Cheesy Lentil Pasta, Batched at Home
A freezer-meal staple rebuilt as a dry bag. Cook once at home, carry six dinners.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 131
- protein
- 31 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 10 min
- total time
- 15 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
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Car camping
- Bikepacking
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Red lentils | 1/3 cup | split, not whole; they break down in ten minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Small dry pasta | 3/4 cup | ditalini or small shells, nothing thicker |
| Powdered cheese sauce mix | 3 tbsp | the packet from boxed macaroni works |
| Powdered milk | 2 tbsp | |
| Tomato powder | 1 tbsp | |
| Dried onion and garlic | 1 tbsp | |
| Italian herbs, smoked paprika, black pepper | 1 tsp total | |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp | |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | dropper bottle |
Method
- Bring 500 ml of water to a hard boil.
- Dump in the lentils and pasta together. Stir, cover, and hold at a low boil for eight minutes. Stir every couple of minutes or the lentils weld to the bottom.
- Cut the heat. Add the cheese powder, milk powder, tomato powder, aromatics, and salt. Stir until no dry pockets remain.
- Lid on, off heat, two minutes. It thickens fast.
- Pour the oil over and stir once more. Add a splash of water if it went past thick into paste.
Freezer cooking works because you cook once and eat six times. The trail version is the same idea with the freezer removed: batch the assembly at home, carry the result dry. Nothing here needs cold, so a session at the kitchen counter buys you a week of dinners that weigh five ounces each.
Red lentils are what make it a one-pot. They cook in the same window as small pasta and they thicken the water into sauce as they collapse, so there is no straining and no pot of grey starch to dump in camp. The powdered dairy goes in off the heat because cheese powder in boiling water turns grainy. Tomato powder does the work a jar of sauce would, at about an ounce.
Packing
Build six bags in one session at home: everything dry in a quart freezer bag, one bag per dinner. Oil rides in a separate bottle. Label the bags, because dry lentil pasta and dry couscous look identical by headlamp.
Variations
- A foil packet of tuna or a handful of dried sausage crumbles stirred in at the end.
- Swap the cheese powder for nutritional yeast and skip the milk powder to make it vegan.
- Dried spinach or kale flakes added with the pasta, not after.
https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/step-step-freezer-cooking-guide-beginner-giveaway