Home-Dehydrated Chili Bricks
Cook a pot of chili at home, dry it flat, and carry a week of dinners that rehydrate in ten minutes.
- calories
- 520
- weight
- 4 oz
- cal / oz
- 130
- protein
- 34 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 12 min
- total time
- 17 min
- water
- 400 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
- Canoe / raft
- Basecamp
- Thru-hike
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Lean ground beef | 1 lb | 90/10 or leaner, browned and rinsed hot to strip fat |
|---|---|---|
| Canned crushed tomatoes | 28 oz | |
| Kidney or pinto beans | two 15 oz cans | drained and rinsed |
| Onion and bell pepper | 1 each | chopped small |
| Chili powder, cumin, garlic powder | 3 tbsp total | |
| Salt | to taste | |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp per serving | carried separately in a dropper bottle, added at camp |
Method
- At home: brown the beef, drain it hard, and rinse the crumbles in hot water. Fat is what turns dried meals rancid, so take out more than feels reasonable.
- Simmer everything but the oil for an hour or in a slow cooker for four. Chop or mash any chunk bigger than a pea. Big pieces never fully soften on the trail.
- Spread the chili one quarter inch thick on lined dehydrator trays. Run at 135°F for eight to ten hours, until nothing is tacky and the beans crack rather than squash.
- Break it into flakes. Weigh the whole batch, divide by six, and write the water amount on each bag: roughly 400 ml per serving.
- In camp: boil 400 ml, dump in one bag, stir, and pull it off the heat. Cover and wait ten minutes, stirring once.
- If it is still gritty, add 50 ml of hot water and wait another five. Stir in the oil last.
This is not a recipe so much as a method for turning any Sunday pot of chili into a week of trail dinners. Ground beef dehydrates well because the crumbles are already small; chunk chicken, tried the same way, sits in your pot for half an hour and stays leathery. Everything here is chopped or mashed for the same reason. Surface area is the whole game.
Fat is the constraint. It does not dry, it coats the flakes, and it goes off in a warm pack, so the beef gets rinsed and the oil gets carried separately and added at the end. Weigh the batch before you split it — that number is how you know 400 ml is right rather than a guess. Add water short of that and top up. You can fix a dry pot; you cannot un-flood one.
Packing
One serving per quart freezer bag with the rehydration volume written on the outside. Oil rides in its own bottle. Dry like with like on the trays or your fruit ends up tasting of cumin.
Variations
- Swap the beef for a second can of beans and a half cup of textured soy protein. Still gluten-free, and vegan.
- A handful of instant rice or crushed corn chips added at camp stretches one serving into a heavier dinner.
- Blend the chili smooth before drying. It rehydrates faster and takes less fuel.
https://vancouverislandbykayak.wordpress.com/2015/06/17/dehydrating101