Raspberry Coconut Quinoa Porridge
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Bored of oatmeal on the trail? This dehydrated quinoa porridge loaded with raspberries, almonds & coconut milk will have you looking forward to breakfast again!
Quick-cooking oats may have met their match! This dehydrated quinoa porridge was fast to cook on the trail, offered us complete protein to power our day, and gave us a much-needed break from the texture of oatmeal. This recipe is definitely going into our heavy rotation for backpacking breakfasts!
We’ve been interested in exploring alternative grains for our backpacking breakfasts (oatmeal, it’s not you, it’s us) and quinoa has always piqued our interest. It’s a versatile grain with a lot of great nutritional qualities, but it does have some drawbacks.
To do quinoa right, it really should be rinsed and drained beforehand. And even then, it can still take up to 20 minutes to cook. None of that is going to fly with us when we’re out backpacking. But thankfully there is another way!
If you cook the quinoa at home and then dehydrate it, you can skip all that time-consuming prep work on the trail and drastically reduces the cooking time.
We dehydrated this recipe using our Nesco Dehydrator, which we purchased specifically so we could start getting into home dehydrating. It’s a great budget-friendly option that has allowed us to make a lot of great backpacking meals. If you’re looking to dabble in dehydrating food for backpacking yourself, it’s a great place to start.
By making the quinoa at home you can dial in the flavor and texture. If it’s the right flavor/texture going into the dehydrator, then you know it will be right after you rehydrate it on the trail.
Since quinoa isn’t very dense or particularly fibrous, it dehydrates quickly in about 6-8 hours (as opposed to some meals that can be 10-12 hours). The other good thing is you can’t “over” dehydrate it, so feel free to run this one overnight.
Pre-cooked dehydrated quinoa is only one part of the equation. We also added coconut milk powder, sliced almonds, and freeze-dried raspberries to the mix. All of it gets cooked at the same time and is ready to eat in as little as 8 minutes.
We ate this dehydrated quinoa porridge while hiking the Trans-Catalina Trail in California. If you’re interested in reading more about the Trans-Catalina hike, you can check out the full article about it here.
So if you’re looking for an alternative to instant oats for your next backpacking trip, give this dehydrated quinoa recipe a try!
More dehydrated backpacking meals
↠ Dehydrated Risotto
↠ Dehydrated Pasta Primavera
↠ Red Lentil Chili
↠ Dehydrated Cinnamon Apple Quinoa Porridge
↠ more DIY backpacking recipes
Ingredients
- 2 cups nonfat non-dairy milk
- 1 cup quinoa
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ cup coconut milk powder
- 1 oz freeze dried raspberries
- ½ cup sliced almonds
- coconut oil packets, optional
Instructions
AT HOME
- Rinse quinoa under water. Bring non-dairy milk, quinoa, and salt to boil, partially cover and reduce to simmer 20-25 minutes until tender. Stir every few minutes. Add additional milk/water as needed. Remove from heat, then stir in maple syrup, ground cinnamon, and vanilla extract.
- Once the quinoa is fully cooked, spread in a thin even layer on dehydrator trays.
- Dehydrate at 145 for 6-8 hours, until the quinoa is completely dry.
- Place in an airtight container or bag with coconut milk powder, raspberries, and almonds. If you want to boost the calories even more, separately pack a coconut oil packet or two.
AT CAMP
- Place the quinoa porridge in a small pot and add water just to cover. Simmer for 10-15 minutes or until the quinoa is tender.