I dehydrated meals for my entire camp last year. Totaled about 60 meals.
87TT is correct regarding cheese. The best option is to use a cheese packet from a macaroni and cheese, or you can buy it in bulk in some stores (WinCo carries it here, not sure if they have it where you are), and add powdered milk or powdered coconut milk (health food store or amazon).
From there it is important to pre cook most vegetables before dehydrating if you buy them fresh. If you purchase frozen then you can generally skip this step as the flash freezing process breaks some of the cell structures, which aids in re hydration. Corn is the exception--I had to cook the crap out of frozen corn and it still came out so-so. Cut any fresh veggies into small pieces to increase surface area for re hydration.
The other key is that if you are going to do proteins (ground meat usually, but pre cooked shrimp works great), you should mix in 1/2c bread crumbs per pound of meat, and then brown the meat and pat dry until all of the fats are removed. Adding starch breaks up the proteins and aids in rehydration. Skip this step if you are using shrimp... I would also avoid canned chicken--it comes out ropey and is hard to re-hydrate. Stick with ground turkey.
This is the template that I found works best for me and my camp based on our caloric needs. This way you can adapt almost any recipe to fit your tastes. All measures are in dehydrated food:
3/4c starch (rice, pasta, corn meal/polenta, instant potatoes, etc)
1/3c protein
2/3c to 3/4c vegetables
1.5 tsp seasonings (taco seasoning works great, I also used curry powder for some dishes)
special seasoning as needed (cheese, powdered milk, instant gravy mix)
I also carried a little bottle of olive oil to add fat/calories/taste to the meals, in addition to salt and pepper.
Total came out to something like 800-1000 calories (including the oil at 100cal per tbs).
To prepare, I kept seasonings in separate bag. Add all other ingredients to pot, add 1.5 to 2 cups water (depending on how soupy you like it), boil, remove heat, add seasonings, cover for 10 minutes, add olive oil, and eat.
If i was going to make stuffed peppers I'd be doing something like this:
3/4c dehydrated rice, with a small chicken bouillon cube
1/3c dehydrated ground beef
1/4 cup dehydrated black beans
1/4 cup mixed peppers, onions, tomatoes
1/4 cup dehydrated poblano (I would fully cook these, remove skins, chop, then dehydrate). You may be able to use oretega type chili from the mexican food aisle (I believe they are canned anaheim pepper but I may be mistaken). They should dehydrate well after chopping.
1.5 tsp taco seasoning
1.5 tablespoon cheese mix
1.5 tablespoon powdered milk
serve with flour tortillas
In fact i might just add this to the menu.
Shrimp dehydrate unbelievably well. I get the pre cooked ones and chop them into dime size pieces. Remove the tails, of course..Nice! Great info thank you. Never thought about trying to dry shrimp.
I guess they would dehydrate and keep just as well as any other protein, huh?
Pro tip #206
Cook the pasta and rice before dehydrating. I know it looks dry but it isn't cooked.
Was thinking about dehydrating some stuffed jalapeño poppers and stuffed poblano peppers for backcountry fuel. Anyone done either of these or have suggestions on good dehydrated meals?