camp meals

One-Burner Sausage Rice

A hot, fast skillet dinner built for a single high-output camp burner in wind.

calories
700
weight
6 oz
cal / oz
117
protein
28 g
serves
1, scales
prep
3 min
cook
12 min
total time
15 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
  • Car camping
  • Basecamp
  • Canoe / raft
  • Nut free
  • One pot
  • Pre-mix at home
  • Shelf stable
  • Basic

Ingredients

Dry cured sausage 3 oz salami or chorizo, sliced into coins
Instant rice 1 cup the parboiled kind that rehydrates in five minutes
Tomato paste 2 tbsp tube, not can
Dried onion and garlic 2 tbsp
Smoked paprika 1 tsp
Bouillon 1 cube or 1 tsp powder
Olive oil 1 tbsp

Method

  1. Set the pot on the burner with the oil and the sausage coins. Keep the flame low. A single turbo burner puts most of its heat in a small circle, so the center scorches before the edges do anything.
  2. Stir the sausage for two or three minutes until the fat renders out and the edges darken.
  3. Add the dried onion, garlic, and paprika. Ten seconds, moving constantly, then pour in 400 ml of water before the spices burn.
  4. Stir in the bouillon and tomato paste and bring it to a boil on full flame.
  5. Kill the heat, dump in the rice, cover, and leave it alone for five minutes.
  6. Stir once. If it is still soupy, put it back on the lowest flame for a minute uncovered.

This is a dish for a small, powerful, single-flame stove: one burner, one pot, twelve minutes. The sausage is doing double duty. It is the protein, and its rendered fat is the cooking oil for everything after it, which is why it goes in cold and comes out first.

The rice never actually boils. It steams off the heat, which matters on a stove that runs hot and concentrated — a covered pot coasting on residual heat cooks rice more evenly than a hot spot the size of a coin. Tomato paste from a tube instead of a can because you will not use a whole can and you cannot carry the rest.

Packing

Rice, dried aromatics, paprika, and bouillon go in one bag at home. Sausage and the tomato paste tube ride loose. Oil in a dropper bottle.

Variations

  • A handful of dried mushrooms in with the water adds body and a little more weight than it seems worth. It is worth it.
  • Swap the sausage for a foil packet of tuna, added at the very end so it does not shred.

https://vanlifemag.de/cadac-1-cook-turbo-ffd-toller-gasgrill-mit-einer-flamme