u/gab-a-pat-a-bob

Hello, I'm brand new to dehydrating food. I'm trying to prepare my meals for backpacking adventures and I tried my first meal tonight, at home, to see how well it would rehydrate with cold soaking. It stayed quite crunchy...

For context, I'm going ultralight and I'm aiming to hike with no stove this summer so all my rehydrating will be done with cold-soaking (covering the food with water and waiting).

Do any of you have tips for ingredients / recipes / techniques that will yield best results for cold-soaking food?

I like to go backpacking and i never accepted to pay around 15$ for a backpacking meals so I would eat cheap not-so-healthy food while on trail (ramen, Side Kicks, tuna cans, PB and tortillas, etc).

My girlfriend told me "oh, I have a dehydrator at my mom's house, i can bring it up home" so tonight I made my first backpacking meal; a mexican style rice and bean. I estimate the cost to be around 1$-1.50$ per portion!

What I like most is not even the cost savings, it's that I will be able to eat healthy meals I enjoy while on the trail.