Camp Meat Sauce Over Pasta
Tomato-heavy beef sauce built from a foil pouch and a tomato powder base, in one pot.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 6 oz
- cal / oz
- 120
- protein
- 34 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 20 min
- total time
- 25 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
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Backpacking
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Tomato powder | 1/2 cup | stands in for two cans of tomatoes |
|---|---|---|
| Sun-dried tomato pieces | 2 tbsp | adds the chunk the powder lacks |
| Foil-pouch or freeze-dried ground beef | 5 oz | 93 lean if you are buying pouches |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | |
| Ghee or butter powder | 2 tbsp | ghee does not need a cooler |
| Dried minced onion | 2 tbsp | |
| Garlic powder | 1 tsp | |
| Dried oregano | 1 tsp | |
| Red pepper flakes | 1/4 tsp | |
| Kosher salt | 1/2 tsp | |
| Dry spaghetti, broken | 6 oz | snap it in half so it fits the pot |
Method
- Boil 900 ml of water and cook the broken spaghetti until just soft. Drain most of the water off into a mug, keeping about 100 ml in the pot.
- Push the pasta to one side, add the oil, and stir in the dried onion and garlic powder. Give it a minute over low heat to wake up.
- Add the beef, tomato powder, sun-dried tomato, oregano, pepper flakes, and salt, then pour in 500 ml of the reserved hot water a little at a time.
- Simmer ten minutes, stirring so nothing sticks. Add water in splashes if it tightens past sauce.
- Kill the heat and stir in the ghee last. It goes in off the flame or it just cooks off.
The original is a stovetop sauce with two cans of tomatoes and a stick of butter. Cans are heavy and butter melts in a pack, so this version trades them for tomato powder and ghee. Powder rehydrates into the same acidic base at a fraction of the carry weight, and the sun-dried pieces give back the texture you lose when the cans go.
Everything happens in one pot, in order: pasta first, then the sauce built in the same water. The reserved pasta water is doing real work — its starch is what keeps the rehydrated tomato from separating into grit and liquid. The fat goes in off the heat, which is where it stays a sauce instead of a slick.
Packing
Tomato powder, sun-dried tomato, onion, and all the spices go in one bag as a sauce base. Pasta in its own bag, meat pouch separate, ghee in a screw-top jar with the lid taped.
Variations
- No pasta? Serve it over instant polenta or couscous instead.
- Skip the beef and add a handful of dried mushrooms for the same body without the pouch weight.
- A splash of shelf-stable red wine from a plastic bottle at the deglaze step is worth the ounces at a car camp.
https://www.pinchmeimeating.com/homemade-spaghetti-meat-sauce