Dehydrating Potato Bark

Snack on Potato Bark while hiking or turn your bark into mashed potatoes with meat and vegetables for the evening meal!

How to Make Potato Bark

Ingredients:

2½ lbs potatoes
16 ounces fat free vegetable, beef, or chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste
Optional: garlic powder to taste

Cook, Mash & Blend

Peel and boil 2½ pounds of potatoes until soft. Drain.

Mash potatoes with 16 ounces of fat free vegetable, beef, or chicken broth. Because fats and dairy products don’t dehydrate well and can spoil, do not add any milk or butter. Add salt, if desired, but you’ll get some sodium from the broth.

Run the mashed potatoes through a blender until creamy and lump-free.

Dry It

Cover dehydrator trays with non-stick sheets or parchment paper. I use Paraflexx® sheets which you can purchase directly from Excalibur Dehydrators. They clean-up easily and are reusable.

Pour a six inch puddle of potatoes onto the covered tray and spread thinly (about an eighth inch) with a spatula. 2½ pounds of mashed potatoes will take up five 15 x 15 trays.

Dehydrate at 135° for approximately eight hours until potatoes form a brittle sheet.

Flip It

If you have an Excalibur Dehydrator, use the “flip-trick” as follows to thoroughly dry the underside of the potato sheet: After about five hours of drying, place a dehydrator tray on top of the potato sheet and flip the two trays over so that the moister bottom side is facing up.

The dried sheet of potatoes will easily snap into Bark or crush down for tighter packing.

Yield: 2½ pounds of potatoes will dehydrate down to 5½ ounces and fill two cups when crushed.

How to Make BBQ Potato Bark

Follow the same preparations as regular potato bark, but change the ingredients as follows:

2½ lbs potatoes
8 ounces fat free vegetable, beef or chicken broth
8 ounces barbecue sauce
salt and pepper to taste

BBQ Beef Stew

Serves 1

Ingredients:

½ cup BBQ Potato Bark
¼ cup dehydrated ground beef
¼ cup dehydrated mixed vegetables (try okra, corn, and carrots)
1¼ cup water to rehydrate

Increase quantities proportionally for larger servings.

Pack and cook the same as the recipe above.

This meal reminds me a little of Brunswick Stew with the tangy barbecue flavor.

Mashed Potatoes with Meat & Vegetables

Serves 1

Ingredients:

½ cup Potato Bark
¼ cup dehydrated ground beef or chicken
¼ cup dehydrated mixed vegetables
1¼ cup water to rehydrate
optional seasonings- garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper to taste.

Large Portion:

The above recipe provides 422 calories. To make a larger portion with 601 calories, use ¾ cup potato bark, ⅓ cup dried meat, ⅓ cup dried vegetables and 1¾ cups water to rehydrate.

At Home:

For more food dehydrating information, see dehydrating meat and dehydrating vegetables.

Crush Potato Bark into small pieces for tighter packing.

Pack all ingredients in a zip lock bag.

On the Trail:

Combine all ingredients with water in pot. Cover pot and light stove.

Bring to a boil, remove pot lid, and continue cooking for another minute. If the potatoes soak up most of the water after they start boiling, hold the pot higher above the stove to prevent burning.

Add a little more water to make the potatoes easier to stir and less likely to burn.

Remove pot from heat and wait ten minutes to give the meat and vegetables a little more time to soften. Use a pot cozy to keep the meal hot. Stir vigorously to finish dissolving bark until creamy.

Variations:

Combine dehydrated mashed potatoes with different dried meats and vegetables such as:

Ground Turkey and Mixed Vegetables (corn, carrots, peas, green beans)
Ground Beef and Broccoli
Deli Ham and Green Beans
Ground Beef and Peppers, Onions, Mushrooms

Potato-Vegetable Bark

In my book, Recipes for Adventure: Healthy, Hearty, and Homemade Backpacking Recipes, I show how to blend vegetables or other roots with potatoes to create meals like Potato-Vegetable Bark Stew with Ham & Green Beans (shown above).