Hamburger Soup, Dried Out
Ground beef, potatoes, and five vegetables rebuilt from a bag of dust and one pot of water.
- calories
- 580
- weight
- 5 oz
- cal / oz
- 116
- protein
- 36 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 15 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
- Basecamp
- Car camping
- Winter / snow
- Nut free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Dehydrated lean ground beef | 2 oz dry | 90/10 or leaner, browned, rinsed hot, dried at home |
|---|---|---|
| Beef bouillon | 2 tsp | low sodium if you can find it, the dried vegetables are already salty |
| Tomato powder | 2 tbsp | stands in for the can of fire roasted tomatoes |
| Smoked paprika | 1/4 tsp | replaces the char the canned tomatoes brought |
| Dried potato dices | 1/3 cup | |
| Dried carrot | 2 tbsp | |
| Dried celery | 1 tbsp | |
| Dried minced onion | 1 tbsp | |
| Dried green beans | 2 tbsp | |
| Oregano | 1/2 tsp | |
| Salt and black pepper | to taste | |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | the fat you drained off at home, put back |
Method
- Bring 600 ml of water to a boil. Dump in everything except the oil.
- Stir once, cover, and hold it at the lowest flame that keeps bubbles moving. Twelve minutes.
- Kill the stove and leave the lid on for five more. The potato dices finish on residual heat and you save fuel.
- Bite a potato. If it still has a chip in the center, add a splash of water and give it another five covered minutes.
- Stir in the oil and correct the salt. Bouillon brands vary more than the recipe does.
The original is a stove-top pot of ground beef, broth, and fresh vegetables. On the trail the beef and the vegetables are the same recipe, only dried, and the timing is what changes. Potato dices are the slowest thing in the bag, so everything else is sized to survive fifteen minutes without turning to mush. Carrot and green bean hold up. Celery mostly disappears and is there for the broth, not for texture.
The fat matters more than it seems. Draining the beef is right at home and wrong here, because a soup this wet needs calorie density from somewhere. Drying the meat lean and adding oil at the end gets you both: a bag that stores for months and a dinner that is actually worth carrying. Tomato powder does the work of the can without the weight of the liquid, and the paprika covers for the fire roasting you gave up.
Packing
Everything dry goes in one quart freezer bag, beef included, since it all rehydrates on the same clock. Oil rides in a dropper bottle. At 3 oz of dry vegetables per serving this scales badly past two people in a small pot, so split it into separate bags and separate boils.
Variations
- Home dehydrating the beef is the whole job. Brown it very lean, rinse the crumbles in hot water to strip residual fat, then dry at 145F until they rattle. Fat left in the meat goes rancid in the bag.
- No dehydrator: a pouch of freeze-dried ground beef works and cuts the simmer to about eight minutes.
- Instant potato flakes stirred in at the end turn the leftover broth into stew.
https://domesticsuperhero.com/hamburger-soup-instant-pot-stove-top