Prepping is all about stocking up but if the expense is too much, as some pre-prepped dinners can be, doing your own may not be such a bad idea.
Here are some tips that might be helpful:

1. Although you can definitely include your own dehydrated foods, keep in mind that putting together numerous meals using the same recipe will require a lot of each ingredient.  Therefore, it might be worth spending a bit extra to purchase commercially dehydrated or freeze dried foods for this project.  DIY dehydrated foods have a shorter shelf life than do their commercially dried counterparts.  Keep that in mind.

2. The shelf life of your finished dinners will be equivalent to that of the ingredient with the shortest shelf life.  For example, a recipe containing pasta will have a shelf life of about seven or eight years, maximum, because that is the shelf life of pasta.

3. Dehydrated eggs, sour cream, butter and milk will have to be purchased from a company like Thrive Life.

4. It makes sense to prepare several batches of each recipe rather than just one.  Be sure to have enough of each ingredient on hand.  You may be surprised by how much is required, but keep in mind you’re preparing many future meals.

5. I love using canning jars for all sorts of purposes, but they are heavy and breakable. Keep that in mind when you select how you’ll store your Dehydrated Dinners.

6. For storage, keep in mind the five enemies of food: heat, humidity, oxygen, light, and pests.

7. To get started with your own recipe, choose a soup or a casserole.  The ideal recipe will contain ingredients that can all be converted to a dehydrated version.  Be prepared to do a bit of tweaking.  Choosing the right recipe is the hardest part of this process.

8. If a recipe contains an ingredient that is normally canned, such as diced tomatoes, it’s perfectly fine to omit that ingredient in your dehydrated mix and then plan on adding that canned item when it’s time to prepare the meal.  Just make a note of it, and then be sure to have enough stored in your pantry. Another option is freeze-dried chopped tomatoes. You’ll have to add extra water to rehydrate them, but they do have a long shelf life.

Preparing a lot of meals is never too much. Not only is this for you but, if you find a have loved ones with your, it's good to be prepared.

There are more tips on The Survival Mom. Please go over and check them out!

By the way, you might also want to consider using these meals for daily life and not just when the grid goes down. How often do you come home from work and NOT want to make an involved dinner? Instead of calling for a pizza why not just go to your pantry and pull out a dehydrated meal?

Your family need never know!