We do a lot of camping, going out as often as we can work it into our schedule. While we enjoy the convenience of freeze-dried dinners, we have found that there are sometimes things we don’t like about them.
• They may not have enough food to satisfy after a long day of hiking. I suppose we could each eat a dinner, but that gets bulky and expensive.
• They may be too bland or too spicy for our taste. The former is easy to fix, but the latter offers challenges.
• They can be bulky. The size and weight for the calories is uneven, and a long trip means a full pack.
• They can be expensive. Compared to a restaurant, it’s not too bad, but on a long trip it can be prohibitive.
So we have experimented with a variety of do-it-yourself options.
Drying food in a dehydrator
We have cooked food and then dried it in the dehydrator several times. One of the most important things to consider is the size of pieces. The more even the pieces, the better they will dry and the better they will re-hydrate. When we did spaghetti sauce, some of the larger pieces of meat and vegetables were still chewy, and we had to cook it for several minutes to take care of that. Not a problem on a short trip where fuel is not an issue.
“Instant” food as a base
We have used several different “instant” or “minute” foods as a base for a meal. The obvious choice is mashed potatoes, but instant rice, couscous, and ramen all work very well. Adding tuna or freeze-dried meat, vegetables, and seasonings makes a simple dinner. It can all be repackaged at home to save trash on the trail. Add boiling water, stir, and let stand. If we use ramen, we omit the seasoning packet, or only add about 1/3 of it to our meal. This can be quite inexpensive.
We found a very good boxed Spanish Rice (La Preferida brand) that cooks in 3 minutes at home on your stove, than stands for another 7 minutes, so we had to try it as an add boiling water and wait. It worked very well, and was ready in about 15 minutes. All it needs is some meat and/or veggies for good results.
Adapting recipes for the trail
Lately we have begun to experiment with some of our favorite dishes from home. There has been an infusion of individual freeze-dried ingredients available that were not out there before such as sausage, diced potatoes, and mushrooms. And some of them are available at your local supermarket. Others can be ordered on line, and I will list resources later in this post. Cook-In bags for re-hydrating can be purchased, filled, and sealed.
What can you use?
There are a large number of items available to make your dinners (and breakfasts) on the trail better. Most of this list are available in single serve packets, and some can be purchased at your local grocery store.
• Citrus powders – Available in lemon, lime, orange, and grapefruit. This is crystallized citrus juice, and each packet is the equivalent of a wedge of fruit.
• Flavor enhancer packets – Basic flavors include chicken, turkey, beef, and vegetable. Sometimes you can find additional flavor options. These are the size of a condiment packet but are basically a concentrated liquid bouillon. If you are worried about sodium, check the packaging, some are better than others.
• Dairy Products – Freeze-dried cheeses, cheese powder, butter powder, sour cream powder, yogurt powder, and powdered whole milk , skim milk, and buttermilk are all available now. Also shelf-stable cream cheese, powdered whole eggs, egg whites, and egg yolks.
• Condiment packets – This is an old stand-by, but there are so many options out there now. Not just ketchup and mustard, but hot sauces of every stripe, oils and vinegars, nut butters, jams, honey, hummus, relish, mayonnaise.
• Dried Vegetables – There are a large number of companies that are offering dried and freeze-dried vegetables. They come as individual vegetables and as blends, some with spices and some without. These can be eaten as a snack, or re-hydrated as part of a meal. One of our finds was a company that sells freeze-dried sauteed onion!
So where do I get all these great ingredients?
Local Sources
• Start at your local grocery store. I have found any number of interesting dried items there, largely fruits and vegetables. The local grocery store is also where I found the flavor enhancer packets. More and more, it is easy to find multi-packs of foods for use in lunch pails and the like, and they work equally well on the trail.
• After you’ve been to the regular grocery store, head to an Asian or Hispanic grocery. There are amazing varieties of things there that you won’t see elsewhere. We’ve tried several different ramen varieties. An interesting find was dried pork. It comes shredded and finely chopped. The finely chopped re-hydrates better. We’ve used it like any other dried meat.
• And don’t forget the health food store. Dried fruits that you’ve not seen anywhere else. Nut butters in individual packets. Dried vegetables from companies like Karen’s Naturals (formerly Just Tomatoes, Etc.)
• Larger chain stores like Wal-Mart and Target often have dried fruit in their snack areas.
• Finally we have had decent success with outlet stores. They sometimes carry things like the flavor enhancer packets, and ours almost always has snack food like 4 and 6 packages of sandwich crackers and sandwich cookies. They also have assorted granola bars and the like.
Online Sources
Some of our favorites are listed below. Of course, most of your camping companies and outlets have food. There are lots of sources for dried and freeze-dried ingredients – look for emergency supplies as well as camping foods.
• www.minimus.biz Suppliers of single use/single serve items – condiments, snacks, drinks, first aid, personal care, cleaning, etc.
• www.honeyville.com Large quantities of dried and freeze dried fruits and vegetables. They also have baking ingredients.
• www.ldpcampingfoods.com Freeze-dried meals and ingredients, both single meals and large cans.
• www.packitgourmet.com Freeze-dried meals and ingredients, cooking tools, Cook-In-BagsTM. These are the people with the freeze-dried sauteed onions used in our Trail Zuppa recipe (coming in part two).
• https://www.northbaytrading.com/ Freeze -dried and regular dried fruits and vegetables, wild rice, beans, lentils, and soup mixes.
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