BLT Pasta Salad, Trail Version
Rotini, bacon bits, and a powdered ranch dressing that comes together with cold water.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 4.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 138
- protein
- 18 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 10 min
- total time
- 15 min
- water
- 700 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
- Liquid fuel
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Backpacking
- Canoe / raft
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Rotini | 6 oz | short shapes cook faster and pack flatter than long pasta |
|---|---|---|
| Ranch dressing mix | 1 packet | the dry powder, not the bottle |
| Powdered whole milk | 3 tbsp | stands in for the sour cream |
| Mayonnaise | 2 packets | single-serve packets keep without a cooler |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | |
| Real bacon bits | 1/3 cup | the shelf-stable jarred kind |
| Sun-dried tomatoes | 1/4 cup | chopped, dry-packed not oil-packed |
| Dried minced onion | 1 tbsp | |
| Freeze-dried peas or spinach | 1/4 cup | the green, since lettuce does not travel |
| Black pepper | a few grinds |
Method
- Boil 700 ml of water and cook the rotini until it is just soft, about 8 minutes. Stir so it does not weld to the bottom.
- Drop the sun-dried tomatoes, onion, and freeze-dried greens into the pot for the last two minutes. They rehydrate in the pasta water.
- Drain into a spare bottle or your mouth. Leave about two tablespoons of water in the pot.
- Off the heat, stir in the ranch powder, milk powder, mayo, and oil until it coats everything. Add water a splash at a time if it looks dry.
- Stir in the bacon bits and pepper. Eat warm, or set the pot in a creek for ten minutes if you want it cold.
The original is a cold picnic salad built on sour cream, mayo, fresh lettuce, and a refrigerator. None of that survives a pack. The dressing gets rebuilt from dry ranch mix, powdered milk, and shelf-stable mayo packets, which lands in roughly the same place: tangy, thick, a little fatty. Sun-dried tomatoes replace grape tomatoes because they carry the same acid at a fraction of the weight, and freeze-dried peas or spinach replace lettuce, which turns to slime in a bag by hour two.
Draining is the only fussy part, and the fix is to under-water it rather than dump good starch on the ground. Leave a couple of tablespoons behind and the powdered dressing has something to grab. Bacon bits go in last so they keep some texture instead of dissolving into the sauce. It is fine warm, better cool, and no dietary tags apply here since it has both bacon and milk powder in it.
Packing
Pasta in one bag. Ranch powder, milk powder, onion, and pepper premixed in a second, small bag. Tomatoes, greens, and bacon bits in a third. Mayo packets tucked wherever they will not get punctured.
Variations
- A foil pouch of chicken turns it into a bigger dinner.
- Skip the bacon and mayo, use a vegan mayo packet and double the sun-dried tomatoes, and it works meat-free.
- A splash of vinegar or a lemon packet cuts the richness if the dressing feels heavy.
https://mealswithmaria.site/ranch-blt-pasta-salad-recipe