Dehydrated Backcountry Spaghetti
Dehydrating your own backpacking meals for your next trip doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. I recently took my roommate’s mouthwatering spaghetti recipe and turned it into an easy DIY backpacking meal that’s delicious, hearty and easy-to-rehydrate in the backcountry.
Servings 5
Equipment
- Dehydrator
Ingredients
- 2 lbs mild Italian sausage
- 1 small onion diced
- 3-4 garlic cloves minced
- 4 Roma tomatoes peeled and blended
- 15 oz can of tomato sauce
- 6 oz can of tomato paste
- 1 cup water
- 4 tbsp Italian seasoning
- 1 tsp thyme
- 1 ½ tsp brown sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- ¼ tsp red pepper
- ¼ cup red wine
Instructions
AT HOME
- Brown sausage in large pot.
- Add onions and cook for 3-4 minutes.
- Add garlic, tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce and 1 cup of water.
- Add Italian seasoning, thyme, brown sugar and red pepper.
- Bring to a boil.
- Stir in wine.
- Simmer on low for 4 hours, stirring once each hour.
- In a separate pot, boil water with a dash of salt.
- Break spaghetti noodles in half and cook for 10-12 minutes.
- Drain pasta.
- Add pasta to sauce and mix together.
DEHYDRATING
- Prep food dehydrator and add parchment paper to each tray.
- Measure out 1.5 cups of spaghetti for each tray and spread it evenly in a flat layer on the tray.
- Turn on food dehydrator to medium (135 degrees F) and dehydrate for 10 hours.
- Rotate trays once every hour while dehydrating.
- Remove each tray from dehydrator and let cool.
- Once cooled, break up spaghetti and package each tray into a storage container, Ziploc bag or vacuum sealed bag.
ON THE TRAIL
- Add dehydrated spaghetti to pot.
- Add enough water to the level of the spaghetti inside the pot.
- Let spaghetti sit in pot with water, covered, for 5 minutes.
- Bring water and spaghetti to a boil.
- Stir spaghetti.
- Cover and remove from heat.
- Put covered pot in stove cozy.
- Let pot sit covered in cozy for 20 minutes.
- Give rehydrated spaghetti a quick stir.