Getting ready for our upcoming trip and the fire ban has made for a menu change. We seldom partake in dehy foods and have little knowledge on the quality or tastiness . Any help and advice would be appreciated.

If you search the BWCA Food and Recipes subforum, you'll find lots of suggestions:

Go to freeze dried company/meals

I generally like to dehydrate my own for better flavor/preferences. There are some details here for how to do that:

Basics for main meal dehydrating

How long do you have before your trip? There's a lot of individual variation in taste and portion sizes as well as dietary needs so you'll need to pay some attention to that. I can recomend some I like - actually you'll find some in lionman's linked thread - but will you like them is the big question? There are things from the grocery store you can combine/take. I have taken some of the ethnic shelf-stable meals along with some instant rice for example. Will they be enough food, too little, or too much? If you have time try some. I usually just have cereal for breakfast, bars and nuts for lunch/snacks. For hot meals I usually just rehydrate in the bag placed in a cozy for retaining heat. Cozies are easy to make out of Reflectix and only boiling the water keeps fuel usage low. Clean up is easy.
Do you have any specific questions?

Freezer Bag Cooking

I stick with Peak Refuel and Mountain House. They are the two of the best brands overall that I have come across in terms of price, calorie count (this part is important!) and taste. I order them from Sierra Trading, which usually has them for 10-20% off, and that adds up when you might be buying 15-20 of them.

Personally, I have found most of the boutique brands to not be very filling and are usually a bit overpriced in terms of meal content. Healthier? Maybe... but while tripping I am less concerned about that than I am about energy output. And both Peak and MH both do a really good job of creating well-rounded meals that don't leave me feeling hungry. The MH Chili Mac with beef I think I could eat every damn day. So good.

When buying MH though, just be aware that their pro-paks are single servings as opposed to their regular meals which are two. Though they claim they have higher protein and "focused calories", whatever that means.

Some day when my life slows down a little and time allows me to, I will dehydrate my own meals. Perhaps I will buy myself a nice dehydrator for Christmas this year.

Most retail options are freeze dried and not dehydrated. Over the years, Mountain House, I believe, is the best. Recent week long solo had me trying Peak for the first time, and you could not pay me to eat any of their garbage ever again.

My vote goes local to Camp Chow from Trail Center. After being a long-time fan of their restaurant, I tried a wider variety of trail meals from them this last trip. They were really good, had an incredible variety, and they are local.

Sounds like you have several people. I just put together meals for 4 nights for my crew. Breakfasts are breakfast bars or oatmeal with freeze dried fruits (Target has good selection of freeze dried fruits) and topped off with honey on it. Lunches are packets of chicken salad or tuna salad on some kind of flat bread or tortillas. Night 1 dinner is Bear Creek Chicken Noodle soup with 14 ounces of chicken added to it. I make two batches of this. You can find Bear Creek stuff at grocery stores, Target or Walmart. Night 2 is Zatarains Jumbalya mix family size. Directions call for 1 1/2 pounds of meat. One batch I will add 1 pound summer sausage and 7 ounces of white chicken breast. The other batch I will put 14 ounces chicken breast and 1/2 pound of summer sausage. Night 3 I am making 2 batches of Bear Creek Creamy Potato soup and putting 2 little bottles of bacon bits in them. Night 4 I am doing Bear Creek Chili and putting small can of tomato paste and 1 pound hamburger in each batch. I dehydrate the tomato paste and hamburger. I am also bringing different flavors of Idahoan Mashed potatoes. These will fill in somewhere. You can also buy some Knorrs packets too. There are endless possibilities. I might also throw in a few commercial freeze dried meals too.

I know MikeInMpls has mentioned a Minnesota company Camp Chow to me that he liked. I've never tried it but planning on testing some at home soon.

Trail Center Camp Chow. They are amazing and are based on the Gunflint Trail. Quality people as well.

I went to Trail Center last week and bought around $100 of their Camp Chow offerings. I am going to sample a little of everything on a couple trips that are coming up. Can't wait to try it out. They have so many selections in the Trail Center store.

MH Beef Stroganoff, Fett Alfredo with Chicken and Chil Mac are our consistent favorites, Chicken Teriyaki is pretty good too. Their Breakfast Skillet is pretty tasty wrapped up in Tortillas for a morning meal.

Frenchy19: "Most retail options are freeze dried and not dehydrated. Over the years, Mountain House, I believe, is the best. Recent week long solo had me trying Peak for the first time, and you could not pay me to eat any of their garbage ever again."

What did you not like about Peak? Although I still like them more than most others, I always find that none of the pastas ever seem to rehydrate all the way and no mater how long I let them sit, I end up with crunchy noodles here and there, and I hate that.

AlexanderSupertramp: "

Frenchy19: "Most retail options are freeze dried and not dehydrated. Over the years, Mountain House, I believe, is the best. Recent week long solo had me trying Peak for the first time, and you could not pay me to eat any of their garbage ever again."

What did you not like about Peak? Although I still like them more than most others, I always find that none of the pastas ever seem to rehydrate all the way and no mater how long I let them sit, I end up with crunchy noodles here and there, and I hate that."

I find Peak Refuel hands down the best out there. I would make sure once water is added, you give a hearty stir with your utensil before resealing.

We like Peak Refuel. Even at $11 at Sierra TP, it's still expensive. They call the package "2 servings" but when you're outdoors, the whole pack is a good meal. No way I'd be eating half of that and be satisfied.

Having said that, I see them as a treat. Five nights out would mean $55 of dinners.
As others have said, soup mixes with added dried or vacuum sealed meat is good, easy and very affordable. We will sometimes have some meat like chicken pouches and then instant mashed potatoes and gravy mix. Easy, cheap and good.

Dehydrating your own stuff is fun. It takes a while to get the hang of it and find what works and doesn't work. I added a vacuum bagger so I can take the dehydrated meals and pack them up to last a long time. When I'm going on a trip, I'll go to my bucket of meals and pull out what I want.
Lasagna is a good one. It's more like "tossed" lasagna...chips of noodle, sausage and hamburger floating in the mix...but it's pretty good. The other thing is that you can make the size of meal you like and put in more or less of what you like or don't like. I tried making squares of noodles and squares of sauce and building up a "real" 3D lasagna, instead of the casserole -like approach, but it didn't work out that well. Not worth the trouble.

KevinOutdoors is a good YT channel. I learned a lot from him.
Hamburger is fairly easy. Many people add breadcrumbs to make rehydration easier. It's never going to be like real hamburger though. You have to put some significant energy into eliminating as much grease and oil from the meats as you can. Especially hamburger and sausages. Which of course removes some flavor.

I make a killer jumbalaya at home. I tried drying that and it's mediocre. Shrimp and fish do not do well whatsoever in this process. In general, you have to amp up the seasoning stronger than you normally would. I did chili with hamburger and it was awesome. 10/10. You almost couldn't tell it was a rehydrated meal.

You can dry tomato sauce and it becomes like tomato chips which rehydrate kind of alright. Some of this is a bit fussier than the ready-to-go dehydrated meals. If those say hot water, wait ten minutes...it's going to be pretty accurate. I've found that with my own dried meals, it's not usually sufficient to just pour hot water over them and wait fifteen minutes. Often I find that they will need some boiling or I will put the pot in an insulated "cozy" and wait like THIRTY minutes.

Dried pineapple is REALLY good. And it's pretty easy to do your own beef jerky. Not any cheaper really, but you put real stuff in it, not all the junk that's in the store packs.

The boil bags for minute rice (Success brand) are pretty good and easy. Add gravy or whatever and the rice will soak it up.

Another vote for Camp Chow. We used Mountain House before and found that their servings were small. Had to buy two servings for one guy. Mountain House had much larger servings, and we felt was superior in taste by far to Mountain House. They are also cheaper. This springs Camp Chow had a 25% off sale. I bought all the food for this fall's trip early for the 25% off.

Lawnchair107: "

AlexanderSupertramp: "

Frenchy19: "Most retail options are freeze dried and not dehydrated. Over the years, Mountain House, I believe, is the best. Recent week long solo had me trying Peak for the first time, and you could not pay me to eat any of their garbage ever again."

What did you not like about Peak? Although I still like them more than most others, I always find that none of the pastas ever seem to rehydrate all the way and no mater how long I let them sit, I end up with crunchy noodles here and there, and I hate that."

I find Peak Refuel hands down the best out there. I would make sure once water is added, you give a hearty stir with your utensil before resealing. "

This could be my issue, and I know it says that on the bag but I usually just mash it around with my hands after I close it. Will try stirring next time. Heck maybe I'll just do it tonight since I have some downstairs and I am out of groceries... and too lazy to go to the store.

I wanted to add too that the cold water breakfast berry and granola meals from Peak are pretty freaking fantastic. I love them. The milk tastes so fresh and like it's not powdered milk at all.

I make my own meals in varying types. Backcountry lasagna with beef Kevin’s version adjusted for our portions. I dehydrate curry that we appear at home out of the jar. Jasmine rice cooked then dehydrated. Dehydrated or freeze dried chicken. Add in some mixed vegetables to round out a one pot meal. Strong believer in building a cozy for the pot you rehydrate in which Cliff Jacobson is an advocate of as is Kevin. Easy meal and easy clean up.

Best meals you buy is chicken pad Thai from BP.

Ryan

Lawnchair107: "

AlexanderSupertramp: "

Frenchy19: "Most retail options are freeze dried and not dehydrated. Over the years, Mountain House, I believe, is the best. Recent week long solo had me trying Peak for the first time, and you could not pay me to eat any of their garbage ever again."

What did you not like about Peak? Although I still like them more than most others, I always find that none of the pastas ever seem to rehydrate all the way and no mater how long I let them sit, I end up with crunchy noodles here and there, and I hate that."

I find Peak Refuel hands down the best out there. I would make sure once water is added, you give a hearty stir with your utensil before resealing. "

I stir the bejeebers out of it; I just did not like the flavor of any of the meals I had. The breakfast skillet and pasta marinara, in particular, were just flat out horrid. Cannot recall what else I ate, but those two stand out as uber nasty, and none of the others I had stand out as memorable. I know a number of folks who love the Peak Refuel; just not for me.

Frenchy19: "

Lawnchair107: "

AlexanderSupertramp: "

Frenchy19: "Most retail options are freeze dried and not dehydrated. Over the years, Mountain House, I believe, is the best. Recent week long solo had me trying Peak for the first time, and you could not pay me to eat any of their garbage ever again."

What did you not like about Peak? Although I still like them more than most others, I always find that none of the pastas ever seem to rehydrate all the way and no mater how long I let them sit, I end up with crunchy noodles here and there, and I hate that."

I find Peak Refuel hands down the best out there. I would make sure once water is added, you give a hearty stir with your utensil before resealing. "

I stir the bejeebers out of it; I just did not like the flavor of any of the meals I had. The breakfast skillet and pasta marinara, in particular, were just flat out horrid. Cannot recall what else I ate, but those two stand out as uber nasty, and none of the others I had stand out as memorable. I know a number of folks who love the Peak Refuel; just not for me.
"

That’s fair. Those are two that I have not had yet. Still hard for me to go away from Ova-easy eggs. My favorites from Peak are the beef stroganoff, chicken alfredo, sweet pork and rice and biscuits and gravy.

But to each their own!

I’ve always used mountain house. Biggest downside, in my mind at least, is they loaded with sodium. If that’s a health concern then avoid MH. You could always try some at home before your trip.

I do my own - easy and not too time consuming. Check the food suggestions and meals on the other thread. BWCA Food and Menu. Too bad you aren't in the Minneapolis area; I would help you get started.

I dehydrate some of my own but also like freeze dried. Just saying they are different.

section hiker article.

an excerpt from above:

"Freeze-drying removes 98% of the water in foods while dehydration removes about 80% giving freeze-dried products a much longer shelf-life. Freeze-dried food is flash frozen and then exposed to a vacuum, which causes all the water in it to vaporize. This requires expensive equipment and isn’t something you can do at home, but it makes it possible to store freeze-dried foods for 20 to 30 years, compared to dehydrated ones, which typically last one to five years.

But the biggest difference between freeze-dried and dehydrated foods is nutritional. Freeze-dried foods retain all of taste, smell, texture, and nutritional value they has in their original form before the freeze-drying process. Dehydrated foods lose about 50% of their nutritional value because they’re subject to heating during the drying process and can become somewhat chewier, since the heating process “cooks” them over a long period of time as they dry.

Freeze-dried foods also rehydrate more quickly, usually in 5 minutes or less (dried berries, almost instantly), in hot or cold water. Dehydrated foods usually take 10-20 minutes to rehydrate, provided you use boiling water, requiring a longer wait and more stove fuel, which are both anathemas for backpackers!"