How to take your favorite meals on the go: dehydrate them!
How to take your favorite meals on the go: dehydrate them!
I started making dehydrated meals for lightweight camping situations, but now I've gotten hooked! I bring dehydrated meals with me on long road trips to save time and money, and even have started bringing them to keep in the cupboard at work for when I forget a lunch. All I do is take a wide mouth thermos and put the dehydrated food in and add 1.5x volume boiling water, seal the thermos and let it sit 15-20min. For soups or wetter dishes sometimes I add a little more hot water just before eating.
Anyone else have good dehydrated recipes for me to try? Right now I'm loving this beans and rice one as a base because I can so easily make variations, like adding powdered eggs and make breakfast burritos.
I'm confused by this title. I take beans and rice and spices on every camping trip and they already come dehydrated from the store. This is just cooking with extra steps.
You're buying and bringing pre-cooked beans that have been dehydrated or just dry beans? Instant rice (which has been cooked and dehydrated) or just regular rice you have to cook for a long time? Dry beans have to be soaked for hours and then cooked for like half an hour unless you have a pressure cooker right?
If you cook everything and dehydrate it you can just add hot water and the food soaks up the hot water and you can eat it, like making instant ramen noodles except whatever meal you want. You can do this with purchased instant rice and instant beans, and then dehydrate the chicken and tomatoes and onions and everything else separate, I just find it's cheaper for ingredients to buy regular rice and beans and cook everything together and dehydrate it together, plus then the flavors get cooked into the beans and rice much better.
Admittedly, beans and rice is more of a starter entry meal into dehydrating because it's hard to mess it up. But more complex meals like a dehydrated chili or dehydrated chicken curry, you can't just "take on every camping trip" especially if you are sleeping far from your vehicle.
But more complex meals like a dehydrated chili or dehydrated chicken curry, you can't just "take on every camping trip" especially if you are sleeping far from your vehicle.
How are you camping? Chili and beans and such are normal things to cook while camping without them being made and dehydrated before arriving on site because they keep well and are fairly lightweight. 🤨
I go camping all the time and the only thing I bring that I would dehydrate first is maybe some meat to have jerky because meat is the only thing I bring that doesn't keep without refrigeration.
I do think it's a good idea for meals you would not or could not make on a fire/camping stove or wouldn't keep without refrigeration, though. And definitely sounds good on a road trip where you don't have a fire or camp stove to actually cook.
How do you dehydrate your food?
I used to do it in the oven on lowest setting and open and stir it up hourly. But I got a cheapo dehydrator (as shown in the video) and it works sooooo much better. It makes the whole process really easy.