I made a huge batch of wild rice waldorf salad for a Father's Day BBQ this past weekend. But there was so much food there that we ended up bringing a ton of it back home. I'll never get it eaten before it goes bad.

Wondering how it would work to dehydrate some and bring it along for a cold lunch. It's got wild rice, brown rice, apples, craisins, toasted almonds, onions, peppers, celery. Dressing is oil-based - olive oil, orange juice and some spices.

I'll probably give it a try and see what happens but wondered if anyone has ever tried something like this before.

Considering it has the oil in it, it may not dehydrate very well. It will probably dehydrate, it is if it will last and not spoil after dehydrating that is the big question.

Dry it extra, bag it with as little air as possible, and freeze it afterwards you should be fine, or at least better than leaving it in your fridge trying to use it up. I normally do entire one pot meals like stroganoff with real sour cream, beef stew, beef chili, and spagetti with unrinsed italian sausage in it. I vac seal as single servings and freeze. Ive only ever had one serving go bad it was non cow dairy alfredo with tons of butter alternative and goat cheese. It was 8-10 months old and we had eaten servings of it at ~3 months old and was fine. Luckily it was being cooked at home to use it up since it was "getting old". I make a point before a trip to test a serving of each thing that has been held for longer than Ive held it before to feel better about wether a particular batch is still good or not.

We have dehydrated both rice and pasta salads many times. They're great "cold lunch" options for days when it's warm and/or we don't want to cook. However, we dry them without the oil and add dressing after we rehydrate. Hope it works out for you!

Left it in for 36 hours... still wasn't as dry as I'd like it to be but it hadn't made much progress in the last six hours so I figured it was as done as it is going to get. Sealed and frozen right away. I'll try it in about ten days and see how it is. If it didn't work... i'll just eat two desserts that night ;-)