Dehydrating canned veggies

[220combat]

It seems like a good idea, just drain and dehydrate. Much less work than preparing fresh veggies, and lower initial cost also.

Has as anyone done this with decent results?

[Vegan Packer]

I have made hummus using canned garbanzo beans, and then I dehydrated that. It came out perfectly.

[xMagnolia]

How do you know how much water to use when rehydrating? Does it taste pasty? Or does it come back pretty well?

[Diamondlil]

I buy frozen veggies when they go on sale at the local grocery, they have less salt, and are more like fresh. They take less time to dehydrate because they contain less water.


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[The Cleaner]

Here's something I found in a backpacker's cookbook back in the 80s.To dry canned pinto beans,1st open can and wash beans under running water in a colander.Spread beans out and pat dry with a paper towel.Then spread them out on a lightly greased cookie sheet.Put this in your oven set to 125*. Put them in the middle rack of the oven and prop the door open with a wooden spoon.Leave them in overnight or 6-8 hours.They will be dry and crunchy and can be re-hydrated with boiling water and used to make red beans & rice or chili.To make tomato "leather" spread out tomato paste on wax paper or something else(some kind of baker's paper ?) and put in a microwave oven.Nuke at low temps for short bursts until dry.This is used with seasoning to make chili or red beans & rice.Pre-pack a cornbread or muffin mix that only needs water and make hot corn cakes in a lightweight nonstick skillet.Top with chopped fresh onion.We made this at a shelter in the Smokies and all the other hikers were quite impressed with the aroma of our meal while they were eating Mountain House freeze dried stuff.:sunGround beef can be dried in a similar way after frying and draining as much grease as possible.These came from the book "The Hungry Hiker's Book of Good Cooking" by Gretchen McHugh,published by Knoph in 1982.

[Vegan Packer]

How do you know how much water to use when rehydrating? Does it taste pasty? Or does it come back pretty well?

I weighed the prepared hummus before dehydrating, and then I figured out how much water it took to add back to bring it to that weight. I write this on the bag. After you rehydrate it a couple of times, you start to develop an eye for it, and you get the hang of it. The only thing that you have to remember is that you can always add more water to the dish, but you can't take it out once you have added the water. So, you can, as a general rule, add most of the water that you think that you will need, give it time to see how it comes out, and then you can add a little more at the end. If you add more at the end, since everything is already at least somewhat rehydrated, that last little bit mixes right in, and you don't have to wait long for it to finish.

As far as texture goes, some dishes come out so well that you would never have guessed that it had been rehydrated, had you not known. Others still come out well, but they are not exactly the same. You definitely want to create and try your dishes ahead of when you make the batches that you take with you on the trail.

Check out the footage starting as 21:36, and you can see a few examples of the freezer bag meals that I bring with me. The hummus isn't in that part, and that uses cold water, but this section shows some of the hot meals.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWtlSbaAY7o

[Alligator]

I've dehydrated many types of beans, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, green chili's, stewed tomatoes. I have used frozen for carrots, corn, green beans as well as fresh and only fresh for a variety of others. I'm not sure you would save money using canned vs. frozen, particularly if using large frozen bags of veggies. (This was not your cost comparison, but I am throwing it out there for consideration.)

[Gambit McCrae]

It seems like a good idea, just drain and dehydrate. Much less work than preparing fresh veggies, and lower initial cost also.

Has as anyone done this with decent results?

I use frozen mixed veggies, I do about 5 bags at a time and they turn out great. The Key to Anything dehydrated is a good pre-soak

[KathyD]

Has anyone calculated the cost of dehydrating frozen veggies vs. buying #10 cans of freezed dried veggies?

[One Half]

I buy frozen veggies when they go on sale at the local grocery, they have less salt, and are more like fresh. They take less time to dehydrate because they contain less water.


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This is probably your best bet. My understanding is that quality frozen veggies are frozen "at the height of ripeness" because if they shipped them for sale fresh, they would be rotten. So "ripe" veggies at the store are actually picked before they are ripe. Canned veggies I think are the same as those picked for fresh sale or perhaps worse. With frozen I would likely just let them warm to room temp or rinse with cool, not cold, water to seperate them before dehydrating.


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[peakbagger]

I just buy #10 cans of freeze dried veggies and some oxygen absorbers. I then break down the can into small portions and seal them with a vacuum sealer. They last for a very long time and the cost is quite reasonable.

[cs2blue]

I plan to try these items to pad out my ramin soup and instant potatoes (poor mans sheppards pie). Given some soak time in cold water and then some boil time, i think they will be filling. The venison has no beef fat in it and is very lean.

[ScareBear]

I would think that canned veggies have way more water/liquid content than fresh or frozen and thus would require way more time and energy to dehy...plus, canned veggies taste like crap compared to fresh or even frozen so how would they taste dehy and then rehy? Eeeew, is all I can come up with...

[nsherry61]

I often dehydrate frozen veggies. It's super easy. Open the bag, poor the veggies in the dehydrator, dehydrate, take out the veggies and bag them. Rehydrating them with boiling water after being dried is enough for them to be adequately cooked for my taste. I add them to virtually all my back-country dinners to increase the nutritional content.