Pizza in a Pot
Dehydrated meat sauce, rigatoni, and pepperoni rehydrated in a bag. Scout-troop dinner, scaled for adults.
- calories
- 780
- weight
- 6 oz
- cal / oz
- 130
- protein
- 38 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 10 min
- total time
- 12 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
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Backpacking
- Basecamp
- Car camping
- Nut free
- Eat in the bag
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Rigatoni | 16 oz | cooked at home before drying |
|---|---|---|
| Ground beef or turkey | 1 lb | browned with onion, mushroom, and green pepper |
| Jarred pasta sauce | 26 oz | |
| Garlic powder and Italian seasoning | 1 tsp each | stirred in before drying |
| Shelf-stable pepperoni slices | 15 per serving | |
| String cheese | 1 stick per serving | |
| Grated parmesan | 2 tbsp per serving |
Method
- At home, boil the rigatoni, brown the meat with the vegetables, and fold everything into the sauce with the seasoning.
- Spread across four dehydrator trays and run until nothing is tacky. Pasta should rattle.
- Weigh each portion, bag it in a quart freezer bag, and write the weight on the bag.
- In camp, drop the pepperoni into the bag with the dried meal.
- Add boiling water at roughly 1:1 by weight, or just enough to cover. Stir hard, seal, and put the bag in a cozy for 10 minutes.
- Stir again, tear the string cheese into shreds over the top, dust with parmesan, and eat out of the bag.
Freezer bag cooking works when the food has already been cooked once. Everything here is boiled, browned, and simmered at home, then driven dry, so camp water is only putting back what the dehydrator took out. That is why the ten-minute soak in a cozy is enough and no pot ever gets dirty.
Writing the dry weight on each bag is the part people skip. Rehydration is roughly one part water to one part dry food by weight, and guessing gives you either soup or a bag of gravel. The pepperoni goes in before the water because the fat needs heat to bloom; the string cheese and parmesan go on after, since boiling water turns them into rubber.
Packing
One quart freezer bag per person, weight written on the outside so you know how much water to add. Pepperoni, cheese stick, and parmesan ride in a separate bag until camp.
Variations
- Dry the sauce and pasta separately if you want to control the texture; the pasta rehydrates slower.
- Skip the meat and double the mushrooms for a lighter, cheaper carry.
- Slices of bread dried low in the oven with garlic butter travel alongside for a few days.
https://trailcooking.com/fbc/italian-dinner-fbc-style-on-the-trail