Dehydrated Backpacking Pasta Primavera
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Fresh and filling, this dehydrated pasta primavera is not your typical backpacking fare. Loaded with zucchini, summer squash, and tomatoes, this meal offers that burst of vegetables that you’ve been craving after a few days on the trail.
Finding the “right” nutritional profile for your backpacking food can be a balancing act. On one hand, you want to prioritize caloric density. Fats, oils, and all the rest. But on the other hand, it would be nice to see some vegetables once in a while, right?
We developed this backpacking pasta primavera to check both boxes. Something that is both fresh and filling. While it uses a bunch of dehydrated fresh summer produce, the hearty pasta and rich sauce make it a completely filling meal.
What we love about this backpacking recipe:
So if you’re looking to work some more veggies into your backpacking routine, this dehydrated pasta primavera is a great place to start!
How to make dehydrated pasta primavera
This recipe begins by dehydrating a bunch of vegetables. We went with zucchini, yellow squash, and cherry tomatoes as they can be dehydrated without being precooked. We also dehydrated some “flavor enhancers”: flat-leaf parsley and capers. Load everything up in the dehydrator, set it to 135F, and let it run for 6-8 hours.
Optional step: If you want the pasta to cook faster on the trail, you can boil it at home and dehydrate it along with the vegetables.
After everything has dehydrated, you can start portioning everything out into a resealable container. You can place a portion of dehydrated veggies, pasta, parsley, capers, butter powder, and dried spices all into the same container (it will all get cooked together).
On Trail Preparation
Out on the trail, empty everything into a pot and add just enough water to cover (you can always add more if needed, but you don’t want to start with too much and end up with pasta soup!).
Bring to a simmer and stir periodically until the pasta has fully absorbed all of the water. Once it’s done cooking, add a few tablespoons of olive oil to help pad the calorie count a little bit and add to the overall flavor.
When it’s finished, you’ll have a big heaping pot of pasta and a beautiful bouquet of colorful vegetables.
Equipment Spotlight: Dehydrators
If you’re in the market for a dehydrator, we recommend buying one with an adjustable temperature. This will allow you to dial in the drying temp to give you the best results for individual ingredients. The dehydrator we recommend (and use) most often is the COSORI dehydrator. You can also check out our best dehydrators post for a comparison of all the dehydrators we’ve used and would recommend.
Other backpacking recipes you’ll enjoy
Backpacking Pasta Primavera
Ingredients
- 1 small zucchini, cut into 1/4” thick half-moons
- 1 small summer squash, cut into 1/4” thick half-moons
- 14 cherry tomatoes, cut in half
- 2 tablespoons capers, drained
- 2 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley, stems removed
- 1 cup small pasta shells
- 2 tablespoons butter powder
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- 2 olive oil packets, or 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 parmesan cheese packets
Instructions
- Place the zucchini, summer squash, tomatoes, capers, and parsley on dehydrator trays and dehydrate at 135 for 8-12 hours until completely dried.
Pack for the Trail
- Pack the dried vegetables, pasta, butter powder, spices, and salt in a resealable bag along with two parmesan cheese and two olive oil packets, or pack the oil separately in a small container.
On Trail Preparation
- At camp, add all ingredients except for the cheese to a cookpot with enough water to barely cover the pasta. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, until the vegetables are soft and the pasta is cooked through, adding more water if needed.
- Top with cheese & enjoy!
Just a small correction, this recipe is already vegetarian, omitting parmesan cheese and butter powder would make it vegan.
Many parmesan cheeses use animal rennet in the cheesemaking process. If you want to use the parmesan but keep it vegetarian, make sure the parm you’re selecting uses a non-animal rennet.
Do I need the butter powder? I can not do any dairy at all. Is there another substitute for that?
You don’t need the butter powder – just add some olive oil for flavor and the extra calories 🙂
I wondered if cooking the pasta at home and dehydrating it would reduce the cooking time at camp. I looked it up and it said it would. So what is your opinion about that? Thanks!
Yes, it would speed up the cooking time a bit!
This is another great recipe! Added some dried salami but it doesn’t even need it. Also increased the amount of pasta. Definitely be careful about the amount of water added.
I liked this recipe a lot. I added zucchini, but skipped the summer squash, used regular tomato instead of cherry tomatoes and added a few other vegetables I already had. I also couldn’t find any small pasta shells, so I used mini farfalle (the small bow noodles) and they worked great. This recipe makes two servings. One serving left me wanting a little more, so I will add a few more mini farfalle next time. However; whatever you do, don’t skip the capers! They were a nice touch. Thank you!
Don’t suppose you could adjust or amend this recipe to for dried inredients, rather than fresh -> dry -> receipe. In other words, could you tell us how muched dried zuchini/squash, dried tomatoes, dried parsely, etc. is required or in what ratio? I tend to dehydrate entire batched of zuchini, tomatoes, etc. rather than just what I need for one recipe. It would be great if I know how much of each dried product when into one batch of dinner so I could make these kits in bulk. Thanks!
This was delicious! I can’t have dairy so I substituted coconut milk powder for butter powder and nutritional yeast for the butter powder, and worked great.