Cheddar Potato Soup
Potato flakes, powdered milk, and real cheddar. A saucepan soup rebuilt for one pot and no fridge.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 5 oz
- cal / oz
- 144
- protein
- 24 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 8 min
- total time
- 10 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.
- Dinner
- Lunch
- Canister stove
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Winter / snow
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Instant mashed potato flakes | 1/2 cup | replaces the diced potato and the 20-minute simmer |
|---|---|---|
| Powdered whole milk | 3 tbsp | |
| Chicken bouillon | 1 tsp | low-sodium if you can find it |
| Dried mixed vegetables | 1/4 cup | celery, carrot, onion flakes |
| Dried thyme | 1/4 tsp | |
| Sharp cheddar | 1.5 oz | shredded at home, or cut off a block in camp |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | |
| Shelf-stable ham or bacon crumbles | 2 tbsp | the pouched kind, not deli |
| Hot sauce | a few drops | optional, in a dropper bottle |
Method
- Bring 500 ml of water to a boil. Drop in the dried vegetables, thyme, and bouillon and hold the boil for three minutes so the vegetables rehydrate.
- Pull the pot off the flame. Whisk in the powdered milk while the water is still moving or it clumps.
- Add the potato flakes a spoonful at a time, stirring, until it thickens to soup rather than mash.
- Stir in the cheddar in two batches, letting the first disappear before the second goes in. Off heat, or it breaks.
- Add the oil, the ham, and hot sauce to taste. Salt last, since the bouillon and cheese already brought some.
The original is a roux soup: oil, flour, a slow whisk, and twenty minutes of simmering diced potato. None of that survives contact with a canister stove. Potato flakes do the thickening the flour and the simmer used to do, and they do it in thirty seconds, so the whole thing collapses into one boil.
Milk powder replaces the two cups of fresh milk, which is the part that would otherwise keep this off the trail. The cheese goes in off the heat and in stages — dumped all at once into a boiling pot it seizes into strings and leaves a greasy slick instead of melting in. Oil is there for calories; the soup works without it but it will not hold you through the night.
Packing
Vegetables, thyme, bouillon, milk powder, and potato flakes premix into one bag. Cheese and the meat pouch ride separately. Oil goes in a dropper bottle.
Variations
- Swap the bouillon for vegetable and drop the ham for a meatless pot.
- A tablespoon of cornmeal or masa in the premix gives it more body in cold weather.
- Crushed crackers on top if you want something to chew.
https://www.hunttalk.com/threads/what-is-for-dinner-tonight.215431