Salting

Salting is one of the oldest food preservation methods. Salt draws moisture out of food, and out of any microbes present, by osmosis. With less available water, the bacteria that cause spoilage cannot thrive. Salting is related to pickling and brining. It is one way of curing food, most often meat, fish, and vegetables.

Preppers meet salting because it needs no electricity. In a grid-down outage, freezers and refrigerators stop working. Salting keeps going with nothing but an inexpensive, storable ingredient. It answers one of the hardest problems in food storage: keeping meat and fish without power. That makes it a natural partner for protein from survival hunting and survival fishing. It is also a steady skill for homesteading. Alongside canning and dehydrating, it adds redundancy to a food plan.

Learn the methods, from dry curing to brining and salt packing, in our guide to salting for food preservation.