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  1. #1
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    Default Dehydrating spaghetti sauce

    Is there any way to successfully dehydrate spaghetti sauce without buying a dehyrator?
    "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.."

  2. #2

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    Quote Originally Posted by steph
    Is there any way to successfully dehydrate spaghetti sauce without buying a dehyrator?
    Haven't tried it, but I imagine if you spread it out on parchement paper and put it in your over at 130-140F overnight (door propped open) it might work.

    You might also try buying some tomato powder from www.adventurefoods.com or www.myspicer.com -- add the appropriate dried spices and it might work out decently. Adventurefoods also has a bulk dried spaghetti sauce, but I think they might just mix tomato powder with spices. I haven't tried either of these places yet.

    What is your goal? A decent dehydrator can be had for $40 from Wal-Mart and will more than pay for itself in short order if you start making your own trail meals vs. buying premade. To use Mountain House as an example, I find that the ingredients to make a recipe which will make four ~20oz servings costs about a quarter of the cost of four "two person" MH meals. Plus the meals are spiced the way I like 'em right from the get-go.

    Spaghetti sauce a no-brainer... spread a jar of sauce on a fruit-rollup tray, set the dehydrator, let it run overnight, peel the dried sauce off the tray in the morning & wash-up. I also just did a good tomato soup -- I used canned crushed tomatos and cooked the soup, then dehydrated. Rehydrates well, which I can't say for the failed experiment with Campbell's canned tomato soup. That apparently has some flour in it which cooked in the dehydrator and kept the stuff gelled into little soup particles in a light broth... not recommended.

  3. #3
    Section Hiker 350 miles DebW's Avatar
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    Tomato paste dries well. Then do what deeddawg suggested and add spices for spaghetti sauce. Or add it to chili or rice or anything else.

  4. #4
    Registered User Doctari's Avatar
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    Almost anythinng can be dried without a "dehydrator" as long as you have a working oven & a cookie sheet or 2.

    I prefer a gas oven as it has a little more control and the possibility of a lower temp. Spread whatever on the cookie sheet, (after pre heating to lowest setting) place in oven, I usually use the middle possition. Prop the door of the open about 2 inches, I use a fork from the old days of feeding my babies (its 2.5 inches long) to prop the door open. All of this takes practice, so please do not feel bad if the first batch or so is "yucky".

    Please bear in mind that pretty much ANYTHING with tomatoes in it will taste burnt if you over dry it. You do not have to actually burn it for it to taste so, trust me on this, I didn't believe & had smoky maranara on trail once, I now believe. Again, practice & soon you will have the "feel of it"

    You can get some ROCKING GOOD food on the trail by drying your own, you can also have some god awful stuff, but that is half the fun
    Think about it, what a rush when all are eating Ramen for the 56th time in a row, & you pull out some homemade pasta sauce & chow down on pasta with Tomato & mushroom sauce, oh yea!

    Doctari.
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  5. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by Doctari
    Almost anythinng can be dried without a "dehydrator" as long as you have a working oven & a cookie sheet or 2.
    [...snip...]
    You can get some ROCKING GOOD food on the trail by drying your own, you can also have some god awful stuff, but that is half the fun
    Think about it, what a rush when all are eating Ramen for the 56th time in a row, & you pull out some homemade pasta sauce & chow down on pasta with Tomato & mushroom sauce, oh yea!
    Doctari is quite right, if you can get your oven temp low enough (~130-140F for vegetable based stuff, ~140-~150F for jerky) it will work -- but for me, with kids and a wife around, it's just a whole lot easier to use a decent store-bought dehydrator, plus I get much more consistant results. (but then I didn't practice a whole lot with the oven method either, so that may be part of it) Just make sure what you get has a fan and a thermostat -- they work faster and dry stuff more evenly, no messing around rotating trays and such, just turn it on and come back the next morning.

    Anyway, my main point of posting again was to recommend Linda Yaffee's book, Backpack Gourmet. It's chock full of recipes for meals to make on the stove then dehydrate. She often calls for using a dutch-oven for cooking since most of the stuff is pretty thick and a thin-metal bottom pot would scorch the food -- but I've just used a good quality 3qt soup pot and had good results.

    The Ramen eaters get a bit wild in the eyes when I'm eating a pot of lasagna...

  6. #6
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    Default Dehydrated Sauce

    Only way I know to get the real thing is to dehydrate it. Started off with a nice supply on my thru-hike in 2003. Really spiced up the noodle dinners. Later on when my supply ran out I found a powdered sauce mix sold at the grocery store by "Knorr". Not as tasty as real pasta sauce but all things considered it was pretty darn good.
    The more I learn ...the more I realize I don't know.

  7. #7
    Registered User beatbox's Avatar
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    :banana my alternative

    !. I borrowed a dehydrator from a friend and that worked fine. Also you can use a conventional oven on a temperature between 120 and 140 with rotation once an hour...(this is what I have heard..not an expert). Walmart has snack dehydrator's by Harvest Maid for 40 bucks....to seal the bottom just use plastic wrap over teh teray. Good Luck either way.

    Have you considered cooking the mix and then dehydrating. I have a Harvest Maid dehydrator now...I made a huge pot of tuna spaghetti after mixing in sauce. I filled 4 trays after using plastic wrap to cover them (makes 8 ~ 800 calorie servings). The mixed spaghetti all dehydrated and is in one easy to rehydrate mixture. I have already tested it and it (one serving) rehydrated fine in a .85 liter pot with only 2 cups of water. Tasted good too! Just a thought.

  8. #8

    Default dehydrator $40 walmart

    I got one at walmart last year and was eatin' well when hiking. kiwi and strawberry "chips" were the best. I would dry a bottle of spagetti sauce and it was enough for four nights dinners (if I stretched it five). I did just fruit rolls, peeled and pureed first then spread in the dryer. Better than the commercial stuff. Best $40 I ever spent.

  9. #9
    Section Hiker ~ 125 miles adh24's Avatar
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    how long does the spagetti sauce take to dry in the dehydrator? I'm looking to dry some sauce for our hiking trip over labor day weekend. But this is my first time drying some and I want to get it right. And also at what temp should i dry it at??

  10. #10

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    I spread the sauce very thin and set the dehydrator to high. Takes maybe 3-4 hours. It comes out like fruit roll-ups.

  11. #11

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    If you can set temps on your dryer, do about 135*. Depending on humidity, it can take a couple hours or more. The best way to check is to do the finger test-if it is sticky wet or you get wet spots, keep drying. Tacky is ok, just not damp.
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  12. #12
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    I don't recommend setting it on high. If you forget and leave it a little too long, tomato based sauces will "burn". (Well okay, while they don't actually "burn", they can darken and taste charred and nasty.) Learned that from experience.

    125 to 135 seems about right for my dehydrator. Depending on what time I start the dehydrator, I might start it at 135 and turn it down to 125 before I head off to bed, then turn it off the next morning.

  13. #13
    Donating Member/AT Class of 2003 - The WET year
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    Quote Originally Posted by steph
    Is there any way to successfully dehydrate spaghetti sauce without buying a dehyrator?
    =====================================
    Maybe ...but it would take a very long time. There is a lot of moisture in spaghetti sauce. I've had success but only at high temperatures and very long drying times. My first batch turned out like the one referenced above -- like paste. I turned up the temperature and let it run over night and ended up with a more hardened result that broke up into small flakes. The "yield" drops but it is much lighter and reconstitutes rapidly when added to boiling water and pasta.

    'Slogger
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  14. #14

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    I forgot to add, when I do pasta sauce, after drying it, I run it thru my blender and powder it. Comes back almost instantly
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  15. #15
    James Sodt Time To Fly 97's Avatar
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    Absolutely...use the "fruit roll up trays." 4 hours on high. Should crumble, like dry toast. Drop into a ziplock and rehydrate in camp.

    Happy hiking!

    TTF

  16. #16

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    I see the original poster lives in GA so this would probably not work there: but people in AZ rarely need a dehydrator. Just make some racks with the teflon screening and a wooden frame, and lay in the sun with ventilation. Works great.

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