Buffalo Chicken Soup
Hot sauce, pouch chicken, and powdered dairy. One pot, no fridge.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 113
- protein
- 45 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 10 min
- total time
- 15 min
- water
- 600 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
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Car camping
- Winter / snow
- Gluten free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Foil-pouch chicken | 7 oz | two 3.5 oz pouches, or one large |
|---|---|---|
| Chicken bouillon | 2 tsp | stands in for the 3 cups of broth |
| Dried minced onion | 2 tbsp | |
| Garlic powder | 1/2 tsp | |
| Powdered whole milk | 1/4 cup | replaces the cream cheese and yogurt |
| Instant mashed potato flakes | 3 tbsp | thickener |
| Buffalo sauce | 3 tbsp | in a leakproof squeeze bottle |
| Olive oil | 1 tsp | |
| Salt and pepper | to taste | |
| Freeze-dried blue cheese or cheddar powder | 2 tbsp | optional topping |
Method
- Boil 600 ml of water. Add the bouillon, dried onion, and garlic powder and let it sit at a low boil for three minutes so the onion rehydrates.
- Pull the pot off the heat. Whisk in the milk powder before anything else, or it clumps.
- Stir in the potato flakes a spoonful at a time until the soup coats the spoon.
- Add the chicken with its pouch liquid, the buffalo sauce, and the oil. Return to low heat for two minutes, but do not boil it again.
- Taste, salt, and scatter the cheese powder over the top.
The original is a Dutch oven recipe built on fresh broth, cream cheese, and Greek yogurt. None of that rides in a pack. Bouillon replaces the broth, powdered whole milk replaces both dairies, and potato flakes do the thickening that cream cheese used to do. Pouch chicken skips the twenty-five minutes of poaching entirely.
Order matters more than technique here. Milk powder goes into hot water off the boil and gets whisked, not dumped, or you get pockets of dry powder that never dissolve. Once the dairy is in, keep the pot below a boil — a hard boil will curdle the milk powder and split the fat out of the buffalo sauce.
Packing
Bouillon, onion, garlic, milk powder, and potato flakes premix into one bag at home. Buffalo sauce travels in a small squeeze bottle inside a ziplock, because it will leak eventually.
Variations
- Freeze-dried chicken instead of pouch chicken drops about 3 oz of carry weight; add 100 ml more water.
- A handful of instant rice added with the bouillon turns it into a full pot meal.
- Cut the buffalo sauce to 1 tbsp and add more milk powder if you want it milder.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/buffalo-chicken-soup