Dehydrated Carbonara Fusilli
Boxed carbonara sauce, dried ham, and pre-cooked pasta that rehydrates in one pot.
- calories
- 610
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 111
- protein
- 26 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 12 min
- total time
- 17 min
- water
- 600 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
- Liquid fuel
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Nut free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Whole-grain fusilli | 300 g dry | cooked, then dried; short twisted shapes rehydrate fastest |
|---|---|---|
| Knorr carbonara sauce packets | 2 packets | |
| Powdered milk | 8 tbsp | |
| All-purpose flour | 8 tsp | thickener, since the sauce gets more water than the box expects |
| Cooked ham | 250 g | sliced into strips before drying |
| Sliced mushrooms | 250 g | |
| Broccoli florets | 320 g | florets only, stems dry out woody |
| Red onion | 225 g, about 3 small | |
| Coconut oil | 1 tsp | for sautéing at home |
Method
- At home: boil the fusilli to package doneness, drain, spread on trays, and dry at 63°C for about 6 hours. It will look unchanged and feel like gravel.
- Slice the mushrooms thin, dice the onion, break the broccoli into small florets. Sweat the onion and mushroom in the coconut oil with salt and pepper until soft, steam the broccoli three minutes, then fold them together and cool.
- Dry the vegetable mix on lined trays at 52°C for 8 to 10 hours, until brittle and loose from the liner.
- Cut the ham into strips and dry at 63°C for 4 to 6 hours, until the pieces snap.
- In camp: bring 600 ml of water to a boil, dump in one bag of pasta, ham, and vegetables, and simmer 6 to 8 minutes until the pasta gives.
- Take it off the heat. Whisk the sauce bag into the pot a little at a time so the flour does not clump. Cover for two minutes, stir again, eat.
Real carbonara is egg, cream, and cheese, none of which survive a dehydrator or a pack. The workaround is a boxed carbonara powder doing the emulsion job, propped up with milk powder for body and a little flour so the sauce still sets when you give it more water than the box asks for. What you get is not carbonara. It is a creamy pasta that behaves in a pot at altitude, which is the useful version.
Pre-cooking and drying the pasta is the part that makes it a one-pot meal. Dry pasta needs eight to ten minutes of hard boil and a drain; dried cooked pasta just soaks the water back up, so nothing gets poured out and no fuel goes into a rolling boil. The vegetables are sautéed before drying for the same reason: they rehydrate on the same clock as the pasta instead of staying crunchy. Broccoli stems never come back soft, so they stay home.
Packing
Two bags per serving. Pasta, ham, and vegetables in one; sauce powder, milk powder, and flour in the other. Dried pasta and broccoli have edges and will hole a thin freezer bag, so line it with a paper towel or double-bag it. Keeping the powders separate also keeps the fat in the milk powder away from the vegetables.
Variations
- Swap the ham for a foil pouch of chicken if you would rather not run the dehydrator that long.
- A hard cheese grated in at the end pushes it closer to real carbonara.
- Cut the flour if you like a thinner sauce, or add a teaspoon more for a coating one.
https://wolgast.no/en/recipes/dinner/carbonara