How to dehydrate backpacking meals worth the weight
Aim for 400 to 500 calories per 100 g dry. Below that you are carrying packaging and disappointment. The other number that matters is how much water you need to serve it.
Aim for 400 to 500 calories per 100 g dry. Below that you are carrying packaging and disappointment. The other number that matters is how much water you need to serve it.
The number that matters
Calories per 100 g of dry weight. Commercial trail meals sit around 400 to 500. A dehydrated vegetable stew, honestly weighed, often comes out at 250, which is why homemade meals sometimes feel like a bad trade.
The fix is not more food. It is adding fat and dense carbohydrate to the pack rather than to the dehydrator: olive oil in a small bottle, nuts, cheese, couscous, instant mash.
The water you have to carry
Every dried meal is a bet that you will find water. Plan 400 to 500 ml per person per meal for rehydrating, on top of drinking water. On a dry stretch that is a kilo per meal, which cancels the weight you saved.
Where water is scarce, carry food that needs none: jerky, cheese, nuts, dried fruit, flatbread.
What rehydrates on a trail
| Works | Does not |
|---|---|
| Couscous, instant rice, small pasta | Whole grains, dried beans |
| Lentils, red split | Chickpeas, unless cooked then dried |
| Minced beef, cooked then dried | Raw dried meat cubes |
| Tomato powder and paste leather | Fresh tomato pieces |
| Peas, sweetcorn, spinach, carrot | Broccoli stems, thick root pieces |
| Instant mash, powdered milk | Anything needing a simmer over 15 min |
The method that makes it work
Cook the meal fully first, then dry it. Cooked and dried food rehydrates in ten to fifteen minutes; raw ingredients dried separately can take half an hour of fuel.
Spread thin on solid sheets, 5 mm at most, dry at 57 C until brittle, then break it up. Vacuum sealing keeps the fat from going rancid on a long trip.
Five builds worth copying
Bolognese: dried minced beef sauce with tomato powder, plus small pasta and a sachet of olive oil. Dal: red lentils cooked with spice, dried to a crumble, plus instant rice. Couscous and roast vegetable, with feta carried separately.
Chowder: dried sweetcorn and potato with milk powder. And breakfast: rolled oats, powdered milk, dried apple and cinnamon, cold soaked in the bag overnight.
We are not publishing gram by gram weights for these yet, because we have not weighed enough batches to give a figure worth trusting. Weigh your own dry portion and note it on the bag.
Cold soaking
Most cooked-then-dried meals will cold soak in a jar in about an hour, which saves fuel and stove weight. Couscous, instant rice, lentil crumble and oats all work. Pasta does not.
Salt at the end, not before soaking, since salt slows water uptake.
Questions people ask
How many calories per 100 g? 400 to 500 dry is the target.
Can you cold soak? Yes, for cooked and dried meals, roughly an hour.
How long do they keep? Vacuum sealed and cool, several months. Watch the fat, not the carbohydrate.
Safety note. Cook meat fully before drying and keep dried meat meals cool and vacuum sealed. On the trail, treat a rehydrated meal like a cooked one: eat it promptly rather than carrying it soaked for hours.
What this is based on
- USDA guidance on drying meat and safe holding of prepared food
- Published food composition data for calorie density
- National Center for Home Food Preservation, using dried foods