Rehydrating Dehydrated Meals
I didn’t realize there would be so many people intrigued with dehydrated meals and the “how-to” that goes along with preparing your own delicious plant-based dehydrated meals.
That being said I’ve put together this information that provides you with the 1,2,3’s of preparing dehydrated backpacking/travel meals along with the gear needed for a pleasurable experience.
How to Dehydrate Food
First and foremost, you need dehydrated food. Now while you can certainly purchase store-bought dehydrated meals, they tend to be very expensive making your daily meal costs very high. I don’t know about you but I’d much rather spend my money on cool gear than on highly processed pre-packaged dehydrated meals. For everything you need to know about dehydrating food and preparing yummy homemade dehydrated meals, check out Food Dehydration 101.
How to Rehydrate Dehydrated Food
You need a heat source. You have a couple of options depending on what type of adventure you’re embarking on.
I have a Jetboil Flash Cooking System, it’s lightweight, comes with a pot that holds one liter of water so I can boil water for my tea, morning oatmeal, and dehydrated lunch all at one time, and can be used with a small canister isobutane-propane fuel source. Plus it has a push-button igniter so I don’t need to carry a lighter or matches. And best of all, this bad boy has my water boiling in less than 3 MINUTES!!!
When I’m not in the woods hiking, I use a HotLogic Mini Oven to rehydrate my meals. This portable food warmer uses thermal technology to heat your food. The low-slow conduction heating pad means your food is rehydrated to the perfect temperature. This is a super convenient way to enjoy a hot meal when you’re on a road trip. It conveniently plugs into my car’s electrical outlet. It comes with a reusable container so you can cook and serve in the same dish.
Your Rehydrating Container
For Camping: Wide-mouth Thermos containers work great! I have two, one 16-ounce Thermos size for my breakfast oatmeal, and one 24-ounce Thermos for my lunch and dinner meals. Either size Thermos is deep so I recommend picking up a Long-Handled Titanium Spoon, it’s lightweight and great for backpacking too!
For Backpacking: Weight is everything when it comes to backpacking and every ounce matters. Keep it lightweight by rehydrating and eating your meals in ziplock FREEZER bags. No, not just any ziplock bag, it must be a freezer bag so the boiling hot water doesn’t melt your bag. This works for your morning oatmeal as well as dehydrated lunch and dinner meals. You’ll leave no trace as these bags are washable and reusable. I recommend making an insulated pouch to store your meal in while it’s rehydrating. This is easy to make using Reflectix Insulation and Reflectix Tape. Think of it as a large envelope with a flap, securing the flap with industrial-strength adhesive Velcro. Make it just a bit larger than the size of freezer bag you plan on using.
For Roadtrips: If you purchase a HotLogic Oven, it comes with a reusable cooking container, otherwise, rehydrate meals in the containers mentioned above using water that has been heated in your hotel’s microwave.
FOOD SAFETY
Before I wrap this up there’s one more thing that is particularly important for campers and backpackers, and that’s food safety. What I’m referring to here is bears, snakes, raccoons, and other little critters with incredibly sensitive noses that can sniff out your food from miles away. Protect your food in a bear-resistant container.
I’m a big fan of the Bear Vault for two reasons, one because they’re impossible for a bear to get it open or penetrate it in any way, it’s made of a slippery polycarbonate that reduces leverage points for entry from bear jaws, claws, and paws. And two, because it’s a hard-sided canister a bear can play with this thing for hours until it gives up and all the while your food has stayed intact, nothing smashed.
That being said, the Ursack is popular with many backpackers and campers. And while a bear won’t be able to penetrate your bag if it wasn’t properly hung from a tree, it will smash and pierce every single thing you have in that bag. I never liked the small crumbs at the bottom of a chips bag, so I know this is not a bear-proof container for me. And since I suck at tying knots, anything I tie in a tree is simply bear bait waiting for one tug on the line and that baby is going down.