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Dehydrating meals for hiking

Learning on the move

Learning on the move

Treks & Trails

Dehydrating meals for hiking

March 6, 2020135527
Food while hiking

Recently, I had my first foray into dehydrating meals for hiking.  This was a result of wanting to reduce waste, watch the weight in our packs and carrying 7 days of food when hiking the Cape to Cape track in Western Australia.

It was a very interesting experience. It lightened our load considerably and it was yummy too! 

As you know, we travel fulltime, and no, we did not go and buy a dehydrator.  As luck would have it, we were asked to do a housesit just before our hike and they had a dehydrator! This happened again for the Bibbulmun Track too, at a different housesit! 

Research

After hours and hours of youtubing other experienced hikers. I decided to stick to pretty simple meals for my first attempt.  

While dehydrating for our next hike the Bibbulmun Track I had already delved into the great youtube series by Michelle of walkingtwobytwo from her feed the hike series, well worth checking out.

Choosing recipes for dehydrating

Being new to the whole dehydrating scene, I was pretty keen to keep it simple to begin with.  We all Meals for HikingLOVE our food and even Miss 12 is a big eater.  She is a firm believer of mum’s homemade cooking can fix anything. 

As I was not sure how she would go on the hike (shouldn’t have worried! But hey, I am a mother, that’s what we do) I was pretty keen to have some of this ‘motivational magic medicine’ aka, mum’s home cooking with me! 

On our first hike I decided on spaghetti bolognese, chow mein, spanish chicken, tuna pasta and we also had a couple of non dehydrated meals too. 

Tips for dehydrating meatEveryone had different ideas on dehydrating mince, so I tried two different ways to see which we preferred. 

Boiling the mince before dehydrating and mixing the mince with breadcrumbs before frying as you normally would – 500g mince : 1/2 cup breadcrumbs (Krummies brand best in Australia). 

Tips for dehydrating
Baking Paper for Pasta Sauce

For the Bibbulmun Track, I have also done some with no breadcrumbs. Just to be thorough with my research and will update accordingly when we get back.

When dehydrating pasta sauce use baking paper, cut to size of the dehydrator you are using and then spread the pasta sauce as shown below, one jar per tray of the dehydrator.

TIP: You must use lean meat, the less fat the better it will dehydrate and less chance of it going rancid (off).

In both cases, I dehydrated the sauce separately and just peeled it into smaller pieces like a rollup after being dehydrated. 

I used the Barilla pasta sauce in both dehydrators with great success (quicker in the sunbeam) especially if you split one jar between two trays. I did it all on one tray too, no worries.  Once dehydrated, I broke apart and placed in my Dometic vaccum sealed pouch with the dehydrated mince. I then put the sealed pouch in a ziplock bag with 1 cake of vermicelli noodles (enough for three people)

As noted I tried two different methods, the first was 500g of lean mince mixed with 1/2 cup of camping foodbreadcrumbs and fried as I would normally.  Pat dry as best you can then dehydrate, 500g fits on 1 tray.

The second method I boiled the 500g mince, strained, then dehydrated.

Once dehydrated, I placed the mince along with the dehydrated pasta sauce, onion and garlic in my Dometic vaccum sealed pouch. I then put the sealed pouch in a ziplock bag with 1 cake of vermicelli noodles (enough for three people)

I dehydrated 60g of baby spinach, 250g of cooked pasta elbows and 425g John West Tuna in springwater (very important in springwater, no oil)

Once dehydrated, I placed them all in a Dometic vaccum sealed pouch. I then put the sealed pouch in this is enough for three people

This was a more complicated process due to the list of ingredients.  500g of chicken breast diced small as possible and cook with taco seasoning, salsa sauce, tin of corn kernels, tin of kidney beans, one red capsicum, one onion (too big, dice next time), cooked rice (or for quicker results use packet of precooked rice available in supermarkets.

Once all ingredients individually dehydrated, I placed them all in a Dometic vaccum sealed pouch.

Just nice to have a variety of meals. 

 

Fried 500g mince and added a chow mein seasoning packet from contintental, dehydrated some celery (which took a long time to rehydrate) carrot, peas, onion and rice.

Once all ingredients individually dehydrated, I placed them all in a Dometic vaccum sealed pouch.

 

I made two different soups Pumpkin Soup and Potato Leek & Bacon.  Used my normal pumpkin soup recipe approximately 1kg of butternut pumpkin, 1 tsp whole cumin seeds, 600ml chicken stock (normally 1L) but added less chicken stock and made sure I drained some liquid before blending prior to dehydrating, can not be runny. Spread evenly over multiple trays to fasten the dehydrating time.

Make potato mash (I made enough to fill our normal family saucepan approx 5 large potatoes) one leek dehydrated separately and 6 rashers of bacon also dehydrated separately, salt and pepper.

When all dehydrated placed in a blender and reduced to fine powder.

These will be roadtested on the Bibbulmun Track, but smelt amazing and we can not wait to try them out!

Once all ingredients dehydrated, I placed them all in a Dometic vaccum sealed pouch.  I sealed the bacon separate.

Check out our youtube video

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Comments (13)

  1. End to End Bibbulmun Track Planning -
    March 7, 2020 at 3:19 pm

    […] is my post on my first experiences with dehydrating, I didn't kill anyone so that was a […]

    Reply
  2. Cape to Cape Track Western Australia -
    July 7, 2020 at 8:28 am

    […] are youtube videos showing the food we took and my first foray into dehydrating for those novices like me who want to give it a […]

    Reply
  3. Kalamunda to Hewitts Hill - Bibbulmun Track -
    March 12, 2021 at 7:43 pm

    […] was lots of preparation, planning and packing and dehydrating and excitement! Starting our E2E (End to End) the first stretch would be Kalamunda to Hewitts […]

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  4. Hewitts Hill to Helena Hut - Bibbulmun Track with kids -
    March 19, 2021 at 11:22 am

    […] For information on our planning & preparation for our Bibbulmun Track hike click here details on dehydrating which we strongly recommend click here. […]

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  5. Monadnocks to Nerang Hut - Bibbulmun Track -
    April 17, 2021 at 9:26 am

    […] nappy wipes) and started soaking dinner, Chicken Korma.  Note to self next time shred chicken when dehydrating but […]

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  6. karen krippel
    April 26, 2021 at 9:21 am

    fabulously informative, as my husband & I are in our 60’s and are doing the bibbulum track in September this year (2021). I have probably missed it, but how long can you keep the meals etc dehydrated prior to eating. I would like to start prepping now or is that too soon ? also do i just put them in a dry place in the house prior to leaving or freezer ?

    thank you for you hard work & time.

    cheers Karen

    Reply
    • contact@cakeandeatit3.com
      April 30, 2021 at 2:11 pm

      Hi Karen! So exciting planning for a big hike, now is fine to start preparing. I took some meals I did for our Cape to Cape hike in Dec 2019 (which I prepared in November) on the Bibbulmun Track in March 2020 and no worries. I still have some nearly 12 months later that I would not hesitate to eat. We packed each meal in a food saver vacuum sealed pouch. It is extremely important to have zero moisture so make sure dehydrating is complete before vacuum sealing. Many homesteading families have no choice than to dehydrate their food due to climates. Just use caution and if in doubt – don’t eat it. I have not heard of people freezing them so can not comment on that. Definitely store cool, dark, dry place for storage. Good luck on your hike!

      Reply
  7. Gringer Creek to Mt Wells hut Bibbulmun Track -
    April 30, 2021 at 2:00 pm

    […] was lots of preparation, planning and packing and dehydrating and excitement in the lead up to our […]

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  8. Hiking Murray hut to Dookanelly hut -
    September 18, 2021 at 8:47 pm

    […] Not to mention on size, weight and packet/rubbish left over there is no comparison to our homemade dehydrated meals. […]

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  9. Hiking Mt Wells to Chadoora Hut Bibbulmun Track -
    September 18, 2021 at 8:51 pm

    […] was lots of preparation, planning and packing and dehydrating and excitement in the lead up to our […]

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  10. Hiking Nerang to Gringer Creek Hut Bibbulmun Track -
    September 18, 2021 at 8:53 pm

    […] was lots of preparation, planning and packing and dehydrating and excitement in the lead up to our […]

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  11. Hiking Brookton to Monadnocks Hut Bibbulmun Track -
    September 18, 2021 at 8:54 pm

    […] was lots of preparation, planning and packing and dehydrating and excitement in the lead up to our […]

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  12. Hiking Beraking Hut to Brookton Hut on the Bibbulmun Track -
    September 18, 2021 at 8:57 pm

    […] I say confused as it was part mexican spices but mainly Spanish flavours.  It was really nice but next time I will shred the chicken not leave in pieces as it was a little tough.  Details in our dehydrating blog post. […]

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