I have learned so much from you Darcy! This would be good if I was on a road trip and then I wouldn't have to stop and spend 20 to $25 for a meal this would be perfect.
I've never thought of doing this, what a brilliant idea. I'm thinking you could throw a handful in a thermos with a packet soup, pour in water and it would be great a few hours later when lunchtime comes around
I found out (the hard way) that adding straight (un-dehydrated) pasta to a "soup in a jar" while it is cooking creates a "starchy" tasting broth. Cooking the pasta just before serving the soup (which takes about 20 minutes) defeats the purpose of "soup in a jar" that goes in a crock pot and is ready when you choose to serve it some 2 or more hours later. When I used the cooked-dehydrated pasta and put it in the last 5 or so minutes before serving, YUM! No additional cooking time needed. Plus, it gives my dehydrator something to do in between drying herbs, veggies, and treats.
When I first started my journey in food preservation and emergency preparedness, I couldn’t understand the concept of “WHY? am I cooking and wetting things just to turn around and dry it back out”… it didn’t take me long to figure out less energy in an emergency situation so I could conserve and as a mountain search and rescue/avid outdoorsman it was lighter weight I had to pack in and out. I now do it for several mushers who want real foods on the trails! Also another reason why I started doing “fast beans” and “instant rice”! I spent an entire weekend cooking and drying various beans and assorted rices!
@@danettenewell4994 yes, I cook my rice and dried beans, without any meats or fats, and then I dehydrated them. Times for drying depending upon the appliance you have and the temperature and how much you have on your drying rack. Rehydration takes about 15-20 minutes with boiling water. Basically becoming an “instant”
@@arcticcat7142 this is so cool!!! Thank you for explaining. I'll be doing this as well. I have a deep feeling. These things will be needed, and come in very handy. Real soon.
My mother’s kidneys are failing because she is so severely dehydrated. She has zero appetite but will drink chicken noodle cup-o-soup! It has way too much sodium, so I am trying to make pouches from scratch. This will really help!☺️ Oooh, I bet I could get some cheese powder and make instant Mac & Cheese in a jar too.
My favorite is dehydrating angel hair pasta then breaking it into little chunks about 1/2-1" to use for cup-a-soup type soups. They can rehydrate in a simple broth and with the addition of some leftover meat and veggies or freeze dried, it makes a quick light meal or hearty snack.
Brilliant Database of recipes! When I make TOO much pasta or rice I always dehydrate it if I do not have an upcoming meal to use them in. Thanks for saying to refrigerate the leftovers until ready to dehydrate them; no one has time for food poisoning. Thanks so much for all you share.
This is brilliant! We live in Arizona, the high desert. We’re on hauled water. I am very frugal with water, that’s why I’m so happy to learn about this process. Thank you so much! And yes, I would love more videos on “meals n a jar”.
You still have to use the same amount of water. You originally cook it as you would with any pasta. Dehydrating just uses less water and time on rehydrating it. You don't really save water.
@@tashalee4294 Well, when you consider the fact that I only used “one pot” of boiling water to blanch several batches of fresh vegetables, then using the same pot of water to cook a good amount of pasta, & since I was already using a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process with the vegetables… I don’t think adding more ice cubes broke the bank, lol. So yeah, I’ll go out on a limb here & say I will be saving water since the pasta is cooked, it only needs to be Re-hydrated & heated. But, I will be saving water, time, and fuel to prepare a meal for my family.
@@tashalee4294 I respectfully disagree. When you first cook pasta you add it to quarts of boiling water, cook, DRAIN OFF EXTRA COOKING WATER, and proceed. This way if you have 1 cup of, say, dehydrated macaroni, it only takes an EQUAL amount (1 cup) of boiling or extra hot water to rehydrate. The water added to rehydrate is absorbed by the pasta. Less wasted water. Great timesaver, too. You can also make your own "minute rice" by cooking and dehydrating it. Works the.same way to rehydrate.. one parr to one part. Blessings...🌞
These will make great Christmas gifts for several friends who can burn water! I am spending so much time between dehydrating and canning that we may need to start a 12 step program for me! LOL I haven't counted how many pints and quarts I canned from roasting a 12 lb turkey, canning the meat with mushrooms and onions (quick gravy), and making turkey vegetable soup from the bones! I have to stop - no more room ANY WHERE IN THE HOUSE
Here's another option I learnt from my nonna: I always just used the risotto method of cooking pasta while backpacking - it uses a lot less water than stovetop, and about the same as what you use for rehydration here or less if the other stuff has liquid. All with regular boxed pasta - no prework back home. It takes about 10 minutes from hard to al dente. It's a really cool method I perfected in a dorm on a hot plate, but works awesome while camping and at home in a hurry.
I have done Spaghetti with Tomato sauce. I cooked the spaghetti noodles, drain water, add a jar of tomato sauce , toss. then put in the refrigerator after it has cooled I put another jar of tomato sauce and mix. ( the spaghetti will absorb the first jar) and spread on the trays for your dehydrator. To re-dehydrate, just add enough water to cover and bring to a boil.
The meal in the jars would be so helpful for the kids going off to college. My daughter is lactose/gluten intolerant so she has to watch everything she eats. She's a senior and thinking about college. This would be an awesome, healthy option! Especially because she really doesn't like to cook. Thanks again for your helpful videos.
I love this idea, I can ready meals for my son when he goes hunting, I do things like Turkey with flavored broth…he just uses corn starch to thicken, it you’ll be great to be able to have it over noodles.
Thank you. I hadn't thought about dehydrating cooked pasta for "instant" pasta. Have done it for instant rice. As you spoke, I recognized all the benefits that you mentioned. Thinking about how nice having noodles would be with canned pork or chicken in a storm caused grid-down situation. Limited resources to prepare a meal, again, as you mentioned. Good point about separating the pasta when making soup in a jar with previously frozen & dehydrated mixed vegetables. Vegetables will need both re-hydrating and cooking. An alternative is to dehydrate canned mixed vegetables. Result should be that only re-hydrating while heating would be enough. Thank you for sharing. I just put dehydrating pasta on my to-do list for heat & eat pantry meals.
Jars are fantastic especially in long term storage. Ruffing it however for me calls for an unbreakable vessel. For my outings I use a much oversized vacuum bag. I seal it up like normal vacuum packs. When meal time comes around I cut it open and add water. As a note: if you would like, I've often purchase binder clips ( like what holds the cover together on a theses) and reclipped the bag to keep the heat in longer while the meal steaps.
Thank you! Never thought of doing pasta. When we are camping I look for quickest meals possible to save time more than fuel. I see this in my future for the spring. Lol!
I do this with rice, kamut, barley etc & make little spagetti nests too. Needs much less water & cooking fuel later. Not quite "just add water", but if you had to (or wanted to) just cold water soak they would rehydrate to an edible form over 4- 8 hrs. Thank you for sharing this!
@@unapologeticallyme9022 I found silicone tray liners like netted material & they work great for rice. Fruit roll trays might work too. You just cook the white rice as usual and spoon it onto the trays to dehy on 135 or so. Once dried, it easily breaks any clumps apart to pulse in processor or chopper. Home-made quick rice :)
Great idea, thanks for also showing the rehydrating. Looking to make some healthier quick meals for work lunches I can just add boiling water to. The jars are a great idea.
Since I don’t use meat in quick meals, I have made spaghetti sauce with the noodles broken small. Dehydrated it on oven paper then packed serving size in freezer bags for rehydrating on trail. Just add boiling water for 10 min to rehydrate. Sauce must be thick for this . Our family also loves our veggie chili made into what we call a dehydrated bark. Always satisfying and welcome addition to our backpacks.
Hello, glad to see you put this video out. I've been doing this for years with pasta for backcountry canoe trips. I do slightly under cook the noodles because I simmer them over the fire to rehydrate while other stuff is cooking. Going to check out your jar meals link too! Thanks for the time you spend doing these video's to share! Take care.
Fascinating! I'm going to do this for my upcoming camping trip. Thank You for the inspiration. I just dug out my dehydrator that I forgot I had so I've been binge watching your videos. You are fantastic and I sure do appreciate the work you do. ❤❤❤
@@ThePurposefulPantry Thank You very much! I'm a canner, but I really need to get into dehydrating more because I live in the mountains and do a lot of running around on road trips, camping and day trips. I'm also spending a small fortune on dog treats so I'm going to do chicken strips, but also looking for videos of recipe inspirations for pet food and treats...... 😍
@@ThePurposefulPantry p.s....... I have a question that I believe you can address better than anyone out here, if you don't mind...... How long will dehydrated veges last? I bought a whole bunch of Harmony House dehydrated veges and packaged them all up into single serving sized vacuume sealed bags as well as mylar bags with oxygen absorbers...... ten years ago. I just found them stored away in large totes. Should I toss them?
Optimally 2-3 years. Heartier, starchier veg can last longer than something like tomatoes. At this point, they may be fine. If they have kept their coloring once opened...they may be okay. It's not a science. I teach optimal -- then practically, your mileage may vary. As long as they aren't moist or have a big color change, they'll likely be fine, though they may have lost a little nutrition in the storage.
@@ThePurposefulPantry Thank You. That confirms my thinking on it. With such a big financial investment, I think it's worth opening them and giving them a try. They can't 😵 me, right?
Thanks so much for this, I don't have any of those uses, but I now do it for when I'm sick, busy, etc, because I can't have many of the ingredients in pre packaged convenience foods. I make up those pasta side dishes like the store's, but add my organic veggies and herbs from my garden, all dehydrated, into a jar, along with the sauce ingredients. I love that you can make up so many different flavours, hubby loves them too. Again, thanks so much!
Good idea. I've done rice but not pasta. I pressure can vegetable soup, but I always have to cook pasta or if separate. This way I could just add the dehydrated pasta and an equal amount of water and heat both at the same time.
This is brilliant! Now that I know about this, Kraft does this with their 3-minute microwave mac n cheese bowls. I had no idea what it was before. Such a genius idea, especially for emergency food!
I really love this idea with the noodles, I am just starting w/dehydrating. I have been watching all your video's. Now I want to do my spaghetti meals in a jar. I don't get around very much, I normally take 1 day out of the month and cook my meals for a month and freeze but I think dehydrating will work better for me. I want have to sit by the stove anymore. I just love your way.
Thank you so much for your teaching you have taught me so many things I just love watching your videos keep on keeping on thank you for all you do for us that are still learning have a blessed day👈😴👩🌾
Have you considered putting all the meals in a jar recipes in the link into book form? Maybe you already have it as a book and I missed it? I’d love to purchase one if so!
I can't copy the recipes in a book - those are not my recipes to do with - that would be stealing content. Are you talking about a clickable PDF with those available? Maybe that can happen. But it still would have to lead to those recipes on people's websites.
@@ThePurposefulPantry ahh, I see. I didn’t click on them, I only saw the titles. I didn’t realize they were links to other websites. I’m just old school and like to have a book in my hand lol. I’ll go through them and print the ones I want to put in a binder. Thanks for responding and thanks for the time and effort you put in to give us great content!
I have to do this! I have a well, so when the electricity is out, I don't have running water. I have water stored in IBC tanks for that, but I also have livestock I have to share that water with. Pasta is carb dense, so lots of energy for you which is a bonus. Being able to rehydrate pasta with minimal water would be perfect for those "grid-down" situations. Living in the middle of nowhere, it can be a while before I get the power back, potentially an entire week.
Who would of thought of dehydrating pasta. Perfect solution. I like Steve day idea as well. For sure I will do this for my camping trip. Once again Darcy you pulled it out of the hat
This is great. I do this with rice for long term emergency food, never thought to do it with pasta. For maximum room conservation Orzo would be best 👍🏻
I didn't think you could...or should?...dehydrate rice?? Idk...I mean, I know minute rice is dehydrated, but that's in a factory?? Or it would be safe to do?? Like I said...idk....😁🤷♀️
@@cbass2755 I have dehydrated rice without any problems. Ten year old rice, at that. Premise is the same as if we were dehydrating mashed potatoes or pumpkin. We can dehydrate canned vegetables and and so much more. The main rule is to follow good sanitation practices. Refrigerate foods as needed. Don't let cooked foods linger on counters too long. Have your trays prepped and ready to immediately receive cooked foods as soon as they are cool enough to handle. Begin the dehydrating process promptly. Hope this helps.
Thank you! As a flight attendant I’ve been trying to find ways to make things that just need hot water as our planes don’t have ovens or microwaves. I’m going to try this when I have a few days to prep.
I saw a guy rehydrate spaghetti. He had the spaghetti broken up and mixed with the sauce and then dehydrate it. He dumped his bag of spaghetti dinner in a pot of boiling water over the camp fire and voilà! Spaghetti dinner. I haven't tried it yet.
I have found that cooking my pasta in broth or stock. then using the drained broth for hot drinks. This would be good dehydrated. More flavor. Conversely you could include bullion power in pasta packets. Plus for premade add dried meats and or veggies.
I’ve had my dehydrator since Christmas but I’ve only done marshmallows. I really want to do a meal in a jar but I get overwhelmed & I’m soooo tired when I get off work!
