Lazy Perogies
Broken lasagna noodles, instant potatoes, and cheddar in one pot. Perogi filling without the folding.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 6 oz
- cal / oz
- 120
- protein
- 26 g
- serves
- 3, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 25 min
- total time
- 30 min
- water
- 1200 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
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Canoe / raft
- Basecamp
- Backpacking
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Lasagna noodles | 9 to 10 sheets | regular, not oven-ready |
|---|---|---|
| Instant mashed potato flakes | 1 box (about 2 cups) | |
| Powdered milk | 3 tbsp | stands in for the milk the box asks for |
| Hard cheddar | 1 cup grated | a vacuum-sealed block keeps for days without a cooler |
| Grated parmesan | 3 tbsp | the shelf-stable green-can kind |
| Dried onion flakes | 3 tbsp | more is better here |
| Precooked bacon | 6 to 8 slices | shelf-stable packet; leave it out for a vegetarian pot |
| Olive oil or ghee | 2 tbsp | replaces the butter, no cooler needed |
| Salt and pepper | to taste |
Method
- Tear the bacon into bits and break the noodles into rough pieces about the size of a bottle cap. Grate or shave the cheddar.
- Boil about 900 ml of water and cook the noodle pieces until soft, 8 to 10 minutes. Drain, toss with a spoon of oil so they don't weld together, and set the pot aside covered.
- In the same pot, bring 300 ml of water with the powdered milk and onion flakes to a boil. Stir now and then so the milk doesn't scorch on the bottom. Pull it off the heat.
- Dump in the potato flakes, the noodles, the rest of the oil, the bacon, and the cheddar. Stir until everything is damp, then let it sit two minutes to set up.
- Fluff with a fork, dust with parmesan, and season hard. It needs more salt and pepper than you think.
Perogies are potato, cheese, onion, and dough. This pot is the same four things with the folding step deleted, which is the only part that needs a kitchen. Broken lasagna sheets give you wide, chewy pieces of dough that read as wrapper rather than as pasta, and the potato binds around them instead of sitting next to them.
The original called for butter and fresh milk. Oil or ghee and powdered milk do the same job without a cooler, and the milk powder goes into the cold water before it heats so it dissolves instead of clumping. A vacuum-sealed block of cheddar holds a few days unrefrigerated if it stays out of direct sun, which is what makes this work on a canoe trip. Two pots is faster, but one works if you drain the noodles into a mug and reuse the pot.
Packing
Potato flakes, milk powder, onion flakes, and parmesan go in one bag at home; noodles in another so they don't shatter into dust. Cheese and bacon ride in their sealed packets until camp.
Variations
- Skip the bacon and the pot is vegetarian. Add a spoon of smoked paprika to get some of that back.
- A packet of shelf-stable sour cream powder stirred in at the end pushes it closer to the real thing.
- Fried onions from a can, crumbled over the top, replace the crisp you lose without a pan.
https://www.canoetripping.net/threads/lazy-perogies-wilderness-camping-recipe.1026