Meals in a Jar Builder: 162 Just-Add-Water Jar Recipes

One jar. Five layers. Dinner is already made.

Layer dry pantry food into a quart jar in the right order, screw on the lid, and it waits on the shelf for months. When you need dinner, empty the jar into a pot, add water and simmer. No chopping, no packets, no takeout.

Built from the supermarket, not a survival store. Every jar uses everyday dry goods and a few pantry powders: rice, pasta, lentils, dried onion and carrots, milk powder, bouillon, tomato powder, cheese powder. No freeze-dried food. No freeze dryer. No dehydrator. If a jar needs anything else on cooking day, it is one ordinary thing, like a can of chicken, a pound of ground beef, or eggs or butter for the bakes, and the jar page says exactly what and when.

What's in the book

• 162 jar recipes in 6 chapters: Breakfast, Soups, Chili & Stews, Pasta & Rice, Sides, Desserts & Gifts
• 102 jars cook with water alone; the other 60 add one can, pack or pantry staple at cooking time
• About 3 in 4 jars are on the table in 30 minutes or less; most serve 4 to 6
• Every jar keeps 3 to 6 months on the shelf (the exact time is printed on each page)
• A full-color photo of every jar with the layers numbered, plus a photo of the finished dish
• A supermarket swap on every jar for the few dried goods you may need to order online, and a where-to-buy page with what each one costs
• The 5-layer formula and a builder chart for every chapter, so you can invent your own jars
• A jar-day plan (fill a month of jars in one afternoon), a shopping list and a batch-prep chart for filling 2, 3 or 4 of the same jar
• Six signature jars with extra tips, gift ideas and cut-out labels, plus a storage chart and an A to Z index

Really clear directions. Each jar gives you the pot size, the heat, the exact water, the time range and the doneness cue, never "cook until done." The layer table, the "just add" line, the steps, serving ideas and a nutrition estimate all sit on one page.

A sample jar: Chicken Noodle Soup (serves 6, 25 minutes). Layer wide egg noodles, red lentils, dried carrots and celery, chicken bouillon, and a seasoning bag of dried onion, thyme, parsley, bay leaf and pepper. To cook, whisk the seasoning bag into 8 cups of water, bring to a boil, stir in the jar and simmer 10 to 12 minutes, then add one drained can of chicken.

Seven free printable bonuses (code inside the book): jar labels, jar-day plans and shopping lists, gift tags and recipe cards, every jar at a glance, a build-your-own-jar worksheet, a storage chart and pantry tracker, and the pantry powders and dried-goods guide.

Choose your format

• Paperback: 76 full-color pages, 8.5 x 11 in
• Spiral-bound: the same 76 full-color pages on a coil binding that lies flat on the counter while you layer jars

Printed to order for you. Book 2 of the Pantry Builder Series by Ellen Sawyer, after the Dry Mix Pantry Builder Cookbook.