I recently bought some freeze dried granola for a backpacking trip. Everybody loved it! Way more than I expected. As a parent of kids that are sporadically picky eaters it makes picking backpacking food a sensitive subject. I was happy to find something they liked. The bonus is that it’s super easy to prepare. Just add a half cup of cold water. On mornings you need to get up and moving fast it’s a great solution.
The downside is that they are $6 a piece. To be fair, that’s cheaper than most freeze dried meals, but still. I decided to see what it would cost to do it myself. The most expensive ingredient was the freeze dried blueberries. I decided to use freeze dried because the shelf life is very long, but if you were going to make a batch of these to be used with in a few days you could use dehydrated or dried fruit (like raisins) which would be a lot cheaper. I added 1/3 cup of powdered milk and a scoop of tasteless protein powder for a little extra kick.
Each of these servings cost about $2.25 to make. Will it have a 25 year shelf life? No, it will not. But it will be fine for several weeks, or longer even. I don’t work fo the FDA, so I can’t really say for sure :)
I did take the extra step of putting it into a FoodSaver bag and vacuum sealing it with an oxygen absorber packet to be safe. I am planning a trip in a couple weeks so that was probably overkill.
I gave one of these to my son and he liked it just as much as the $6 version. Win!
Here’s the full recipe. Feel free to pin this, or share it! Let me know how it goes for you.
