Has anyone tried dehydrating Ragu sauce (or any other kind of spaghetti sauce) ?

I use that aluminum foil with the "release" side and have had no problems with tomato based canned goods. I like to spread it thin, it seems to dry faster and easier. the only trial and error has been attempting to rehydrate it... I would suggest a couple of tries before your in the woods, to get it just right.

No, but have taken Boboli pizza sauce that comes in small packets to make pita pizzas.

I've dehydrated Prego and added some morels ( but won't do the mushrooms again , they were something to be desired---more like rubber than mushrooms---Really bad, and morels are best fresh anyway..)

the sauce itself was easy and re-hydrated with water quite well....I think it took about six hrs to dehydrate and then break up and vacu-seal... Used those plastic liners that came with my dehydrator trays, used for making fruit leather etc.

When rehydrating, I found it was best to let the sauce "soak" in water for a couple hrs before heating.

Woodpecker

I have on a few occaisions dried down tomato paste to be used in chili, and as a spagetti sauce base. I dries down fairly easy and is the consistency of fruit leather. Just add it to boilig water,season as nneded and you have a nice pasta sauce. It does take a bit of simmering to rehydrate but it's worth it on the wieght it saves.

No problem. Put a fruit leather tray on your dehydrator or line a regular tray with plastic wrap. Pour you spaghetti sauce on thinly. You probably will have to use a couple trays for a jar of sauce or do it in a couple of batches. Dry. Peel it off. Bag.

To dry quicker, you may want to peel the sauce off before the top is completely dry and flip it over (ie upside down).

It will rehydrate quicker if the dried sauce is ripped into tiny pieces or sent through a food processor first.

All the above are excellent tips. Remember if you do a chunky type sauce you should puree it first so the dehydrating time isn't so long. You may wish to add dehydrated hambuger ( after rehydrating ) to the sauce as you are heating it in the BW or Q for more flavor. We had it last year and it was very good. Lightweight and easy to pack. Good Luck with it. Izzy

Been doing this the last few years and had good luck but it does take a little time to rehydrate. Last year I messed up. Was planning on taking the sauce out of the dehydrator at 9 PM but I forgot. When I remembered in the morning it was extremely dry and instead of coming out like fruit leather it simply crushed into powder. Wasn't sure how this would work but it rehydrated almost instantly and tasted just as good. I will be doing it this way from now on.

If the powdered format rehydrates a lot quicker, why not use this over the "fruit leather" method? It seems most freeze-dried food is in the powder stage also.

I too have been dehydrating tomato paste to the "powder-crisp" stage. This seems to keep longer. At the "leather" stage it still has enough moisture to mold on long trips.

I dry my own spaghetti sauce all the time. It turns out really good. You'll need solid trays for your dehydrator. The best way to do it is to measure out what you need and write on a ziploc how much you have. I then freeze until trip. When you're ready to reconstitute add the water according to how much sauce you measured out(written on bag). If sauce is thick it may take a while to dry down, it's ready when no part is pasty or wet. It will be alittle drier than a fruit roll up.

Yep,

And the Roundy's Homestyle brand is our favorite to dehydrate. It is on sale two for one this week at Rainbow in the Twin Cities. We grabbed a few extra to dehydrate for our spring trips.


TB

Better to make your dehydrated spaghetti sauce 'fresh'.
Dehydrating already made sauce drives out much of the flavor.
Here's how I do it.

Fry 1 pound of hamburger, drain fat. Put into fine mesh sieve and run hot tap water through it to get last of the grease off. Dehydrate. Divide evenly by weight using a kitchen scale into 8 sandwich bags and twist tie closed.

Dehydrate 4 cans of tomato paste to leather stage. Cut with scissors into linguini-like strips. Divide evenly by weight into 8 sandwich bags and twist tie closed.

Combine all your spices, 1.5 T garlic powder, 1 T onion powder, 1.5 t oregano, 1 t basil, 3/4 t salt, 1/2 t pepper, and mix well. Divide evenly into 8 sandwich bags and twist tie closed.

Place 8 portions of pasta, I like to use cheese tortellini, into 8 quart-size freezer bags. Into each freezer bag add one hamburger, tomato and spice bag.

In camp, put hamburger and tomato into a small pot or a large cup.
Add 1.5 cups boiling water. Wrap in towel to keep in heat. Start pasta water boiling. After 5 minutes add spices to sauce and stir to combine. When pasta is done, stir sauce again until the tomato is completely re-hydrated and add to pasta.

It's dehydrated, but it's made fresh!

NorthernWay

Parchment paper works well for dehydrating sauce on your regular trays.

It is best to use simple Ragu or Prego marinara sauce. Dehydrates easily when spread thin on a silicon mat. Rehydrates in 20 minutes with boiling water added to a small pot in a cozy.

My easiest meal is 5 oz of thin spaghetti rehydrated in one cup, spaghetti sauce in another and then add some olive oil and parmesan cheese. Good easy meal.

quote wingnut: " Parchment paper works well for dehydrating sauce on your regular trays. "

I agree. I think parchment paper works better than the solid " roll up" trays for nearly everything.

I'll run pasta sauce or pizza sauce through a blender before dehydrating to keep it a uniform consistency. Comes back to life really well and all the flavors of whatever is in it are distributed nicely in "the sauce" instead of in chunks.

Also second the tip of drying it to a crisp and then breaking it into crumbles before storing it.

Careful not to have too much fats/oils in the sauce as that would make it harder to dehydrate well. A little is okay, but too much is too much.

See third post: Unstuffed peppers

I take my sauce and add some water to it and dilute it down some. This way it spreads thinner on my trays. I also give the tray a quick spray of Pam or what ever the wife has in the cupboard. Makes it peel off the tray a lot easier. Once done I tear it into strips, throw it into a freezer ziplock, and it's good to go. I don't like vacuum packing as it will make it into a solid glob that takes longer to rehydrate.

I almost always plan a meal of spaghetti for our trips, use dehydrated sauce and dehydrated hamburger and you can't tell the difference from fresh ingredients. I dry my sauce down on the plastic sheets that came with the dehydrator [sprayed very lightly with Pam]. I dry them down to slightly less crispy then fruit leathers, bag them then throw them in the freezer till we get ready to go. They do seem to take a little longer to rehydrate than you would think and you have to be careful not to add to much water or you get a really runny sauce. FRED

If you put the dried sauce in the blender for powder and then vac seal it, make sure you do NOT suck out all the air or it will be a solid lump!

Trader Joe's sells a tomato paste in a foil tube (like tooth paste). Squeezed it all out on my gnocchi, added enough water to make it look like pasta sauce, added summer sausage, and seasoned with generic Italian seasoning. One of the best non-fish meals I've had in the BWCA. Packing out the foil tube took up the space of tube of chapstick.

I dried many jars of Ragu and prego sauce. Also salsa... it took about 14 hours to get it dried enough. I now have cans of tomato powder and make my own sauce. It's not prego, but plenty good. I save the dehydrator for meats.

This is what I take.

Here's how I do it. I love my food dehydrator.. it basically winds up being the consistency like a fruit roll-up... Boil two cups of water and just tear and add the leather to taste..