What are Dehydrated Soups?
During times of emergencies, it’s vital to eat well-balanced meals in order to reduce the stress on your body and mind.
To help reduce this stress we need to eat proteins, fats, and carbohydrates to keep us at optimal energy levels and performance. When you don’t have adequate nutrition decision making and timely, appropriate responses to a crisis become harder to achieve. Foods that travel well or can be prepared with a minimal amount of resources in an actual situation can give you a vital edge.
Dehydrated soups are an excellent survival food because they can be stretched to feed more people, or made more concentrated to increase nutritional value. They are also very easy to cobble together from all kinds of scraps, or from items that have a long shelf life like dehydrated vegetables. Learning how to make and use dehydrated soups is a skill that will be of use in both short and long term emergencies.
These are soups that have had all of the water removed from them. The result is a powdered mix that may include spices, vegetables, or anything else that was in the original soup. Even though it is best to store individual ingredients in separate packets, entire meals can also be dehydrated for consumption later on.
Since bacteria and other pathogens require moisture, removing as much water as possible reduces the risk of spoilage. When vegetables are dehydrated, it extends their edible life by weeks to months or more. The process of dehydration involves using heated airflow to remove moisture from the food.
There are several devices you can use to dehydrate foods:
You can get your ingredients from just about any source. This includes your garden, wild plants, the grocery store, or your favorite farmer’s market What actually goes into the soup will depend largely on what is available as well as what kind of foods you like. For example, right now it is fairly easy to get items like peppers, carrots, tomatoes, cabbage, and corn. If you dehydrate these foods and store them away, then you can enjoy them well after it becomes difficult to obtain these items. Later on, dehydrated soups may consist of roots that you harvest in the wild or anything else that you can scavenge.
While dehydrating foods is not a complicated task, it does require attention to detail and can be time-consuming. Use the following general instructions to dehydrate vegetables for a soup base.
Reconstituting dehydrated soup bases is very easy, as is making an actual soup. Simply add water to the soup mix and boil for about 10 minutes. When the soup mix has been reconstituted it can be used as-is, or in a variety of meals. Do not forget that you can mix different powdered soups or dehydrated vegetables to create different flavors and textures.
As a general rule, use about 1 ½ cups of water to ¾ to 1 cup of powdered soup mix to get a good consistency. This ratio will provide one meal for one person. If you are preparing soup for more people, simply multiply the water and powder mix amount by the number of people that will be eating it.
When it comes to other ingredients, the possibilities are endless. No matter whether you have a tomato soup base or a mixed vegetable base, you can add meat, fish, spices, or anything else that you have on hand. This includes noodles as well as meat bullion cubes.
Dehydrated soup bases can also be used to make stews and chilies. To make stew, just use less water in the mix, or let it boil down to a thicker consistency. Since chili is hearty and versatile food, being able to make it from dehydrated soups may be of use. Here is a sample recipe:
To make the chili, start off by soaking the beans until they are soft enough to cook quickly in the chili pot. Next, chunk or grind up any meat you are planning to use. Brown the meat until it is fully cooked.
Once these steps are completed, go ahead and rehydrate the carrots, peppers, and onions. Add them to a pot of water, and let them boil for about 10 minutes.
Add the tomato powder and beans.
Let the chili simmer for about 20 minutes.
Next, add the meat and any remaining dry ingredients and stir. Let the chili simmer for another 5 minutes. Give the chili a taste test. If the beans are tender and the flavor is right, it’s time to eat.
Dehydrating is an excellent way to preserve foods. Soup bases made from vegetables are ideal because you can use just about anything and combine it later on to make a nutritionally balanced meal. No matter whether you have squash, leafy greens, or some other food on hand, dehydrating into a soup base can help you cut food costs even as you prepare for an emergency.
Fred Tyrrell is an Eagle Scout and retired police officer that loves to hunt, fish, hike, and camp with good friends and family. He is also a champion marksman (rifle, pistol, shotgun) and has direct experience with all of the major gun brands and their clones.
Fred refers to himself as a “Southern gentleman” – the last of a dying way. He believes a man’s word is his bond, and looks forward to teaching others what he has learned over the years.
You can send Fred a message at editor [at] survivopedia.com.
What are Dehydrated Soups?
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