Marry Me Chicken, Trail Version
Cream sauce chicken over instant potatoes, built from a shelf-stable pantry.
- calories
- 780
- weight
- 6 oz
- cal / oz
- 130
- protein
- 40 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 10 min
- total time
- 15 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
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Gluten free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Foil-packet chicken | 5 oz | packets, not cans, and drain nothing |
|---|---|---|
| Sun-dried tomatoes | 2 tbsp | dry-packed, chopped at home |
| Powdered heavy cream | 3 tbsp | or full-fat milk powder plus extra oil |
| Grated parmesan | 3 tbsp | the shelf-stable shaker kind |
| Instant mashed potato flakes | 1/2 cup | |
| Chicken bouillon | 1 tsp | |
| Garlic powder | 1/2 tsp | |
| Dried thyme and oregano | 1/4 tsp each | |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | dropper bottle |
| Salt and pepper | to taste |
Method
- Boil 450 ml of water. Pull it off the flame.
- Stir in the bouillon, cream powder, garlic, thyme, oregano, and sun-dried tomatoes. Let it sit two minutes so the tomatoes soften.
- Add the potato flakes a spoonful at a time, stirring, until it thickens to a sauce that still moves.
- Fold in the chicken, the parmesan, and the oil. Cover for a minute off heat.
- Taste, add salt and pepper, eat from the pot.
The original is a pan sauce: chicken browned in butter, deglazed with stock, finished with cream and parmesan. None of that survives a week in a pack, so the sauce gets rebuilt from powders. Cream powder and bouillon do the work of stock and heavy cream, and the potato flakes replace the flour dredge as the thickener. You lose the browned bits. You keep the fat, the salt, and the tomatoes, which is most of what the dish actually is.
Sun-dried tomatoes are the one ingredient worth carrying as-is. Buy the dry-packed kind, not oil-packed, and chop them at home; they rehydrate in the hot water while the rest sits. Add the parmesan off heat or it goes stringy and stays that way.
Packing
Everything dry goes in one bag except the parmesan, which clumps if it meets the tomatoes early. Chicken packet and oil bottle ride outside the bag.
Variations
- A handful of dried spinach stirred in with the tomatoes.
- Swap the potato flakes for instant polenta if you want it thicker.
- At a car camp, brown real chicken thighs in the pot first and build the sauce on top of the fond.
https://mealswithmaria.site/marry-me-chicken-recipe