Include dehydrated foods on backpacking or camping trips to ensure delicious and healthy meals.
Dehydrating food is a great way to create meals for food storage, emergency preparedness or to include homemade recipes on backpacking excursions. It is also an excellent method to consider when fresh foods are not available or out of season. Dehydrating, or drying, is a method of preserving foods by removing the food's water content while leaving many nutrients. Although commercially dehydrated meals are available, dehydrating your own meals allows you to control the size of the meal, the ingredients, the weight of the meal and typically saves considerably on the cost of the meal.
Instructions
1. Gather the essential ingredients for the meal you plan to dehydrate. Use recipes that call for ingredients that can be chopped or cut into small pieces, since these will dehydrate more quickly and easily. Look in grocery stores for examples of dehydrated foods to give you ideas, such as dehydrated au gratin potatoes, dry soup mixes and instant rice. Prepare the desired recipe.
2. Turn on the dehydrator, following the manufacturer's instructions. Let it warm up while you spread the meal on a dehydrator tray. Check the food periodically to avoid over-drying. If the pieces do not seem to be dehydrating in the time period recommended by the manufacturer, break the food into smaller pieces. Be sure to check the dehydrator manufacturer's information and instruction manual for meal recipes.
3. Remove the meal from the dehydrator when the food feels dry and crumbles to the touch or when it meets the recommended criteria suggested in the dehydrator manufacturer's instructions.
4. Place the dehydrated meal in a plastic zip freezer bag to create an airtight seal. Label the meals, using a black marker and adhesive labels. Include on the label the date the meal was prepared and how many people the meal will serve.
5. Store the dehydrated meal packets in a dark, cool spot until ready to rehydrate. Rehydration is typically done by pouring boiling water into the plastic freezer bag containing the dehydrated meal and allowing the bag to sit, zipped closed, for 5 to 20 minutes, depending on the meal. High quality plastic zip freezer bags tend to be able to stand up to boiling water.
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