Cold Soaking food help/suggestions

I haven’t tried them, but Packit Gourmet has several options.

Cold soaking works OK, but everything starts resembling mush. Somethings I have had good luck with (eg, ramen noodles or spaghetti/flavorings) other things take too long without hot water (eg carrot bits, potato pieces.) Somethings cannot be dehydrated without cooking them first (eg, spaghetti.)

Getting the proportions correct of each type in any dish (stews, soups, tacos, etc) so they all get done at about the same time can be a rather painful process when cold cooking. Each type of food item (we are always talking precooked) will absorb water at different rates. One way to even this out is to grind everything fairly fine.

A Cheat-Chili works OK. A precooked mix of fine ground meat, red beans, tomato sauce, minute rice and spices (cumin/chili powder/black pepper/salt/ground red pepper) is all dehydrated separately. Then mixed in a baggie for the trip. (A 7oz baggie of dehydrated stuff is enough for supper, various proportions of stuff can change a lot.) I usually add about 1.5 cup of water per 1 cup of mix, wait an hour or so. Or you can boil water and drop it in a baggie and soak it for 5min. Makes about 2.5 cups or 2 big mugs of chili.

The following works, OK:

2oz fine ground meat (turkey/beef/chicken/pork or a mix, run through a blender)
2oz red beans coarse grind
1oz tomato sauce finest grind you can do
1oz minute rice
About an ounce of cumin, chili powder, fine black pepper, fine red pepper, salt all to taste.
To reconstitute, add about 14oz water, stir well, wait about 1 hour, eat.

OK. That is the BASE recipe. Adding just beans and rice (black beans, red beans, white beans or canneli beans are all about the same) makes Beans and Rice. Adding meat, tomato sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin and ground red pepper makes taco filling. Adding dried green pepper bits, meat, tomato, onion powder, rice, Italian seasoning and salt makes Spanish rice. And so on.

Soups and stews are much more difficult. I carry a small bottle of olive oil I can add after cold cooking. But cold rehydrating always means mush. Instant potatoes, ground celery, ground carrots, ground peas, ground onions just do not look appetizing in your cup. They taste OK, though, but there is no chewing texture.

Even the Mountain House meals leave crunchy bits. Their lasagna is bad for cold soaking. All I can say is just try a few before you dive into it on the trail. Or, just bring a couple on the trail. Everything tastes good on the trail!

 something that has some tang, sour, zip, sweetness and a little heat.

Make some dehydrated “beet soup” and use powdered sour cream added to it when soaking to rehydrate. There are instructions on the net for drying beet slices and recipes for cold beet soup for other ingredients. A drop or two of vinegar for the zip. A dash of something for sweetness.

I’m looking for food ides that are served cold normally, a summertime dish that is filling and refreshing. I would love to hear of some your ideas or recipes that I could pre-make package in a ziplock and just add water too. I think this is also something others are looking to see to get then to try cold soaking. Thanks for any feed back

Mashed potatoes and Spam

One of my favorites that is simple is instant mashed potatoes with a spam single, possibly some fresh cheese chunks, and a ton of real and spicy authentic olive oil or a few mayonnaise packets. You could add sriracha to anything to give it heat, including this. You could add some dehydrated onions or whatever if you really want, but by itself it’s tasty and filling.

Poke

One that requires a dehydrator but comes out pretty darn good is to make dehydrated poke. I start with a base of dehydrated cooked brown rice. If you cook the rice and dehydrate it it rehydrates cold pretty easily. The poke part is dehydrated chunks of raw ahi tuna, chopped up cabbage, grated carrot, goma kombu which is a seaweed rice topper I’ve found but you can buy other kinds of rice topper at any Asian store that are already dried, chopped onions (regular or green, whatever you like), a sprinkle of chile peppers (the kind you get with pizza), some salt (or coat the ahi with soy sauce). After it’s dehydrated, I soak this starting at breakfast in order to eat for lunch or starting at lunch to eat for dinner. At the time of eating I add some toasted sesame oil. Mayonnaise is also good. Also good to add is shiso salt.

Cous-cous salad

I made this while hiking the PCT. Rehydrate some cous-cous, add some packets of mayonnaise (and maybe a mustard packet), some chunks of fresh broccoli if it’s the first night out, otherwise, use that cous-cous that comes in a box and has little dehydrated vegetables, and add some kind of foil pouch meat (I used to be able to find chicken breast in a foil pouch, but this is good with salmon, tuna, spam.)

Mix and match

As you can see from my list, with a base of dehydrated rice, instant mash potatoes, refried beans or cous-cous, add a protein (fish, chicken, spam, cheese), add a fat (mayo, olive oil), add a seasoning (sriracha? mustard? hot pepper flakes? shiso salt? Japanese rice topping? Taco-bell hot sauce? Other???), add anything else you might think goes with it.

Thread drift to other no-cook options:

Hard cheeses and cold cuts (turkey, beef) are good for at least 2 days if you can keep them not-hot. Cool to room temperature is fine.  I’ve done 4 days sometimes.

Of course a hard salami is good for much longer, but 3 out of 3 times that I’ve seen a California black get a backpacker’s food, they went for the pack/hang bag with the salami in it.

I’ll bring Triscuits, carefully stacked back into the liner bag and reinserted into the cut-off bottom 2″ of the original box.  And serve hard salami and Parmesan cheese on those.

Thanks for mentioning the Chicken Creations, Scott. The Starkist site shows one more flavor, chicken salad. I see two flavors of Salmon Creations. I’ll have to try some out.

I’m curious is anyone has experienced gastrointestinal issues from not pre-boiling their food before starting the rehydration. I usually cook and dehydrate my own food, and store it in vacuseal bags in the freezer. Any veggies that weren’t pre-cooked were blanched. Then in camp I would add boiling water and soak for 20 minutes. After some unpleasant trips, I finally figured out that I could avoid GI issues (gas, diarrhea) by always boiling the food for 1-3 minutes before beginning the rehydration. Perhaps I have a sensitive intestine, but I’m curious if there are any other tips for food storage that could avoid this. As a result I am reluctant to use cold-soaking (e.g., for hummus).

I’ve yet to be convinced…Cold soaking strikes me as almost all of the fuss of cooking a proper, hot meal, but without any of the payoff. I’d just as soon eat cheese and jerky or nuts and a chocolate bar.

For those wondering, yes it is very normal to have GI distress eating cold soaked vegetables. It’s not uncommon. In fact….even rehydrated in hot water vegetables can cause it. Partly I feel it is because the veggies are small and we don’t chew them well, but also it’s fiber, and it isn’t soft. So you feel your stomach doing the chewing for you and end up with running to a privy or having gut aches.

Wisner wrote:

I’ve yet to be convinced…Cold soaking strikes me as almost all of the fuss of cooking a proper, hot meal, but without any of the payoff. I’d just as soon eat cheese and jerky or nuts and a chocolate bar.

This is a very common perception.

I’ve been studying the physics behind food dehydrating and freeze-drying and rehydration over the past few years, practicing a lot, and here’s what I’ve learned:

1. Freeze-dried ingredients don’t seem to make good cold-soaking candidates unless they are fishes or meats, because they get mushy.
2. Meals that are prepared with ingredients that have been dehydrated or freeze-dried *separately* do not reconstitute at the same rates (because they’ve been dried to different water contents/consistencies) and are not great candidates for cold-soaking if they contain a variety of types across the fiber range.

Here’s what I’m doing now, with quite a bit of satisfaction about how my meals are turning out:

1. Prepare a meal on the stovetop (or oven) – with all the ingredients mixed in, cook to completion.
2. Spread the meal slop on your dehydrator trays so that the entire thing is pretty thin (faster dry times and more consistent drying) but no “islands” of food bits – those islands will dry out too much and become hard to reconstitute.
3. Dehydrate the meal at a moderate temp (150-160) until there’s no perceived moisture (it should absolutely be crunchy) or it will mold.
4. Chop the meal up with a food processor (many short pulses), but don’t grind the ingredients into powder. That’s gross. We’re not making smoothies here.

This is a pretty simple and reliable framework for prepping food that will taste good and have pleasing texture when cold-soaked, whether pasta, veggies, potatoes, or meats. Special care should be taken for fatty foods. Avocados should be freeze-dried and ground to add some pastiness to sauces, salmon should be dried to chewiness (jerky) texture and no further, and lean ground meats (chicken, beef, pork) work much better than fatty ones or meats cut into strips.

I have had some success cold soaking, but can totally see why people wouldn’t want to do it.  I’m currently preparing for an AZT section hike this spring and will be cold soaking again (I did it during my last section on that trail as well).  I really like cold soaking for arid climates, it makes water management easier.  I’ll often fill the jar to start rehydrating at a water source in the afternoon, eliminating that planning need for dinner.  Cleanup is easier as well – after eating dinner I put a few ounces in the jar with superfood powder, shake it up, and gulp it down.  Another quick rinse and drink and dishes are done with no water waste (drinking the powder mix is gross though).

My fav cold soaking meals have something in there to provide texture, as well as some dehydrated veggies that rehydrate easily.  I mix and match from there, here are some examples –

• Base options – couscous, instant white rice (~3.5oz/meal)
• Protein/”meat” options – dehydrated refried beans, raw cashews (~2oz/meal)
• Veggies – broccoli, spinach (~1oz/meal)
• Add’l Items (texture fillers, more calories, etc.) – craisins, chia seeds, etc. (~1oz/meal)

Total calories typically land in the 700-800/meal range.  I find the volume quite sufficient for an end of the day meal, and very much appreciate it being ready and waiting without any additional prep required.

Ken – these require a dehydrator which not many of us own I suppose.

I would like to re-iterate – try cold soaking Mountain House Teriyaki Chicken, Italian Pepper fried steak, Spaghetti, Lasagna with meat sauce. There is no difference between hot soak and cold soak for these meals. It is heavenly folks! I lick my spoon and zip-loc clean every night :-)