Celery and Bacon Flask Soup
Dried celery, bacon bits, and milk powder built into a thick soup you drink out of a thermos on a cold ridge.
- calories
- 520
- weight
- 3.2 oz
- cal / oz
- 163
- protein
- 16 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 12 min
- total time
- 17 min
- water
- 500 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
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Day hike
- Winter / snow
- Car camping
- Nut free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Dehydrated celery | 3/4 cup | about half a head, sliced thin and dried at home |
|---|---|---|
| Dried minced onion | 2 tbsp | |
| Garlic powder | 1/2 tsp | |
| Chicken or vegetable bouillon | 1 cube or 1 tsp powder | |
| Whole milk powder | 3 tbsp | whole, not skim; the fat is the point |
| Instant mashed potato flakes | 2 tbsp | thickener, stands in for the blender |
| Butter powder or olive oil | 1 tbsp | |
| Precooked bacon bits | 1/4 cup | the shelf-stable kind in a pouch, not salad-bar sprinkles |
| Coarse salt and black pepper | to taste |
Method
- Put the celery, onion, garlic powder, and bouillon in the pot with 500 ml of water. Bring it to a boil.
- Drop to a low simmer, lid on, for 10 minutes. The celery needs the full time or it stays fibrous and sharp.
- Kill the heat. Stir in the milk powder and butter powder off the flame so the milk does not scorch or split.
- Sprinkle the potato flakes in a little at a time, stirring, until it coats the spoon.
- Stir in most of the bacon, save the rest for the top. Salt and pepper at the end, after the bouillon has had its say.
The home version leans on butter, stock, and double cream, none of which travel. Whole milk powder plus butter powder gets close on fat and body without a cooler, and potato flakes do the job a blender does at home: they take a pot of loose vegetable pieces and make it one smooth thing.
The long simmer is not optional. Celery is stringy and it turns bitter if you rush it, and dried celery in particular needs the time to take water back on. Everything dairy goes in after the flame is out.
Packing
Everything dry except the bacon goes in one bag. Bacon rides in its own bag because it is greasy and it stays crisper apart. For a flask lunch, cook it at breakfast and pour it hot into a wide-mouth vacuum bottle.
Variations
- Swap the bacon for a foil packet of chicken if you want it leaner.
- A spoonful of dried potato flakes more turns it from soup into something you eat with a spoon at camp.
https://www.baldhiker.com/keto-cream-of-celery-soup-with-bacon