Emergency Bucket Cheesy Macaroni
Elbow macaroni, cheese powder, and milk powder cooked down in one pot with no draining.
- calories
- 700
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 127
- protein
- 24 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 12 min
- total time
- 14 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
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Winter / snow
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Elbow macaroni | 1 1/2 cups dry | small elbows cook faster than shapes |
|---|---|---|
| Cheddar cheese powder | 1/3 cup | |
| Whey milk powder | 3 tbsp | the kind sold with long-term food kits |
| Butter powder or olive oil | 2 tbsp | |
| Onion powder | 1 tsp | |
| Black pepper and salt | to taste |
Method
- Bring 600 ml of water to a boil and add the macaroni.
- Cook uncovered about eight minutes, stirring often so nothing welds to the bottom. Do not drain.
- When the pasta is soft and the water has gone thick and low, pull the pot off the flame.
- Stir in the cheese powder, milk powder, butter powder, and onion powder. Keep stirring until the sauce is smooth and there are no dry pockets.
- Let it sit two minutes off heat. The sauce tightens as it cools, so stop short of the texture you want.
This is the cheesy macaroni out of a 72-hour emergency kit, rebuilt so it works on a stove instead of a pouch. The kit version is meant for a disaster shelf and a 25-year date. The trail version wants the same thing a stormbound tent wants: hot starch and fat with one pot and one boil.
The measured water matters more than the timing. Six hundred milliliters is roughly what the pasta absorbs, which means no draining and no pot of hot starch water to dump in the dark. Whey milk powder does the work cream would do at home, and it goes in off the heat: powdered dairy dropped into a rolling boil seizes into lumps you will not stir out.
Packing
Pasta in one bag, the powders premixed in a second. Adding the powders to boiling water makes glue, so they need to stay separate until the heat is off.
Variations
- A foil packet of chicken or tuna stirred in at the end turns it into a heavier dinner.
- Dried chiles or a chili-lime seasoning covers the flat taste cheese powder can have on day four.
- Swap half the water for the same volume from a rehydrated vegetable pouch if you carry one.
https://www.battlbox.com/products/readywise-american-red-cross-72-hour-emergency-food-kit