1st time making MREs & MRCs. My question is, can I vacuum seal my meals and then put them in the mylar bags for longer shelf life? Thanks...

IMO there should be a small pack containing condiments and sauce sachets, some hand wipes and some water purification product. Most adults could live for a week without food but become ill after a day with no water.

you shouldn't put oxygen absorbers in with beef jerky, it can cause botulism or mold since the moisture is too high, silica moisture absorbers are fine for jerky though. just be wary of that.

All you need is a tin of spam/corned beef , some crackers and a bar of chocolate. No mucking about with cooking and easy fits in a good sized pocket.

So how do the bags look now after a month with those O2 absorbers in there? Sucked down?

If i put a regular pasta meal in this bag and use a vacumm machine , how long will food last ?

Salt lots of salt. Thats whats in the hormel meals. Drink a gallon if water per meal lol. Used to take them in my lunch a lot

Your light cuts out after about three seconds on the sealer

I invested in 3 MRE one Dutch, one French and one English. I went though them all to construct a weeks (possibly more) of food for my bug out bag. It’s a good idea to construct my own for storage. I use a preppersuk site they do a bunch of MRE extras (drinks, sweets, nuts) between 15p or £1 each, sundries is a good investment purchased around 8 for just over £10, all the little extras that cost less than going to the store. In the process of constructing comfort boxes for each member of my family, if we ever get into a situation we can’t leave the house and society has collapsed you can’t pop out to get your favourite shelf stable, I currently have flavoured fizzy water, an MRE brownie, a tinned caramel pudding and a pack of noodles so far. This is a great video, given me plenty of ideas, don’t think I can find lunch to go or trail mix packets here in the uk but we probably have something similar. From a young female prepper I appreciate your video.

Check things like Welch’s Fruit Chews and other foods for Carrageenan. The last thing you need surviving anything from being lost in the woods for 3 days to a nuclear apocalypse is an inflamed colon.

Mylar bags work wonderful when vacuumed sealed. You can also put an oxygen absorber in it and vacuum seal it. The notion that Mylar bags lose air when vacuum sealed it’s an urban mess

Make sure you're looking on three nutritional content... grams of protein, minerals etc.

They put a ton of salt in the complete so they're shelf stable

Hormel meals are real good.

chocolate bar bad choice hot day it well melt

Sodium by milligram in the preserved foods must be off the charts

How can i get them

Can I order wallaby bags in Canada?

It's just a sealer. Not a vacuum sealer.

No condiments?

Beef jerky lasts 2yrs? I have seen it lasts 6 months or is that after opening for regular use?

I like shellfish but I'm highly allergic to them

Probably okay, but not anything like a real MRE. You can probably get FRH'S to heat the meals.

jerky bad idea high sodium dehydrate you

Making your own MRE packs is way better than buying the over priced ex army surplus ones, you can choose items with a longer or shorter shelf life, lighter, more calorie dense , more heathy and that suit your personal diet requirement or likes. Also MRE have quite a disgusting manufacturing system and are often sourced from just from the cheapest contract that an ex army officer can set up while he pockets the rest. to sum it up forces MREs are cheap manufactured crap sold at high mark ups

Neat idea if you want play mre's. Definitely wouldn't use these for any type of storage, at least long term or emergency use. Good idea for backpacking trip or camping maybe. The best mylar pouch in the world doesn't come close to the worst retort pack, unfortunately. And WTF, your billing an MRE and you say you are leery of food that doesn't have to be refrigerated? Lol

The red light that shows it's working turns off when it's down (about 3 seconds) so holding it for 6 seconds is just wasting time.

These look like a little day pack for a hike. I guess if that's all you're doing, it'll be okay. But real MREs pack about 1285 calories per ugly brown package. And if you're actually bugging out, you need those calories...upwards of 3500 per day. Warfighter guidelines are there for a reason.

Add some caffeine gum

Fingers have bacteria on them, use gloves when handling food to ensure you don't accelerate the decline in quality without necessity. :)

Hormel completes suck

your mres cost more than a military mre your food has to be replaced every 1 - 2 years military mre 5 years

Man...this guy's an OCD nightmare!

Problem is, those Completes are horrid!!! I bought several, thinking they would be handy. Tried a few...oh my YUCK!!!!! Unless you tried them and LIKE them, don't bother.......

No way that is $5 bucks. ! Your cash outlay is so much more ! Please be honest with the $ numbers .

Those can't survive in your car because of the heat/cold. Those Hormel meals are loaded with bad stuff too. Even genuine MREs aren't meant to be used in the field for more that a couple of days because of the stomach upset they cause and the high salt content. Far better to pack a lunch on the day of and keep lifeboat ration bars in your vehicles as they're the only thing that will last long term in your vehicle.

A suggestion and kind question as is would it be probably best to use the vacume sealer first before doing the zip locking of the bag as to actually be able to get as much air out as will keep the contents fresher as well to store for longer periodes of time !? Food For Thought !!! Cheers great video !!!

Wouldn't a vacuum sealer be way better? ..

Mine are 17 but a little higher but their 24 hour and what it costs when I get a vacuumed sealer it makes them last longer.and portion out snacks and fruit.ziplocks for the utilities and drinks.