Loaded Potato Soup, Trail Version
Potato flakes, dried vegetables, and cheese powder rebuilt into a soup that boils in five minutes.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 5 oz
- cal / oz
- 144
- protein
- 18 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 5 min
- total time
- 7 min
- water
- 500 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
- Car camping
- Winter / snow
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Instant mashed potato flakes | 3/4 cup | |
|---|---|---|
| Dried diced potatoes | 1/4 cup | gives the soup something to chew on |
| Dried celery flakes | 1 tbsp | |
| Dried minced onion | 1 tbsp | |
| Vegetable bouillon | 1 cube or 1 tsp powder | |
| Cheddar cheese powder | 3 tbsp | |
| Powdered whole milk | 2 tbsp | |
| Butter powder | 1 tbsp | or a tablespoon of olive oil from a dropper bottle |
| Garlic powder | 1/4 tsp | |
| Salt and black pepper | 1/2 tsp each | |
| Red pepper flakes | 1/4 tsp | |
| Freeze-dried chives | 1 tsp | stands in for green onion |
Method
- Boil 500 ml of water. Drop in the dried potatoes, celery, onion, and bouillon and hold a low simmer for four minutes so the vegetables rehydrate.
- Kill the heat. Stir in the potato flakes a spoonful at a time until it thickens to soup, not paste.
- Add the cheese powder, milk powder, butter powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Stir until no dry streaks remain.
- Let it sit two minutes with the lid on, then scatter the chives over the top.
The original is a slow cooker recipe: cubed russets, celery, and onion sitting in broth for eight hours, then mashed and finished with milk and butter. None of that travels. The fix is to start from the mashed end. Potato flakes already are cooked potato, so the only thing that needs real cooking time is the dried vegetables, and four minutes at a simmer handles them.
Milk, butter, and cheese all become powders, which is what makes this shelf-stable at all. The dried diced potatoes are worth the extra bag space — flakes alone give you a smooth soup with no texture, and the cubes put back what the masher would have left behind. Add the flakes slowly. It thickens fast and there is no going back once it seizes.
Packing
Everything except the chives goes in one quart freezer bag. Chives ride in a corner of the food bag so they stay recognizable.
Variations
- A foil packet of bacon crumbles gets it back to the loaded version.
- Swap the cheese powder for a crumbled ounce of hard cheddar if you would rather carry real cheese.
https://domesticsuperhero.com/slow-cooker-loaded-potato-soup-and-a-slow-cooker-giveaway