Food Ideas

Dehydrating chicken does not work
you have to pressure cook it first otherwise the rehydrated result is inedible.

Freeze drying is not synonymous with dehydrating.



I have about a thousand dehydrated recipes… I got them from books. There are a lot of backpacking dehydrating recipe books out there.

Just a couple of books
Just a couple of books is all you need to get the idea of dehydrating your own food. After that they all repeat the same thing. Different ingredients maybe, but the process is all the same. If you are at all adept in the kitchen, you soon realize what you can dehydrate (and rehydrate) successfully and you are not far from wild experimentation with your own recipes.

Dehydrating
I am well aware that freeze-drying and dehydrating are fish of very different kettles.

I have dehydrated cooked chicken in small pieces successfully (ie it was edible when rehydrated).

But fully agree that it is safest to pressure cook first, and anyway chicken is not my first choice of dried (any method) meat.

Regarding freeze-drying: itis possible for the DIY fanatic to make themselves a working freeze drier. However, it is probably not practical for most.

dehydrating food
I found that one of the easiest meals to dehydrate and prepare in the camp is pasta and sauce.You can get creative and add dehydrated hamburger,mushrooms,peppers and onions.I brown hamburger,rinse with hot water.Cook the pasta.Mix sauce,hamburger and angel hair together.Portion on dehydrator trays at 2 cups each.When dry,Put in ziplock freezer bags.Rehydrate in camp by adding 1.5 to 2 cups boiling water.You can also spread just the sauce on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.Set oven on lowest possible setting,insert cookie sheet and prop the oven door slightly open to allow the moisture to escape.May take 6 to 8 hoursbut when ready,just peal the sauce off the paper.Experiment!