MAKE YOUR OWN BACKPACKING MEALS Comfort food alternatives to commercial freeze-dried backpacking meals By Cheryl Talbert, Foothills Backpacking Committee Chair & Super Volunteer
A favorite breakfast spot at Buckhorn Pass looking across the Dungeness River. All photos by Cheryl Talbert.
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ost of us have done it more than once in our backpacking lives – tear open a foil packet, pour in steaming water from the camp stove, wait ten minutes, then shovel the contents into our mouths in the hope that the quantity is right, the food is palatable, and the salt content doesn’t cause congestive heart failure. Then we rinse and haul the bulky foil packets back out to the trailhead.
settings (veggies and herbs should dry at lower temperatures than meats), the ability to stack on extra trays, and the availability of both mesh and solid plastic ‘jellyroll’ tray liners for different foods. I use a Nesco Snackmaster, but there are fancier, highercapacity models if you think drying larger quantities of fruits, vegetables, or meats might be in your future.
Commercial freeze dried meals certainly hold great appeal. Nutrition is improving and the variety of available options is growing, including vegetarian, organic, and gluten-free choices. Still, they’re quite expensive, involve a great deal of excess packaging and bulk, and their flavor and ingredient list can be a bit of a crapshoot.
Recipes that generally dehydrate well include:
However, there is an alternative: dehydrating your favorite comfort food at home. It’s much easier and less time-consuming than you think! With a little practice, you can take leftovers from favorite recipes you’ve already made for dinner and adapt them so that you just pop them in the dehydrator overnight, and bingo! By morning it’s ready to be bagged in a Ziploc for your next expedition. The process also works with many frozen casseroles from the grocery store, entrees from the deli counter, and even leftovers from your last restaurant meal.
Dehydrators First, you need a basic dehydrator. Yes, you can use your oven, but most ovens have minimum temperatures above the recommended 145-160 Fahrenheit for dehydrating. Some dehydrator features I swear by are adjustable temperature
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mountaineer | summer 2022
Choosing a recipe • Casseroles • Stews with thick sauces • Whole grain/bean mixtures (test them to be sure they rehydrate in a timely way!) • Thick sauces that can be served over pasta, instant rice, instant mashed potatoes, or instant polenta If you want food to rehydrate quickly, it’s important to prepare it for the dehydrator by chopping it into small uniform pieces (I for one am not someone who can wait 30 minutes for my food to rehydrate at the end of a long trail day!). This can take some getting used to, particularly for a dish that normally has larger pieces or layers like enchiladas or lasagna, but the flavor will be there! However it’s recommended to control the amount of fat you use in a dehydrator recipe, as fatty recipes won’t store as long after drying. Conversely, recipes that don’t work as well include: • Those that require big pieces of meat, veggies, or fruit
