Bag-Cooked Vegetable Soup and Rice
Dry soup mix and instant rice rehydrated in a freezer bag. No pot to scrub.
- calories
- 520
- weight
- 4.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 116
- protein
- 12 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 5 min
- total time
- 7 min
- water
- 450 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Lunch
- Canister stove
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- Eat in the bag
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Dry vegetable soup mix | 1 packet | the kind with dried vegetables in it, not a bouillon cube |
|---|---|---|
| Instant rice | 3/4 cup | instant only; regular rice will not rehydrate in a bag |
| Tomato powder | 1 tbsp | sold as tomato bouillon in the Mexican aisle |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | dropper bottle |
| Black pepper and garlic powder | 1/2 tsp |
Method
- Boil 450 ml of water.
- Stand the freezer bag upright in your pot cozy or a boot, then pour the water in over the dry mix.
- Stir once with a long spoon, seal the bag, and leave it ten minutes. Do not stir again; the seal holds the heat.
- Open, add the oil, stir, and eat straight out of the bag.
Freezer-bag cooking exists so you never wash a pot. Boil water, pour it in, close the bag, wait. The bag insulates well enough that instant rice finishes without a second application of heat, which is the whole point on a small fuel canister.
The soup mix alone is thin, so the tomato powder and the oil are doing the work. Tomato powder adds body and acid; the oil carries the calories that a vegetable soup otherwise has none of. Skip both and you are drinking hot water with rice in it.
Packing
Soup mix, rice, tomato powder, and spices all go into one quart freezer bag at home. Use a real freezer bag, not a sandwich bag; the thin ones soften with boiling water. Oil rides separately.
Variations
- A foil packet of tuna or chicken stirred in at the end adds 20 g of protein and drops the vegan tag.
- Dried refried bean flakes in place of half the rice make it thicker and heavier on protein.
http://macscouter.com/cooking/CampingFood.asp