Dehydrated Camp Spaghetti
Beef and sauce dried at home, rebuilt in one pot on the trail.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 113
- protein
- 32 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 25 min
- total time
- 35 min
- water
- 900 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
- Backpacking
- Canoe / raft
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Ground beef | 1 lb | cooked, seasoned, and drained hard before drying |
|---|---|---|
| Spaghetti sauce | 24 oz jar | dried into leather on a solid tray |
| Spaghetti noodles | 1 lb | broken in half so they fit the pot |
| Dried parmesan | 1/4 cup | the shelf-stable green-can kind |
Method
- At home: brown and season the beef, drain every bit of fat you can, then dry it at 145F for four to six hours until the crumbles snap rather than bend.
- At home: spread the sauce thin on a solid dehydrator tray and dry at 135F for six to eight hours. Peel the leather off and tear it into strips.
- In camp: cover the dried beef with about 120 ml of cool water and leave it sitting while you set up. Thirty minutes is the minimum.
- Boil roughly 700 ml of water, add the noodles, and cook them through. Do not drain. That starchy water is the base of the sauce.
- Add the sauce strips to the pot and stir until they dissolve. Fish out any piece that stays leathery and give it another minute in the liquid.
- Add the beef with its soaking water and simmer until the crumbles are soft, not crunchy. Splash in more water if the pot goes dry.
- Take it off the heat and shower parmesan over the top.
Fat is what ruins dried meat, so the beef gets drained hard before it ever sees the dehydrator. Fat goes rancid in a bag; lean crumbles do not. That is also why the beef needs the longest lead time in camp, a half hour cold soak before the stove even lights, and why it still takes fifteen minutes of simmering after that.
The other trick is not draining the pasta. Sauce leather needs liquid to become sauce again, and the starchy noodle water does that job better than fresh water while saving you a second boil and a strainer you did not bring. Cook for four and it is one pot, one burner, and one spoon.
Packing
Beef in its own freezer bag, sauce leather in another, noodles in a third. Beef keeps six months and longer in a home freezer before the trip.
Variations
- Swap in dried textured vegetable protein for the beef to cut weight and cost.
- Dry a handful of mushrooms and bell pepper with the sauce for bulk that costs almost nothing.
- A dropper of olive oil at the end puts back the calories the fat draining took out.
https://campfirefoodie.com/backpacking-spaghetti-recipe