Dehydrated Beef Bolognese with Fusilli
Sauce and pasta dried separately at home, rehydrated in a cup in your jacket.
- calories
- 540
- weight
- 5 oz
- cal / oz
- 108
- protein
- 38 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 45 min
- cook
- 20 min
- total time
- 65 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.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Winter / snow
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Whole grain fusilli or penne | 300 g | short shapes dry evenly; spaghetti does not |
|---|---|---|
| Lean ground beef | 500 g | 5% fat or less, fat is what spoils |
| Coconut oil | 1 tsp | for the pan only |
| Onion, finely chopped | 180 g | |
| Garlic, pressed | 15 g | |
| Red bell peppers, small dice | 2 | |
| Zucchini, quartered and thinly sliced | 200 g | |
| Crushed tomatoes | 1 can | |
| Water | 200 ml | |
| Tomato paste | 2 tbsp | |
| Sweet soy sauce | 1 tbsp | |
| Sweet chili sauce | 1 tbsp | |
| Herbes de Provence | 1 tbsp | |
| Paprika | 2 tsp | |
| Chili powder | 1/4 tsp | leave it out if you want this mild |
| Salt | 1/2 to 1 tsp | |
| Black pepper | 1/2 tsp |
Method
- At home: boil the pasta to al dente, rinse it under cold water, and drain it well. Undercooked pasta never rehydrates; overcooked pasta turns to paste.
- Brown the beef with the onion and garlic in a nonstick pan with the coconut oil, breaking the meat into fine crumbles. Fine crumbles dry through; clumps stay wet in the middle.
- Add the paprika, chili powder, herbes de Provence, salt, and pepper. One minute.
- Stir in the bell pepper and zucchini and cook five minutes.
- Add the tomato paste, chili sauce, and soy sauce, then move everything to a pot with the crushed tomatoes and 200 ml water. Simmer 10 to 15 minutes and taste for salt.
- Cool the pot in a sink of cold water, then spread the sauce on lined dehydrator trays and the pasta on bare trays. 63°C. Sauce takes about 9 hours, pasta about 4. Dry them on separate trays or the pasta stays damp.
- Scrape the sauce off the sheets, weigh it, and split sauce and pasta evenly into four bags.
- In camp: boil 300 ml of water per serving, pour it over one bag's worth in a pot or insulated mug, stir, and lid it.
- Bury the pot in your quilt or a jacket for 15 to 20 minutes. Stir again before eating.
The whole recipe is built around the drying, not the cooking. Lean beef and a nonstick pan keep fat out of the sauce, and fat is what goes rancid in a sealed bag three weeks later. Fine crumbles and small dice matter for the same reason: thin pieces give up their water in a single session, thick ones hold a wet core that spoils quietly.
Pasta and sauce dry at very different rates, so they go on separate trays and come back together only in the bag. At camp there is no cooking left, just 300 ml of boiling water and twenty minutes of insulation. The pot goes in your quilt because a mug on cold ground loses heat faster than the pasta can absorb it, and half-rehydrated pasta is crunchy in the middle.
Packing
One vacuum-sealed bag per serving, sauce and pasta together, since they go into the same water anyway. Vacuum sealing buys months; without a sealer, keep the bags in the freezer until the morning you leave.
Variations
- Skip the chili powder and it reads as a plain tomato meat sauce, which is what you want when you are cold and tired.
- A packet of parmesan powder stirred in at camp adds fat and salt without a cooler.
- Swap the beef for a bag of dried textured soy protein to drop the weight and the drying time.
https://wolgast.no/en/recipes/dinner/spaghetti-bolognese