Salmon and Asparagus with Lime Yogurt Sauce
Pouched salmon, dried asparagus, and a tangy powdered yogurt sauce built in the pot.
- calories
- 610
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 111
- protein
- 42 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 8 min
- total time
- 10 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
- Canoe / raft
- Gluten free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Pouched salmon | 5 oz | foil pouch, not canned |
|---|---|---|
| Instant white rice | 3/4 cup dry | |
| Dried asparagus | 1/2 cup | home-dehydrated, cut into 1-inch pieces |
| Sun-dried tomatoes | 2 tbsp | chopped small so they rehydrate |
| Powdered whole milk yogurt or buttermilk powder | 2 tbsp | |
| Powdered feta or hard grating cheese | 2 tbsp | |
| Lime juice powder | 1 tsp | or a lime wedge if it is day one |
| Garlic powder | 1/2 tsp | |
| Soy sauce | 1 tbsp | dropper bottle; use tamari to keep it gluten-free |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | |
| Salt and black pepper | to taste |
Method
- Boil 400 ml of water. Dump in the rice, asparagus, and sun-dried tomatoes.
- Cover, kill the heat, and let it sit eight minutes. The asparagus needs the full time; the rice does not care.
- Spoon about 3 tbsp of the hot liquid into your mug or lid. Stir in the yogurt powder, cheese powder, lime powder, and garlic until it is a loose sauce. Do it off heat or it will break.
- Fold the salmon into the pot along with the soy sauce and oil. Break the fish up but not into paste.
- Pour the sauce over, season, and eat out of the pot.
This started as a grocery-budget family dinner: fresh salmon, roasted asparagus, and a feta-yogurt sauce whipped in a blender. None of that survives a warm pack, so everything got swapped for its shelf-stable twin. Foil-pouch salmon carries the protein without a cooler. Asparagus dehydrates well if you cut it thin, and it rehydrates in the same water that cooks the instant rice, so there is one pot and no drained liquid to dump.
The sauce is the part worth doing right. Yogurt and cheese powders will seize into grit if you dump them into a boiling pot, so they get mixed separately with a few spoonfuls of hot broth until smooth, then poured over at the end. Lime powder and soy sauce are standing in for the marinade and the acid; between them they do most of the flavor work, since dried asparagus alone tastes like very little.
Packing
Rice, asparagus, and tomatoes go in one bag. Sauce powders go in a second small bag so they stay dry and get mixed separately. Salmon pouch and oil ride loose. Pack the empty pouch out; it smells.
Variations
- Swap the salmon pouch for a foil chicken pouch and drop the lime for oregano.
- Skip the yogurt and cheese powders entirely and finish with lime and oil for a lighter, dairy-free version.
- Cook it over a campfire in a pot with a lid; just pull it off the coals before the sauce step.
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