About a month ago, I shared a post (link HERE) about the micro food pantries that are popping up outside churches, schools and businesses in communities around the country. The post included a list of nonperishable foods, cleaning supplies and personal hygiene items that people like to put in these miniature food pantries.

Here’s another idea for stocking your church’s or community’s micro pantry: Create the same kind of meal kits or recipe kits offered by meal delivery services such as Sunbasket, HelloFresh or Blue Apron.

I absolutely adore Sunbasket’s nifty little kits, which contain all the ingredients needed to prepare a recipe, thereby eliminating the need to run to the grocery store at the last minute for that one ingredient we need and don’t have in our fridge or cupboard.

So I got to thinking: Might a person using one of our community’s micro pantries appreciate finding a kit like this as well?

Of course, a major challenge when creating a recipe kit for a micro pantry is that only nonperishable ingredients can be used, which rules out ingredients like milk, eggs, fresh meats and most produce. But with a little ingenuity, it is possible to create a reasonably nutritious and tasty recipe using only nonperishables.

One of my favorite quickie meals at our house is tuna noodle casserole. All the ingredients for this super easy and filling recipe are nonperishable items, which makes it ideal for a micro pantry kit: a packet or can of tuna, a bag of egg noodles, a can of cream of mushroom soup, a can or jar of mushrooms and a container of parmesan cheese.

To make a kit, first create a label that looks something like this one, listing the items in the bag along with directions for making the recipe. (Note: When I make the tuna casserole recipe myself, I use a 5-ounce packet of tuna, 16-ounce bag of noodles, 10-ounce can of soup and 10-ounce jar of mushrooms, so you may want to purchase similar-sized containers of each of these ingredients for your kit in order to make the recipe work.)

Paste or tape the label to the outside of a paper bag. A plain sturdy gift bag with handles on it large enough to hold all the ingredients will work nicely.

Then just fill the bag with the recipe ingredients and place the kit in your church or neighborhood micro pantry next time you’re out and about.

If your church or civic organization wants to make this a group activity, some food pantries also welcome these meal/recipe kits. Or, if your community has several micro pantries scattered around town, you can make up several of the bags and deliver a few to each of the micro pantries.

At church, your youth group or community service committee could encourage congregation members to donate the ingredients. This project could also make a great service activity for other civic organizations you or your children belong to, such as Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts.