Texas Hash
Ground beef, rice, and canned tomatoes cooked down in one pot with a lid on it.
- calories
- 430
- weight
- 7 oz
- cal / oz
- 61
- protein
- 22 g
- serves
- 5, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 25 min
- total time
- 40 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
- Campfire coals
- Liquid fuel
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Canoe / raft
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Ground beef | 1 lb | browned and drained at home, frozen flat in a zip bag |
|---|---|---|
| Long grain white rice | 1 cup | not instant, it needs the full simmer |
| Onion powder | 1 tbsp | |
| Garlic powder | 1 tbsp | |
| Black pepper | 1 tsp | |
| Salt | 1 tsp | |
| Canned diced tomatoes | 1 can (14.5 oz) | juice and all |
| Water | 1 empty tomato can, about 400 ml |
Method
- Dump the browned beef, the rice, the spice mix, the whole can of tomatoes, and one can of water into the pot. Stir.
- Bring it to a boil uncovered, stir once so nothing sticks to the bottom.
- Drop the heat to the lowest simmer you can hold and put the lid on.
- Cook about 20 minutes. Stir once around the halfway mark and nudge the flame if it is boiling hard or has gone quiet.
- Pull it off the heat when the rice is soft and the liquid is gone. Let it sit five minutes with the lid on.
This is a one-pot rice pilaf pretending to be a hash. The rice cooks directly in the tomato juice and water, so the starch it gives off thickens everything instead of getting rinsed away. That is why the lid matters more than the heat level: the pot has exactly the water it will ever get, and steam that escapes is water the rice does not get.
Browning the beef at home is the real trick. It removes the grease, kills the raw-meat handling problem, and cuts camp time roughly in half. Frozen flat, the bag chills the rest of the cooler on the drive in and is thawed by dinner. Onion and garlic powder stand in for the fresh onion the original called for — they hold flavor without a cutting board and cannot go soft in a pack.
Packing
Brown and drain the beef at home, cool it, and freeze it flat in a zip bag. Frozen flat it doubles as a cooler block for the first day. Rice and all four seasonings go in one bag together so camp is three containers: meat, dry bag, tomato can.
Variations
- Swap the beef for a pouch of cooked taco-seasoned chicken and skip the cooler entirely.
- A chopped jalapeno or a spoon of chili powder in the dry mix pushes it toward chili.
- Freeze-dried ground beef makes this fully shelf-stable for backpacking, though you will want another 100 ml of water.
https://camprecipes.com/classic-recipes/texas-hash