Ingredient Choices: When Dehydrated Is The Better Choice I Trail Cooking

First in a two-part series, let’s discuss when dehydrated and freeze-dried ingredients are most optimal in trail food. We have posted many articles over the years on this subject; see Dehydrating/Freeze-Drying 101 for the links (and links below as well).

While you can dehydrate or freeze-dry almost any ingredient, not every ingredient is suitable for long-term storage or for lowering food weight. Some do better freeze-dried, in others, dehydration is your best option. This also plays into how you buy ingredients, should you choose to go that route, versus DIY at home.

A Dehydrating Primer:

Dehydrating food can be done with sunlight (a practice used since people figured out that starving in winter sucked), or you can use a food dehydrator to do it quickly. The food should be the same size and thickness for the best result. When exposed to hot air, the moisture in the food is driven out. It can take an hour for thin greens or up to a day or two for items like fruit, depending on their moisture content. Items that are naturally moist, such as peaches, strawberries, and similar fruits, will take longer. You will need to monitor the dehydrator and rotate the trays every hour or so, so each tray has a chance to be closest to the heating unit and fan. Otherwise, the tray closest to it will dry faster.

The food is often half or less the size of the original fresh food. Some items will be up to 90% smaller. It tends to be very flat and or shriveled in texture. It won’t look like it did when fresh.

Certain foods must be cooked (or at least blanched) before dehydrating (carrots, green beans, beans – legumes). Raw meat and eggs (raw or cooked) should not be dehydrated for safety. Meat outside of jerky doesn’t do well (it’s the re-hydration that is the issue), and it doesn’t store well long-term. Avoid greasy and fatty foods; the fat can and will go rancid in storage.

Don’t be confused by commercially dehydrated items that are plump and full of moisture, such as dried fruit. Those items are nearly always treated with sulfur dioxide to keep them that way. If you react to wine, you will want to avoid these treatments. They may taste good (because not wrecking teeth on a piece of leather like a pear is great), but don’t mix soft dried fruit with dried ingredients when making meals for the long term or even a week out. Its moisture will soak into the other dried ingredients. And that leads to food being wasted quickly. Carry it separately! This applies to nearly all commercially dried berries and fruit.

The rehydration ratio can be 1:1 to 1:2 (food-to-water). Sauces can be 1:3. Rehydration takes at least 15 minutes with boiled water and often longer at altitude or in colder temperatures (which is why insulating your meals matters). It is an art you eventually learn by playing with making meals on your own.

When Dehydrated Is The Better Choice

Ingredients that are best used dehydrated:

Pasta – Cooking pasta to barely al dente, rinsing and draining, then dehydrating gives you nearly instant pasta. It’s great for trail meals. I find the texture works perfectly.
Rice – Commercial instant rice is cooked and dehydrated. You can cook any rice that catches your eye and dehydrate it.
Beans/Lentils – Whether you cook beans at home or use rinsed and drained canned beans, they dry quickly and rehydrate easily.
Dry Milk – Commercial dry milk is dehydrated.
Butter Powder – Butter powder is normally a dehydrated product.
Fruit and Berry Leathers – Line your dehydrator with parchment paper and make a tasty treat. I peel it off and flip it over halfway for the best results and even drying.
Carrots – Commercial diced carrots are precooked and then dehydrated. They come back great in meals. If made at home, you must cook them first.
Onions (minced) – Commercial dried onions are dehydrated. They are so affordable; this is one to buy.
Garlic (powder or minced) – Also so affordable, you might as well buy it.
Greens (spinach, kale, and similar) – Hearty greens dehydrate in a blink. Crumble for best use.
Apples – Dehydrated apples store well, whereas freeze-dried ones will absorb moisture once you open up your packaging. They are also sturdy and don’t crumble up.
Pears – Same as apples.
Cranberries – Commercial cranberries are lightly sprayed with oil and sugar, then dehydrated. They must be cut in half for optimal dehydration.
Raisins/Currants – Raisins need to be poked before drying (a toothpick into the grapes). It is time-consuming, so a commercial can be the best choice.
Applesauce – Easy to dehydrate, use parchment paper-lined trays. Treat it like fruit leather.
Cooked Pumpkin – Make a puree or use canned pumpkin, then spread on parchment paper-lined trays. Once dry, run through a blender to powder.
Jerky – Your dehydrator is waiting for you!
Herbs – They don’t even need a dehydrator. Strip off the stems, place the leaves in a new lunch-sized brown bag, and let them air-dry, shaking gently every day.
Mini Marshmallows – Place them on trays, at a very low temp, and let them dehydrate. Great for adding to hot drinks, they become a tasty treat.
Mushrooms – Thinly slice, dry on trays. Rehydrate in hot water. The soaking water makes a great broth for meals. The mushrooms become pleasantly chewy and never slimy (whereas freeze-dried, they tend to be slimy and wet). The musthooms slightly cook while dehydrating.
Tomatoes – Cut cherry tomatoes in half, dehydrate cut side down. It gives a sun-dried effect without added oil.
Olives – Cut them into thin slices or dice them. They will be very salty once dried.
Capers – Another very salty item, they dry nicely. They add a punch to pasta dishes, but only use a few.
Summer Squash/Zucchini – I find that freeze-dried makes it like a sponge. Drying it, like mushrooms, removes all the water, giving it a better texture later on.

There are, of course, many other ingredients, playing with them and trying out dehydration is often a cheap hobby. It’s fun to see if things work!

Storage:

For best results, store dehydrated items in glass mason jars and transfer them to bags when a trip is planned. For home-dried ingredients, shake the jar gently every month. Some residual moisture is always present in certain dried foods, which helps prevent clumping (particularly in dried fruit).