Dehydrating Food for Backpacking: DIY Trail Meals at Home

Why dehydrate your own trail meals?

Most cooked food is mostly water. A pot of chilli, a vegetable stew or cooked rice consists largely of water that you would otherwise carry up every hill. Remove it at home and you carry only the food itself – then add water at camp from a stream, lake or tap that you treat on the way. That is the whole idea behind DIY dehydrated meals, and it has three big advantages.

There are trade-offs, too. Drying takes time and electricity, home-dried meals rehydrate a little more slowly than commercial freeze-dried food, and they keep for weeks rather than years. Commercial freeze-drying works under vacuum at sub-zero temperatures and removes more water than a home dehydrator can; you cannot copy that in a kitchen. For trips of a few days to a few weeks, home drying is still hard to beat.

Dehydrated meals make most sense on multi-day trips where food weight adds up: canoe tours, long hikes and base camps reached on foot. On an overnighter you can simply carry fresh food. If you are still deciding how much food you need per day, start with trail food planning and then come back here to make the food lighter.

Food dehydrator or oven: which works better?

Drying needs three things: gentle heat, moving air and time. Heat makes water evaporate, air carries the moist air away, and time lets moisture travel from the centre of each piece to the surface. Too much heat seals the outside ("case hardening") and leaves the inside moist, which is why low temperatures work better than high ones.

Food dehydrator

A dehydrator is a box or stack of trays with a heater, a fan and a thermostat, typically adjustable from about 35 to 70 °C. It uses far less power than an oven, runs safely overnight and dries several trays at once. Models with a rear fan and horizontal airflow dry more evenly than models with a fan in the base; with a base fan, swap the trays around once or twice. Mesh inserts for small pieces and solid sheets (or baking paper) for sauces are worth having.

Fan oven

An oven works if you want to try drying without buying anything. Use the fan setting at the lowest temperature, ideally around 50–70 °C, and keep the door slightly open – a wooden spoon in the gap is the classic trick – so moist air can escape. Many ovens cannot go much below 50 °C and their thermostats are rough, so check with an oven thermometer. Oven drying uses noticeably more electricity, ties up the oven for hours and should not run unattended with children or pets around. Check the manual: some ovens are not meant to run with the door open.

What dries well – and what does not

The rule of thumb is simple: low fat dries well, high fat does not. Water leaves food in the dehydrator, but fat stays – and fat turns rancid within weeks, giving a stale, soapy taste. Starches, vegetables, fruit, legumes and very lean meat are the best candidates.

Foods to avoid or buy ready-dried

• Fatty meat and sausage (bacon, pork belly, ordinary minced beef with lots of fat, oily fish): the fat goes rancid. Use the leanest mince you can get, or plant protein such as lentils or dried soy mince.
• Dairy (cheese, milk, cream, cream sauces, butter): home drying is not recommended. Use commercial milk powder, cheese powder or a piece of hard cheese that you carry fresh, and add oil or butter at camp.
• Eggs: do not dry them at home – use commercial egg powder if you want scrambled eggs on the trail.
• Very oily foods such as avocado, olives, nut butters and pesto: they never dry properly. Carry them separately and eat them early.

For flavour and energy, add fat after drying: a small bottle of olive oil, a few nuts or a piece of hard cheese turn a lean dried meal into a satisfying dinner. Good starting recipes for cooking at camp are in our bushcraft recipes.

Food safety: rules of thumb for drying at home

Dried food is safe because microorganisms need water to grow. The weak points are the steps before and after drying: meat that was not heated enough, pieces that are not dry inside, and dried food that gets damp again. The following are general rules of thumb, not a guarantee – when official food-safety advice in your country differs, follow it, and be extra careful when cooking for small children, pregnant people, older people or anyone with a weakened immune system.

Slicing and spreading: thin and even is everything

Every piece on a tray should dry at the same pace. A thick slice next to a thin one means the thin one is brittle while the thick one is still moist inside. Aim for slices of about 3–6 mm, cut the same size and shape, and lay them in one layer with small gaps so air can move around each piece.

• Vegetables: slice carrots, courgettes and mushrooms, cut peppers into strips, use frozen peas and sweetcorn straight from the bag. Firm vegetables such as carrots, green beans and broccoli rehydrate better if blanched for 2–3 minutes first.
• Fruit: slice apples into rings, bananas into coins; dip light fruit in lemon water if you want them to stay pale.
• Rice, pasta, lentils, beans: cook them fully, rinse starchy rice, then spread in a thin, loose layer on baking paper or a fine mesh.
• Mince: cook it crumbly, drain it in a sieve, blot it with kitchen paper and spread the small granules out.

How to tell when dehydrated food is dry

Times in any table are only a starting point. Test pieces from different trays and from the thickest spots, and let a test piece cool for a few minutes first – warm food always feels softer than it is.

Packing and labelling meal bags

Pack one meal per bag, so you only open what you eat and nothing else gets damp. Freezer-grade zip bags are light and cheap; vacuum-sealed bags keep food longer and pack flatter but need a sealer. If you want to rehydrate directly in the bag, it must be rated for boiling water – otherwise rehydrate in the pot.

In the pack, meal bags go into a food bag in the middle of the pack close to your back – see the backpack packing guide for the right spot, and the Kit Builder for the rest of your pack weight.

Rehydrating meals at camp: cold soak or hot water?

Home-dried meals take water back more slowly than commercial freeze-dried food, so they need either a bit of time in cold water or a few minutes of steeping after boiling. The key is not to keep the stove running – heat once, then let insulation do the work.

Water and fuel

Drying saves weight only because you add the water later – so plan camps near water or carry the evening's water from the last source. Untreated water needs treatment: bring it to a rolling boil for 1 minute (3 minutes above 2,000 m), as described in boiling water, or filter it as in filtering water. The water calculator counts cooking water per day, and the boiling point and fuel calculator estimates the gas you need. For cold soaking, the water must already be safe before the food goes in.

Wash pots and spoons right after eating, with the washing-up spot at least 60 m away from lakes and streams – our guide to washing up at camp shows how.

Sample DIY dehydrated meal templates

Most dried meals follow one pattern: starch base + protein + vegetables + flavour + fat at camp. Once you have dried a few basics in bulk – rice, lentils, mince, mixed vegetables, a sauce leather – you can combine them into many meals. The templates below are starting points; weigh your own portions and test each recipe at home before a trip.

Bulk drying saves time

Instead of drying each meal separately, dry a big batch of each component on one day and mix meals afterwards. Two dehydrator loads – one of rice and lentils, one of sauce leather and vegetables – are enough for a week of dinners for one person. Keep a short note of quantities and water amounts, so the next batch is quicker.

Breakfasts and snacks rarely need home drying: oats, muesli, nuts and chocolate are already dry. Dried fruit from your own apple tree, though, makes porridge and bannock much better.

Calories and food weight with dehydrated meals

Dried meals are light, but lean dried food alone is not very energy-dense. Our calorie planner works with three styles: fresh and heavy at 2.5 kcal/g, standard trail food at 4.0 kcal/g and ultralight at 5.0 kcal/g. Home-dried lean meals sit around 3.5–4 kcal/g – close to the standard style – and the oil you add at camp pushes a dinner above it.

For a full day you still need breakfast, lunch and snacks; a typical hiking day for an average adult is about 2,500–3,300 kcal or 600–850 g of food. Fat-rich snacks such as nuts, cheese and chocolate make up for lean dinners. Use the planner to set your daily target and the meal planning guide to turn it into a menu.

Storing dried food on the trail and at camp

Dried food has two enemies on the trail: moisture and animals. Keep meal bags closed until you cook, put them in a waterproof food bag or dry bag, and keep it out of the sun. Rehydrated food is no longer dry food – eat it right away and do not keep soaked or cooked leftovers overnight in warm weather.

At night, store food away from where you sleep. Mice and foxes find even sealed bags, and in bear country storing food correctly is often required by law. Hanging, canisters and the right distances are described in storing food at camp and the guide to wildlife at camp. Pack out all bags and wrappers.