We've put together the chart below to help you plan your meals, easily compare your ingredient options and choose the ingredients that work best for your cooking style.

When selecting ingredients to use in your trail cooking, it's important to know how much water is needed and just how long it's going to take to fully rehydrate. There are three different cooking styles that are primarily used in the backcountry (either exclusively or in combination):

• Cool Water Cooking
  • Can you avoid packing a stove and 'cook' your meal entirely with cool water?
• Cook-In Bag Cooking
  
  • Can you add boiling water to a Cook-In Bag, wait a few minutes and enjoy a hot meal with no dishes to wash?
• One (or more) Pot Cooking
  • Will there be an ingredient in your meal that requires a simmer to cook all ingredients thoroughly? You don't want to bite down on a rock-hard piece of food!

There are a few things to keep in mind when looking at the chart below...

• The water amounts and times given below are intended to return your dried ingredients as closely as possible to "fresh." There should not be much remaining leftover water - just enough to allow the item to fully 'come-back'.
• All of the ingredients listed below are commercially dehydrated or freeze-dried (the same items that we carry on the site) - water ratios and rehydration times may vary with food dehydrated at home.
• The results below are based upon foods tested at sea level - water ratios and rehydration times may vary at altitude or at varying degrees of elevation.

Dehydrated Vegetables

Freeze-Dried Vegetables

Powdered Vegetables

 

Dehydrated Beans

Freeze-Dried Fruit

Freeze-Dried Meat

Freeze-Dried Cheese

Seasoning Powders

Most seasoning powders are intended to be added along with other dry ingredients in a recipe rather than trying to reconstitute the powder back into its original liquid form. While many of these powders do come very close to their original glory; others actually reinvent themselves and bring a whole new range of unexpected and robust flavors to a recipe.

*Rehydration time given requires near constant stirring when not mixed directly into a receipe.
When mixed/cooked into a receipe rehydration time can be disregarded.