I have always had a supply of freeze dried meals on hand for any need.
2020 came around and we stocked up on pasta, box dinners, pancake mix and other such stuff in case things were totally shut down.
Now that the expiration dates are coming due (I know the stuff will last longer than is marked), we are using it up.
As we do that, I am just now noticing how much other stuff, (spices, oil, butter, syrup, sauces, onions, carrots and other additives) that it takes to come up with meals.
So I am going a different route and declutter the long term pantry stash. Have figured out that we can take one prepared mountain house meal pouch and add between 1/2 or one cup of cooked rice to it and it is still flavorful. Needs a bit of extra water but most meals (chicken, beef, spaghetti and lasagna) work well.
This will allow my wife and I to share a pouch and be comfortably full. Maybe need a bit of pepper or hot spice, but a complete meal with just boiling water.
For our long term food stash, we will have freeze dried meal pouches, buckets of rice, pepper, some other spices , some bullion cubes and salt. Well, no need to add salt to the pouches anyways.
This greatly simplifies storage and portability. The pouches are good for 30 years, (I have some from 2002 and they are just fine), the rice is the easiest thing to store. Will still maintain our frozen food stash and some freeze dried onions and carrots but the normal pantry will get much smaller, don't need 10 boxes of spaghetti, elbow macaroni, pasta sauce, mushrooms, powdered milk or evaporated milk cans. Cost wise, the freeze dried route will cost more, but I don't think it will be much more when you take into account all of the things that go into a meal and the energy to make it, especially in a grid down situation.