Batch-Bag Bean and Rice Bowl
One night of measuring at home buys you a week of dinners that take one boil.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 131
- protein
- 21 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 8 min
- total time
- 10 min
- water
- 400 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
- Canister stove
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Thru-hike
- Basecamp
- Bikepacking
- Vegetarian
- Gluten free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Instant refried bean flakes | 1/2 cup | |
|---|---|---|
| Instant rice | 1/2 cup | the parcooked kind, not minute-adjacent imposters |
| Cheese powder | 2 tbsp | the packet from boxed macaroni works |
| Chili powder and cumin | 1 tsp total | |
| Onion flakes | 1 tbsp | |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp | |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | dropper bottle |
| Corn chips | 1 oz | packed last so they stay whole |
Method
- Boil 400 ml of water. Cut the heat.
- Pour in the whole dry bag except the chips. Stir hard for ten seconds so the bean flakes do not clump.
- Lid on, five minutes off the stove. The rice finishes on stored heat, which saves fuel.
- Stir in the oil. If it is stiff, add hot water 50 ml at a time.
- Crush the chips over the top and eat out of the pot.
Meal prep at home usually means cooked food in containers in a fridge. On trail the same idea works better dry: do the measuring once, at a table, with a scale, and then every night on the trip is one bag and one boil. The variable that ruins camp dinners is not skill, it is fumbling five separate containers in the dark.
Bean flakes and instant rice are both parcooked, so they rehydrate off residual heat rather than a rolling simmer. That is the whole reason this runs on one short burn. The oil and the chips are not garnish. They are most of the fat, and without them the bowl comes in around 450 calories, which is not a dinner after twenty miles.
Packing
Do the measuring at home in one sitting: line up quart bags and fill five or seven at once. Chips ride in their own bag or you get bean-flavored dust. Oil stays in the dropper bottle, never in the mix.
Variations
- A foil packet of chicken stirred in at the end adds about 20 g of protein.
- Swap the cheese powder for a spoon of powdered coconut milk to go dairy-free.
- Dried peppers or a squeeze packet of hot sauce covers the fact that this is beige.
https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/how-to-plan-for-meal-prep