Dehydrated Spaghetti Meal Great for Backpacking

With the warmer weather approaching and talk of much more camping and backpacking in the air, it seemed a great time to begin preparing food ideas for the months ahead.
Dehydrated foods are great for hiking and packing in that they need no special care, such as refrigeration. If a meal is not used one week, it is good for the next. Initially, some weight might be saved, but water, either carried or obtained along the way is a necessity.
We cooked up excess spaghetti and meat sauce, left it sit overnight in the fridge. Dehydrated for about 6 hours and put it up in vacuum seal bags.
Some of the bags we perforated by the hard sharp noodles, so next time we will put it in a small sandwich bag first, then the vacuum bag.
Within days, we were on the Appalachian Trail and had an opportunity to cook that batch on a homemade alcohol stove. The first round was ever so slightly wet, but had good texture and taste. The second round of cooking was just about spot on water to dehydrated food.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTbz6_qdksY

Category:

Education

Tags:

• usframe
• crew
• dehydrated
• meals
• spaghetti
• hiking
• camping
• backpacking
• appalachian
• trail
• alcohol
• stove
• vacuum
• sealer

[1wicked2008]

thanks!!! u inspired me to go out and buy a dehydrator and a vac sealer yesterday. just incase shtf and for my camping trips . i'll be some what prepared maybe?..if i never use them big deal it cost 20cent for the bags..my wife cooks for an army every meal she makes..we have 6 kids and have alot of leftovers i dont want to see waisted ! so thanks for taking the time of testing and doing the math on all of what your doing..it's a big help for me ..keep the videos coming

[usframe]

@1wicked2008 yeah, it's fun to make and carry DIY stuff out on a trail. lol, it'd cost you over 60 bucks a meal to feed everyone in premade stuff!

[rmjones33]

Looks good! One way to tell how much water to use for cooking is the weigh the food before and after the dehydration process. The weight difference will be roughly how much moister was lost. To rehydrate the meal add that much water (plus a little for evaporation during cooking).

[usframe]

@rmjones33 we've done some recent vids with weight and energy usage

[egc3729]

This is amazing! I'm really enjoying all of the videos on dehydrated food. I'm really thinking of getting myself a dehydrator now.

[usframe]

@egc3729 thanks for comment and watching!

[usframe]

@MrDip02 yeah, most are from one visitor, a real big fan, watched and disliked about 50 vids in 8 minutes! ;)

[usframe]

@dapappacn I think the wives would not permit this and PA law forbids the marriage of a father and son... Better luck next time sport

[goldenscales]

@egc3729 You should. The benefits of owning one, (or two+), are immeasurable.

[lazygorillas]

looks good

[usframe]

@WisconsinEric no odors... what about the extra trays? screens? honestly, I don't recall anything, and did use it the first day.

[WisconsinEric]

I just bought my Nesco dehydrator earlier today and I plugged it in too see how loud it is. It is quiet, but it has a strong plastic odor. I have had it running about 90 minutes empty and it smells terrible....I'm running it empty until this strong plastic odor stops.

Did you notice any strong plastic odors from your dehydrator when it was new? If so how long did it take to go away?

Thanks