11 Pioneer Recipes From the 1800s (2024)

How the pioneers ate is one of the most interesting aspects of their culture and heritage. It reveals how creative and hardworking they were in sustaining their families in challenging situations.

Below are some simple pioneer recipes that anyone can make.

Common Pioneer Foods

  • Bread: The pioneers didn’t have packages of yeast. They usually made their bread with the “salt-rising” method. The bread dough was mixed in a kettle while they were traveling. Natural bacteria and microbes in the dough would cause it to rise. Then the dough was baked in the kettle over a campfire at night. Read more about it here. (Amazon link). Also read How to Make Wild Yeast Starter.
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  • Cured Meat: Without refrigerators, meat was preserved either by smoke or salt curing. To salt cure meat, salt was rubbed into the meat. The meat was then covered with salt for about 1 month, during which time more salt was continuously added. Bacon was a particular favorite of the pioneers.
  • Cornmeal, dried corn: The pioneers brought dried corn and grinded it into meal to make cakes and cornbread. See, does cornmeal go bad?
  • Lard: Forget fancy olive oil! The pioneers used fat from animals to cook their food. It was a staple on the trail. How to store lard long term.
  • Eggs: Pioneers on the Oregon Trail did bring chickens along in crates tied to the backs of their wagons. However, it is doubtful that they laid eggs in the bumpy, stressful conditions. Eggs were mostly used in pioneer recipes once they got settled.
  • Rabbit, squirrel, Turkey and other small game: These could be easily hunted along the way and made into stew. See our guide to eating squirrel.
  • Squash: Squash, like pumpkins, doesn’t spoil quickly and can grow in the wild. The pioneers would make mashes and cakes out of them.
  • Dried fruit: To dry fruit, pioneers would lay the sliced fruit out in the sun.
  • Tubers (potatoes, turnips, etc.): These were also a pioneer favorite because they lasted a long time without spoiling. Tubers could also be foraged easily on the frontier.

Pioneer Recipes

Here are some authentic pioneer recipes and meals. We’ve also covered some of the techniques and traditions used in their rustic cuisine.

1. Hardtack

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Also called “sea biscuit,” hardtack was eaten by pioneers, sailors, and soldiers during war. It is made of flour and water, mixed and baked for a long time in an oven. During bad times, the pioneers often had nothing to eat but hardtack dipped into coffee.

Recommended Reading: How to Make Hardtack

2. Hoecake

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Pioneers brought along dried corn because it didn’t spoil. They could grind it into meal to make biscuits or “cakes.” For hoecake, mix the following ingredients and fry on a skillet:

  • 2 cups cornmeal
  • 1 cup water or milk
  • ½ tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp shortening

3. Pocket Yams

First, make a campfire. Once you’ve got enough coals, you can bake the yams (or potatoes). Cover the yams with the coals and let them bake until steam comes out – about 40 minutes. Note that the yams shouldn’t be in the flames, just in the hot coals.

When the yams are done, DO NOT EAT THEM.

These yams are meant to be put in your pocket to warm your hands. This is another cool way pioneer mothers kept their families warm in the wilderness.

4. Cooked Cabbage Salad

This recipe probably comes from German pioneers who particularly loved cabbage dishes. Make in a skillet:

  • 1 pint of chopped cabbage
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • ¼ cup vinegar
  • 1 tsp butter
  • Salt and pepper

The pioneers might add sugar and a ½ cup of fresh cream to the cabbage if they had it.

5. Mormon Gravy

Gravy was slathered on top of vegetable pies, bread, or potatoes. It added much-needed flavor and moisture to the bland, dry food. To make it:

  • Heat skillet with 3-4 tbsp of meat drippings (Amazon link)
  • Add 3 tbsp of flour; stir constantly while browning the flour
  • Remove from heat and add 2 cups of milk; stir
  • Return to heat, stir constantly until mixture is smooth and thick
  • Season with salt and pepper

6. Bread Pudding

The pioneers didn’t waste anything. So, they used stale bread to make bread pudding.

  • 2 cups cubed stale bread
  • 2 cups milk
  • ¼ cup sugar
  • 3 tbsp butter or lard
  • 2 eggs
  • Salt

Put bread in a baking dish. In a saucepan, mix milk, sugar, and butter. Remove from heat and whisk in eggs. Pour the mixture over the bread. Make at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

7. Thrift Fritters

The pioneers didn’t always know what foods they’d find. For example, they might return from a foraging trip with a few wild carrots, nettles, and wild onions.

These random veggies could be added to old mashed potatoes, a beaten egg, and maybe some flour to make a fritter. Then, they would form the mixture into patties and fry them in drippings.

8. Butterless, Eggless, Milkless Cake

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This sounds like a recipe for a health-food cake, but it is a pioneer classic!

  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 cup cold water
  • 1 1/2 cup raisins
  • 1/3 cup shortening
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp cloves
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp baking soda dissolved in 2 tbsp of hot water
  • 2 cups flour
  • ½ tsp baking powder

To make, boil the first 8 ingredients (sugar through salt) together for a couple minutes. Then, add the baking soda, flour, and baking powder. Bake in a flat pan at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

9. Tender Meat

The pioneers brought along cattle for milk and sometimes butchered them. The meat wasn’t exactly tender, either.

To tenderize the meat, they used this recipe:

  • Mix 1 cup of fine breadcrumbs with some salt, pepper, thyme, or other herbs
  • Add enough milk to make a very thick dressing
  • Spread dressing over meat.
  • Roll up the meat and tie it with twine.
  • Brown the meat in fat.
  • Add ½ pint of water. Cover and cook until the meat is tender.

10. Corn Soup

Dried corn was a staple of the pioneers. They made all sorts of things out of it, including soup.

The pioneer women would add whatever they had to the soup. For example, they might boil the dried corn with wild greens, potatoes, parsley, peppers, beans, eggs, and rice to make a hearty bowl of soup.

11. Bacon and Sourdough Pancakes

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This one sounds good, right? It wouldn’t exactly pass modern health inspections, though, because the sourdough starter was made by leaving flour + water out for days. The bacteria in the air would cause it to ferment.

You can read more about how to make sourdough here. (Amazon link)
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What will you cook if a disaster hits and wipes out the grid?

11 Pioneer Recipes From the 1800s (2024)

FAQs

What were popular dishes in the 1800s? ›

The foods served varied, changing with the customs of each region, but in the North some common foods were chowder, beef, clam soup, baked beans, roasted pork, custards, oxen, turtles, mutton and salmon.

What 3 foods did the pioneers eat? ›

Breads, potatoes, rice, and starchy foods put backbone into a meal and the hungry souls who ate it. The mainstays of a pioneer diet were simple fare like potatoes, beans and rice, hardtack (which is simply flour, water, 1 teaspoon each of salt and sugar, then baked), soda biscuits (flour, milk, one t.

What was a typical pioneer dinner? ›

The dinner menu was similar to breakfast and lunch (beans again!), but could also include fresh buffalo or antelope meat or prairie hens if hunting had been successful. Using their ingenuity and the materials at hand, pioneer women prepared special foods to relieve the eating monotony.

What were the pioneer cooking methods? ›

The first pioneers in most places ate by campfires. By necessity, foods were cooked by very simple methods. Dutch ovens, frying pans, boiling pots, and roasting spits were typically employed. As settlements grew, so did the range of cuisine.

What did rich people eat for dinner in the 1800s? ›

Gilded Age dinners were elaborate, often with five or six courses. Soups, oysters, and game meat were common in fall dinners, often accompanied with sweet pudding for dessert.

What did the average American eat in the 1800s? ›

Up until the late 1800s, people preferred to eat the foods that filled them up. Dairy, meat, hominy, oatmeal and sugar were staples — vegetables, not so much. Vitamins wouldn't be fully appreciated until the 20th century.

Did pioneers eat eggs? ›

Pioneers did bring chickens along in crates tied to the backs of their wagons. Eggs were used in many pioneer recipes.

What did the pioneers eat for breakfast? ›

Bacon and biscuits were common. Pancakes, beans and oatmeal were also options. Midday meal: Some pioneers cooked this meal ahead at breakfast so that they could rest.

What did pioneers carry their lunch in? ›

There were no plastic lunch boxes or thermoses on the homestead. This girl is carrying her lunch in a tin container called a lunch pail. Some families could afford to buy lunch pails for their children. Others saved empty lard or syrup buckets to use as lunch pails.

What did the pioneers drink? ›

Not only were buffalo, deer, and wild turkey there for the taking, pioneers also gathered greens such as purslane, dandelion, and pigweed—as well as wild fruits, berries, and nuts. They replaced sugar with wild honey or maple syrup, and when they had no tea, they made drinks out of sage, sassafras, and mint.

What kind of bread did the pioneers eat? ›

In the 18th and 19th centuries, sourdough bread became a staple food for the pioneers and settlers of the American West. The sourdough starter was easy to transport and could be used to make bread on the trail, without the need for commercial yeast.

What did pioneers do at night? ›

5:00 pm: When a good campsite with ample water and grass is found, pioneers stop to set up camp for the evening. Wagons are formed into a corral. 6:00 pm: Families unpack and make supper. 7:00 pm: Mothers do chores, men smoke and talk, young people dance.

Did the pioneers eat cornbread? ›

In her beloved Little House series of semiautobiographical novels Laura Ingalls Wilder describes how her pioneer family enjoyed homegrown vegetables and what meat they could raise or hunt, but just about every meal included cornbread. Children typically started the day with corn fritters for breakfast.

What is the oldest method of cooking known to man? ›

Answer: The oldest form of cooking is basically fire-roasting and, specifically, open fire cooking. The earliest forms of open-fired cooking would have consisted of placing food ingredients straight into a fire. Yep, right into the ashes!

Did pioneers use Dutch ovens? ›

So, it's no surprise that Dutch ovens have played an important part of cooking for mountain men, gold miners, pioneers, loggers, explorers, trappers, cowboys, settlers, or even campers and hunters of today.

What did people cook on in the 1800s? ›

During the 19th century people used open flames for cooking or stoves. Stoves were gaining popularity in the 1800s, but they were not electric or gas like ours are now. Instead, they had either a wood fire or a coal fire inside. The stove allowed the heat to more uniformly cook and bake food than an open flame.

What did slaves eat in the 1800s? ›

For the most part, slaves' diet consisted of a form of fatty pork and corn or rice. Cornbread was commonly eaten by slaves. Produce from a vegetable patch or garden could also be added to the rations.

What did southerners eat in the 1800s? ›

Meals often consisted of beef, eggs, hot biscuits, corn bread, hot cakes, porridge and seasonal vegetables and fruits. Coffee, tea, water or cocoa were consumed in “large quantities.” Whiskey, inexpensive and readily available, was the most popular alcoholic beverage, Cooper recorded, especially in the South and West.

What desserts did people eat in the 1800s? ›

Ready, Set, Bake: Recipes from the 18th and 19th Century
  • Queen Cakes – (Rundell, 1822)
  • To make Ratafia-Cakes – (Kettilby, 1719)
  • Excellent Rolls – (Rundell, 1822)
  • The best Orange-Pudding that ever was tasted – (Kettilby, 1719)
  • Rasberry Tart – (Henderson, c.1800)
  • Rich Puff Paste – (Rundell, 1822)
Aug 24, 2016

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