Dehydrated vs freeze drying foods

[Bruce_America]

I have a food dehydrator but the freeze dry units are way too expensive. Anyone have any suggestions for good dehydrating meal preps.

 

[rtexpeditions]

I can give you a few tips:
1. When it comes to meat, especially chicken, factory canned dries and rehydrates better than fresh.
2. If you have ground beef recipes, e.g. spaghetti sauce or tacos, make the mix with the flavoring and then dehydrate. If you substitute 30%-50% hydrated Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) in your mix it helps avoid the "gravel" texture.
3. Rice cooked at home then dehydrated, cooks in minutes much quicker than using raw rice.
4. Dehydrating canned beans (baked beans) works well.

 

[Downs]

I have a food dehydrator but the freeze dry units are way too expensive. Anyone have any suggestions for good dehydrating meal preps.

Yeah, don't bother. Unless you have no other option due to shelf life of already cooked food. Anything that is dehydrated has to be rehydrated. Which requires............water. So you save a bit of weight on dehydrated food, but you use that weight back up and then some because you have to carry enough water to rehydrate it. If you're in an area of easily accessible potable water then you're good but if you're in the desert or areas that don't have that access then you're dealing with just as much weight and, in the end, more hassle, since you're having to spend the time to dehydrate it prior to the trip.

 

[Bruce_America]

I can give you a few tips:
1. When it comes to meat, especially chicken, factory canned dries and rehydrates better than fresh.
2. If you have ground beef recipes, e.g. spaghetti sauce or tacos, make the mix with the flavoring and then dehydrate. If you substitute 30%-50% hydrated Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) in your mix it helps avoid the "gravel" texture.
3. Rice cooked at home then dehydrated, cooks in minutes much quicker than using raw rice.
4. Dehydrating canned beans (baked beans) works well.

That’s very helpful Thank You!

 

[Ragman]

I am pretty fond of these two books that might give you some good ideas-

https://amzn.to/3Uez6Xp

https://amzn.to/3JcZkU6

 

[HighVoltOverland]

I've found that pastas or rice dishes rehydrate very well

some ones I'd recommend (no good personal recipes sorry):

Pah Thai
Jambalaya
Creamy Chicken mushroom rice casserole
beef strogonoff
"Risotto" (texture won't win awards but still can have a great flavor)
Most curry dishes

You can make some tasty dry snacks too (be generous on the seasoning)
favorite meat jerky recipe
kale chips
plantain chips
snap peas
Fruit Leather
Cheese Leather

Also, not directly a DIY dehydrator move but you can make great trail gnocchi with instant mash mix and flour