Camp Potato Salad from Flakes and Powder
Instant potato, powdered egg, and mayo packets rebuilt into a cold side that needs no cooler.
- calories
- 420
- weight
- 3.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 120
- protein
- 10 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 5 min
- total time
- 15 min
- water
- 300 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.
- Lunch
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Campfire coals
- Liquid fuel
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Backpacking
- Canoe / raft
- Gluten free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Dehydrated potato dices | 1 cup | the diced kind, not flakes, or it turns to mash |
|---|---|---|
| Powdered whole egg | 3 tbsp | reconstitutes into scrambled curd, close enough to chopped hard-boiled |
| Mayonnaise packets | 6 packets | about 1/3 cup; shelf-stable until opened |
| Dill pickle chips | 1/4 cup | from a shelf-stable jar or pouch, drained but keep the brine |
| Pickle brine | 1 tbsp | |
| Yellow mustard | 2 tsp | packets work |
| Dried chives | 1 tbsp | |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp |
Method
- Pour 300 ml of boiling water over the potato dices and chives in the pot. Lid on, off the heat, 12 minutes.
- While that sits, whisk the egg powder with 3 tbsp of water in a mug. Cook it in a small pan or the lid over low heat until it sets, then break it up with the spoon.
- Drain any standing water off the potatoes. Let the pot cool in the shade or in a creek eddy for ten minutes. Warm potatoes will thin the mayo.
- Stir in the mayo, mustard, brine, and salt. Fold in the pickles and egg last so they stay in pieces.
- Eat it the same meal. Once mayo is open there is no putting it back.
Potato salad is a cooler dish, and coolers are the thing you do not have. The workaround is to rebuild it from parts that already survive a warm pack: dehydrated potato dices instead of boiled Yukons, egg powder instead of hard-boiled eggs, and single-serve mayo packets, which stay sealed and stable until you tear them open. Diced potatoes matter here. Flakes will absorb everything and give you mashed potatoes with pickles in them.
The brine is doing more than the mayo is. Acid is what keeps a starch-and-fat salad from reading as heavy, and a spoonful of pickle liquid does it without any fresh ingredient. Cool the potatoes before the mayo goes in, and treat this as a same-meal dish. Opened mayo out of a cooler has a short window and it is not worth testing.
Packing
Potato dices, chives, egg powder, and salt go in one bag. Mayo and mustard packets, pickle pouch, and a small bottle of brine ride separately so a burst packet does not soak the dry mix.
Variations
- Skip the egg powder and add a foil pouch of tuna instead.
- Dried minced onion in place of chives if that is what the store has.
- A shake of smoked paprika covers for the color hard-boiled yolks would have given.
https://campfirefoodie.com/classic-potato-salad-recipe