Southwestern Hash Brown Skillet
Potatoes, pinto beans, and dehydrated salsa in one pot. A savory breakfast for mornings when oatmeal will not do.
- calories
- 450
- weight
- 3.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 129
- protein
- 14 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 13 min
- total time
- 15 min
- water
- 320 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.
- Breakfast
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Thru-hike
- Bikepacking
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Instant hash browns | 1 cup | the dried shredded kind sold in a carton |
|---|---|---|
| Dehydrated pinto beans | 1/3 cup | canned beans, rinsed and dried at home |
| Dehydrated peppers, onions, and mushrooms | 1/3 cup total | |
| Dehydrated salsa | 10 g | about a third of a 12 oz jar before drying |
| Garlic powder | 1/4 tsp | |
| Salt | 1/4 tsp | |
| Black pepper | 1/8 tsp |
Method
- Put every dry ingredient and 320 ml of water in the pot at once. Stir.
- Cover and bring it to a boil over high heat, stirring now and then so the potatoes do not stick.
- The moment it boils, drop to the lowest flame you can hold and simmer covered for one minute.
- Off the heat, stir hard. The salsa clumps and needs breaking up.
- Cover and wait ten minutes. The water goes into the potatoes and beans in that time. Eat it out of the pot.
The ten-minute soak off the stove is the whole recipe. Instant hash browns and dried beans rehydrate at different speeds, and boiling them together long enough to soften the beans turns the potatoes to paste. Simmering for a minute and then letting residual heat finish the job in a covered pot gets both there without wrecking either, and it burns almost no fuel.
Salsa dries into a hard, sticky flake that wants to sit at the bottom of the pot in one lump. Stir it in aggressively after the heat is off. Water is measured tight here on purpose: at 320 ml there is nothing left to drain, which is the only way this stays a one-pot meal.
Packing
Dry everything at 135°F until it snaps, not bends: about eight hours. Beans get rinsed first, peppers and onions cut to half-inch pieces, mushrooms sliced thin, salsa spread in a thin sheet on a lined tray. Batch it. Three servings takes two peppers, a 15.5 oz can of beans, an 8 oz box of mushrooms, and a 12 oz jar of salsa, with leftovers for the next meal. One freezer bag per serving; if it will sit for months, bag the salsa separately inside the big bag so its moisture stays put.
Variations
- A tablespoon of olive oil at the end pushes it past 600 calories and keeps you full to lunch.
- Dehydrated refried beans in place of the whole pintos thicken the whole pot.
- A packet of hot sauce or a shake of chipotle powder if your salsa dried out mild.
https://thruhikers.co/southwestern-breakfast-skillet