Perennial Garden Herb Rice
Dried garden herbs, olive oil, and instant rice. A one-pot dinner built from things you can grow and dry yourself.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 5 oz
- cal / oz
- 124
- protein
- 16 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 8 min
- total time
- 10 min
- water
- 420 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
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Instant rice | 1 cup dry | |
|---|---|---|
| Dried lentils, quick-cooking red | 1/3 cup | they break down in about eight minutes |
| Dried rosemary and thyme | 1 tsp total | crumbled fine, or whatever hedge herbs you dried |
| Dried onion and garlic flakes | 2 tbsp | |
| Vegetable bouillon | 1 cube | |
| Olive oil | 1.5 tbsp | dropper bottle |
| Dried strawberries or elderberries | 2 tbsp | optional, stirred in at the end |
| Salt and pepper | to taste |
Method
- Boil 420 ml of water. Drop in the bouillon, lentils, onion, and garlic flakes.
- Simmer six minutes, lid on, stirring once so nothing welds to the bottom.
- Kill the heat. Stir in the instant rice and the herbs, cover, and wait five minutes.
- Pour the oil over, season, and stir. Add the dried berries now if you want the sweet-sour edge.
The source page is about growing perennial food, not cooking it, so this is the trail version of what a rosemary hedge and a strawberry ground cover actually give you: herbs and fruit that dry well and weigh nothing. Everything perishable is gone. Nothing here needs a fridge.
Red lentils do the work. They cook in the same window as an instant-rice soak and thicken the pot into something that holds a spoon, which is the difference between a dinner and a bowl of seasoned water. The oil goes in off the heat because the calories matter more than the browning.
Packing
Rice, lentils, herbs, alliums, and the crumbled bouillon go in one bag. Oil rides in its own bottle. Berries separate so they stay chewy.
Variations
- A foil packet of tuna or chicken pushes it past 30 g of protein, but the recipe stops being vegan.
- Swap the rosemary for dried lavender if you actually grew a lavender hedge. Use half as much.
- Instant mashed potato flakes in place of the rice thicken it faster in cold weather.
https://morningchores.com/perennial-food-gardening-methods