If you are very busy at work and your job requires you to stay in the office until the evening, you probably don’t have a lot of time to cook yourself a hot meal. Here is the best remedy for this situation as you can prepare some instant foods in time and just add boiling water whenever you wish for a hot meal. The important step to keep in mind is to add only dry ingredients to these instant meals, as this way you can store them for longer and consume them whenever you crave a soup or noodles. These instant meals are great to take at work and eat them at lunch or to pack when you go camping and want to taste some homemade flavors. Just heat some water and pour it over the dry mixture to prepare a tasty and instant meal. You can make several packages with your favorite ingredients, but make sure to check out the link below for some tasty ideas.
Recipe links. Here are links to each of the 6 complete printable recipes. Each is explained in more detail further down in this post.
- view/print Cous Cous with Chicken & Vegetables Recipe
- view/print Fiesta Rice with Corn & Chicken Recipe
- view/print Creamy Alfredo Noodles with Chicken & Mushrooms Recipe
- view/print Cous Cous with Apricots, Macadamia Nuts, & Chicken Recipe
- view/print Curry Rice with Chicken & Cashews Recipe
- view/print Thai Peanut Noodles with Chicken & Vegetables Recipe
More ideas:
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- Delicious Scalloped Hasselback Potatoes
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- Baked Potatoes with Bacon, Onion and Cheese
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- 7 Awesome Waffle Iron Recipes
Where can I reasonably purchase the freeze-dried items? I looked on Amazon, but the container of chicken supplies fourteen 3/4 cup servings. The cost was over $40! The. Recipes look delicious.
yep, me, too – I’m sticking with cans 😀
Type in freeze dry foods and you well get a lot of company who sale them. Also Wal mart sale some and sport store to.
sell
I get mine here. I purchase as a Consultant to get the 10% discount, free and half off products. LMK any questions. There are also package deals.
Check out prepper sites, we’ve had good luck with Emergency Essentials. Look for sale items. These recipes look great!
Just do a google search, for things like freeze dried food, dried foods, etc.. There are many options and many sizes. Some companies only do the #10 cans which are usually the $30-$40 but others have smaller amounts, however keep in mind freeze dried food last a long time. You may not use it all in one season but if sealed and kept properly it will stil be good for next season.
Get a food dryer & make your own. Crazy simple!
Check out health food store sometimes you can find freeze dried food in bulk so it is cheaper. another alternative might be to use flavored TVP.
You can look around here and let me know if you have any questions.
Retha – Amazon is your best bet for freeze dried options; there are quite a few producers including Honeyville Farms.
HOWEVER – I prefer to dehydrate my own chicken; you must use canned chicken because “fresh” dehydrated takes WAY too long to re-hydrate in a backpacking situation.
I also prefer to dehydrate my own vegetables; they have a better consistency than FD options. Based on what I know, though, FD vegetables aren’t any more or less nutritional.
I’m thru-hiking the Arizona Trail this fall so I’m a dehydrating fool right now.
There are companies that have smaller cans, not just the number ten cans. Emergency Essentials is one of them.
Am I missing something? Where do we get freeze dried chicken and such? Do they have these in Winco’s bulk bins?
I found my own answer by doing what I should have done in the first place – click the link to your blog. Thanks for the photos of packaging. Very helpful
I can’t find the link to the recipes
yes you can get some of these in the bulk foods, if they don’t have it there they sometimes have large #10 cans of freeze dried foods, meats, vegies, fruit, egg, and meat substitute for vegan.
Wow, not even one idea without chicken?
Looks good – where can I find the freeze-dried ingredients?
Thanks
Anything using the freeze dried chicken could easily be swapped to either TVP or freeze dried beef or pork. The recipeS are a jumping off point.
Try the internet for freeze dried ingredients. Google “freeze dried chicken bulk” for example or just use dehydrated ingredients. There are A LOT of online retailers who sell freeze dried or dehydrated ingredients including the big boys like Amazon. Just use basic internet search skills.
honeyville.com/ Honeyville Farms
thereadystore.com
both are great choices and run weekly specials worth looking into
For people worried about freeze dried chicken (some mention cost, availability, but perhaps also vegetarians) I would suggest substituting dried tofu, peanuts or other nuts, or just leave it out and eat your protein at a different meal. If you use nuts but prefer them not to be soggy and soft simply add them after everything has finished cooking.
Other substitutes for freeze dried chicken would include jerky or sausage.
Where can I buy this stuff
If you have a dehydrator you can do this yourself. That is how I make my backpacking food.
Same here Brian; I’m thru-hiking the AZT this fall and I’m dehydrating the heck out of stuff.
Are these packed with a lot of sodium as do most prepackaged meals? I’d like to know because I’m not supposed to have a lot of salt in my diet. Thank you.
These are not prepackaged in a factory, the amount of sodium completely depends on the ingredients you put in.
Just curious, could canned chicken perhaps work in place of freeze dried chicken?
I LOVE Thrive Life foods. They pick all of their fruits and veggies at peak ripeness so it’s all delicious. You can get it here gardencandy.thrivelife.com
geez just mail order some Mountain House and save yourself a lot of hassle and gas running around town trying to find ingredients.
Hello, for those of you still looking to purchase freeze dried foods, I can help! You can visit my website jessicacole.thrivelife.com we have a great variety of delicious freeze dried foods. Also, ask me about my unadvertised specials! They will save a bunch on the meats/veggies/fruits!
Jessica, I get my ingredients from thrivelife.com as a consultant I get a 10% discount on the listed price. All the ingredients are just the item you are wanting freeze dried, no salt, no gmos, lots gluten free available. It makes packing these sort of meals easy for me to tailor with foods and favors I want.
Does anyone know how many serving each recipe is for?
Looks like one or two to me.
I tried these for a camping trip with my kids, but I dehydrated all the food myself. If you do this it is WAY cheaper, but will require about 5 min. of boiling instead of just adding boiling water. They were wonderfully tasty, kids loved them, and very easy ‘one pot dinners’ on a hectic road trip!
Lol “just add boiling hot water to a plastic bag” yea good idea
Actually, if you put these in one of those seal a meal things, you could put the pouch in the water and cook it in the bag.
Mountain House is one site.
Emergency Essentials is another that I use most…always look for the sale items.
Great article. Hard to read though, the text is too small, and packed too tightly together. Black text would be better as well. These old eyes can’t see this too well.
Food 4 Patriots. Militarily grade food and other supplies. Shelf life of 25 years and some of the better tasting and priced. I’m stocking up.
Food 4 Patriots. Militarily grade food and other supplies. Shelf life of 25 years and some of the better tasting and priced. I’m stocking up.
They have a section at winco with a lot of these freeze dried items.