Instant Bolognese Noodles
Spag bol at ramen speed. Meat, sauce, and pasta in one pot, two minutes of boil.
- calories
- 780
- weight
- 4.6 oz
- cal / oz
- 170
- protein
- 34 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 6 min
- total time
- 8 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
- Lunch
- Canister stove
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Thru-hike
- Bikepacking
- Basecamp
- Dairy free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Freeze-dried ground beef or TVP granules | 25 g | TVP runs higher in protein and cheaper |
|---|---|---|
| Tomato leather, broken into shards | from 95 g passata or tinned peeled tomatoes | dried on a lined tray until brittle |
| Dried onion, carrot, and celery | 3 tbsp total | |
| Angel hair pasta or a plain instant ramen block | 70 g | angel hair cooks in two minutes, thicker pasta does not |
| Grated parmesan, hard-dried | 2 tbsp | |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | dropper bottle |
| Garlic powder, dried oregano, dried basil | 1 tsp total | |
| Red wine powder or a splash of wine reduced to leather | optional | |
| Dried chilli flakes | to taste | |
| Salt and pepper | to taste |
Method
- Put the beef or TVP, dried vegetables, tomato shards, herbs, and chilli in the pot with 450 ml of water. Bring it to a boil.
- Break in the pasta or ramen block. Boil two minutes, stirring so nothing welds to the bottom.
- Cut the heat and let it stand two minutes covered. The tomato shards finish dissolving here.
- Stir in the olive oil and the parmesan. Season and eat.
Most trail bolognese asks for twenty-five minutes in a cosy while the sauce and pasta come back to life separately. This version skips that by drying the sauce hard enough to shatter and pairing it with pasta that cooks as fast as the sauce rehydrates. Everything goes in the same water. The tomato leather does the thickening as it dissolves, so there is no separate sauce step and nothing to drain.
Angel hair matters more than it sounds. Anything thicker needs four or five minutes, and by then the fuel bill is worse than the meal. The oil and the parmesan are the calorie load — a bare pot of pasta and tomato is about 450 calories and not a dinner. Hard-dried parmesan keeps for weeks without a cooler, which is the only dairy that survives this trip.
Packing
Two bags: everything dry in one, pasta in another so it does not snap into splinters. The tomato leather can be brittle enough to shatter — that is fine, smaller pieces rehydrate faster. Oil rides in its own bottle.
Variations
- TVP instead of beef pushes protein toward 45 g and drops the cost.
- Half a serve is a real lunch. One dinner portion splits into two midday meals.
- No dehydrator: a jar of pasta sauce dried on baking paper in the oven at its lowest setting works.
https://slowerhiking.com/slower-hiking-recipes-part-2/dehydrated-instant-spaghetti-bolognese