Southwest Bean Bowl
Beans, corn, and rehydrated salsa vegetables under a cold ranch pour. A salad reworked so nothing in it needs a fridge.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 131
- protein
- 26 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 0 min
- total time
- 5 min
- water
- 300 ml cold
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Lunch
- Cold soak
- No cook
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Bikepacking
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Gluten free
- Nut free
- Eat in the bag
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Dehydrated black beans | 1/3 cup | instant refried also works and thickens more |
|---|---|---|
| Dehydrated garbanzo beans | 1/3 cup | cooked, then dried; raw chickpeas will not rehydrate |
| Freeze-dried sweet corn | 1/4 cup | |
| Sun-dried tomato | 2 tbsp | chopped small, not oil-packed |
| Freeze-dried cilantro | 1 tsp | |
| Ranch dressing powder | 2 tbsp | buttermilk powder, garlic, onion, dill |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | dropper bottle |
| Sharp cheddar | 1 oz | waxed or vacuum-sealed, cubed |
| Fritos or corn chips | 1 cup | crushed, in place of the lettuce |
Method
- Pour 250 ml of cold water into the bag of beans, corn, tomato, and cilantro. Stir once, seal, and set it in your pack.
- Wait 45 minutes. Cold beans take longer than you expect. Check at 30 and give it another stir.
- In a small bottle, shake the ranch powder with 50 ml of water and the olive oil until it stops looking like sand.
- Stir the dressing into the bean bag. Cube the cheese in and fold it through.
- Crush the chips into the bag last so they still have some structure when you eat.
The original is a fridge-clearing salad: lettuce, avocado, fresh tomato, bottled dressing. None of that carries. So the lettuce becomes crushed corn chips, which give you the same job — bulk and crunch — while adding fat instead of water weight. Avocado is gone entirely; olive oil in the dressing covers the same ground and does not turn brown in your pack.
Cold soaking works here because beans and corn are the only things doing real rehydration, and both are already cooked before drying. The ranch powder has to be mixed separately with water and oil first. Dumped in dry, it grabs onto the beans in lumps and you spend the meal chewing seasoning.
Packing
Beans, corn, tomato, and cilantro go in one freezer bag at home. Ranch powder in its own snack bag; if it gets wet in transit it clumps and never mixes. Chips ride in an outside pocket where nothing can sit on them.
Variations
- Skip the cheese and use a vegan ranch powder to make it dairy-free.
- A foil packet of chicken pushes it past 40 g of protein.
- Chipotle powder or a squeeze of lime concentrate sharpens the whole bowl.
https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/recipe-southwestern-salad