Dehydrated Chili con Carne with Rice
Beef, beans, and tomato dried flat at home, then brought back with boiling water over basmati.
- calories
- 600
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 109
- protein
- 32 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 45 min
- cook
- 12 min
- total time
- 57 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
- Winter / snow
- Canoe / raft
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Basmati rice | 1 1/2 cups dry | cooked, then dried separately from the sauce |
|---|---|---|
| Lean ground beef | 400 g | 5% fat or leaner, fat is what goes rancid |
| Coconut oil | 1 tsp | all the pan needs if it is non-stick |
| Yellow onion | 1, chopped fine | |
| Garlic | 6 cloves, minced | |
| Green chili | 1 1/2, minced | |
| Green bell pepper | 1, small dice | |
| Tomato paste | 2 tbsp | |
| Diced tomatoes | 800 g | two cans |
| Kidney beans | 460 g | two cans, drained and rinsed |
| Ground cumin | 2 tsp | |
| Chili powder | 1/2 tsp | |
| Cayenne | 1/4 tsp | |
| Oregano | 1 tbsp | |
| Ketjap manis | 2 tbsp | sweet soy sauce; regular soy plus a little more sugar works |
| Lime juice | from half a lime | |
| Sugar | 2 tsp | |
| Cilantro | 1 bunch, chopped | |
| Salt and pepper | to taste | |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp per serving | carried separately, added at camp |
Method
- At home: cook the rice, drain it, and spread it thin on dehydrator trays lined with solid sheets.
- Heat the coconut oil in a non-stick pan and brown the beef with the onion, garlic, and green chili, breaking the meat up small. Salt and pepper it.
- Add the cumin, chili powder, cayenne, oregano, and tomato paste. Stir over the heat for a minute so the spices wake up.
- Move everything to a pot, add the bell pepper and the diced tomatoes, and simmer covered for about 10 minutes.
- Stir the drained beans in near the end and give them a few minutes in the sauce. Adjust with lime, ketjap manis, sugar, salt, and pepper. Off the heat, stir in the cilantro.
- Spread the sauce thin on lined trays. Dry everything at 63C/145F: rice runs 4 to 5 hours, sauce 9 to 12. Both should be hard and brittle, not tacky.
- Split into four bags, roughly 50 g of dried sauce and 50 g of dried rice each. Label with the date and the water amount.
- In camp: dump one bag of each into the pot, add 500 ml of boiling water, stir, and put the lid on.
- Wait 12 minutes, stirring once halfway. Stir in the olive oil before eating.
Lean beef is the whole point of the 5% fat rule. Fat does not dehydrate, it just sits in the food and turns rancid over the weeks the bag spends on a shelf, so the leaner the meat the longer the meal keeps. The calories you lose that way come back at camp as a tablespoon of olive oil, which you can carry safely and add at the last minute.
Rice and sauce dry at very different rates, which is why they go on separate trays. Dried cooked rice rehydrates in the same twelve minutes the sauce needs, so they can share a pot once both are brittle. Dry the sauce until it snaps rather than bends; anything still tacky has water left in it and will spoil.
Packing
Sauce and rice go in the same bag per person, or in two bags if you like the rice looser. Vacuum seal for anything past a month. Oil rides in a dropper bottle, never in with the dry food.
Variations
- Skip the beef and double the beans for a vegan version. Drop the protein estimate to about 15 g.
- Instant rice in place of dried cooked rice saves a whole tray and four hours in the dehydrator.
- A crushed corn tortilla or a handful of fritos stirred in at the end adds fat and crunch.
https://wolgast.no/en/recipes/dinner/chili