Freezer Bag Vegetable Pasta
Dehydrated vegetables, small pasta, and boiling water in a bag. Dinner cooks while the tent goes up.
- calories
- 690
- weight
- 5 oz
- cal / oz
- 138
- protein
- 21 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 15 min
- total time
- 17 min
- water
- 450 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
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Thru-hike
- Bikepacking
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- Eat in the bag
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Small pasta | 3/4 cup dry | orzo, macaroni, or broken angel hair; nothing that needs more than 8 minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Dehydrated green vegetables | 1/2 cup | peas, green beans, and broccoli, dried at home |
| Dehydrated mixed vegetables | 1/2 cup | a boxed dried vegetable blend works if you did not run the dehydrator |
| Tomato powder | 2 tbsp | |
| Vegetable bouillon | 1 cube or 1 tsp powder | |
| Nutritional yeast | 2 tbsp | savory weight, and a few grams of protein |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | dropper bottle |
| Dried oregano, garlic powder, black pepper | 1 tsp total |
Method
- Boil 450 ml of water.
- Pour it into the freezer bag over everything except the oil. Stir with a long spoon so nothing sits dry at the bottom.
- Seal the bag, press out the air, and put it in a cozy or a spare sock inside your pack. Give it 15 minutes.
- Open, check the pasta, and add a splash more hot water if it is still firm. Another five minutes if needed.
- Stir in the oil and eat straight from the bag.
Home-dehydrated vegetables are the whole point here. Store-dried vegetables are usually cut too thick and stay leathery no matter how long they sit; vegetables you dried yourself, sliced thin, rehydrate in the same fifteen minutes the pasta needs. That matching of rehydration times is what lets one bag of water do all the work.
Small pasta shapes matter for the same reason. Anything thicker than macaroni will not soften in a bag that is only holding heat, not making it. The oil goes in last because fat coats the starch and slows absorption if you add it early, and because a bag of hot oil is harder to stir than a bag of hot water.
Packing
Everything dry goes into one quart freezer bag at home, labeled with the water amount and the soak time. Double-bag if you are worried about a seam. The oil rides in a dropper bottle in a side pocket.
Variations
- A foil packet of tuna or a scoop of textured vegetable protein stirred in at the end pushes protein past 30 g.
- Swap tomato powder for curry powder and coconut milk powder and it becomes a different dinner from the same base.
- Rice noodles instead of pasta drop the cook time to about five minutes and make it gluten-free.
https://slowerhiking.com/food/reasons-to-dehydrate-your-food