Hearty Turkey Stew for the Backcountry

In my home kitchen, I like to keep some of my favorite turkey stew around all the time. I make a ginormous batch, freeze half, and eat off it all week. In fact, it’s one of my favorite breakfast foods! Sometimes I add steamed kale or chard for a complete and easy meal in a bowl. Savory, slightly salty, and satisfying, I thought it would be great to have this filling stew on the trail. So I came up with a similar recipe suited to the backcountry, with some added goodness in the form of a hearty, slightly sweet base made from sweet potatoes, beets and herbs. This recipe could be done with ground beef, too. On the trail, this stew is so easy – pull into camp, rehydrate, heat, and voila, it’s chow time!

This recipe is for making the stew from scratch, A to Z. If you’re the type of backcountry enthusiast who keeps a backstock of various dried veggies and meat in the pantry, guess what – I’ve included a list of measurements for pre-dried turkey and chunky veggies that you can pull and include in the recipe. You still need to prepare the stew mix base, however.

My at-home stew is delicious made with home-made bone broth. You could make it that way for the trail, but the added fat (plentiful in bone broth) makes the likelihood of food spoilage higher. I have made trail stew with broth, and the added fat content is obvious, so I chose to create this recipe with water, adding in coconut oil at the end to replace the fat. To compensate for the health-supporting collagen that would be there with broth, I add collagen hydrolysate just before serving. Collagen Hydrolysate is a lightweight powder, and doesn’t gel in cold or hot liquids like gelatin does, so it doesn’t thicken the stew. It does have a slight taste, so if you haven’t tried it before, test out a sprinkle mixed in a spoonful of stew first! I can’t taste it in my bowl of stew, but you might want to check for yourself.

I’d like to give honorable mention to two blogs that gave me inspiration for this recipe – Autoimmune Paleo, where I found the original stew recipe I use so much at home (I sub turkey for the beef, and chicken broth for the beef broth), and backpackingchef.com, where I first came across recipes for thick soup bases for the trail. I hope you enjoy this recipe, and if you come up with your own variation, I’d love to hear about it! Oh, and don’t be daunted by the length of this post or the steps in the recipe – it’s really easy to prepare and once you dial in your preferences, you can make larger batches to store for multiple trips. Enjoy!

Hearty Turkey Stew for the Backcountry

Makes 4 hearty servings of 2 to 2.5 cups each. For super-large backcountry maniac portions, make the recipe at 1.5 times the amounts shown. 2 cups per serving may seem like a lot to some, but this stuff goes down the hatch easy and I bet you’ll eat all of it!

Important tools to have on hand:
– food processor or super sturdy blender
– food dehydrator or oven with steady temperature
– parchment paper, Paraflexx sheets or fruit leather inserts for dehydrator trays
– high quality ziploc baggies or a setup for vacuum-packed food

NOTES:
– Because meat and vegetables must be dehydrated at different temperatures, you’ll need to plan for two separate drying rounds.
– Drying times are approximate, since actual time depends on the type of dehydrator (or oven) you are using, relative humidity, and how much moisture the food holds at the start. For guidelines on food dryness, see my Food Drying 101 page.
– To assure you remember how to prepare the stew in camp, copy down the instructions for the camp prep (easy printable version at the bottom of this post) on a small piece of paper and put it in the ziploc bag with the stew mix.
– Don’t forget the extras for in camp: Coconut oil, dried kale and Collagen Hydrolysate.

Ingredients:

For soup base:
2.5 lbs sweet potatoes, scrubbed, trimmed and diced in 1/2 pieces
4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
2 Tbs fresh oregano, or 2 tsp dried
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp sea salt
.5 tsp garlic granules or powder
.5 tsp cinnamon
16 oz water
For vegetable chunks in soup (**see below for pre-dried measurements):
1 large onion, peeled and diced small (1/4 inch)
3 carrots, diced small (1/4 inch)
1 medium beet, diced small (1/4 inch)
For turkey preparation (**see below for pre-dried measurements):
1 lb ground turkey thigh
1 lb ground turkey breast
1 tsp sea salt
Bring in the backpack for campsite preparation (don’t forget these!):
4 tsp coconut oil (or 4 Tbs if you love it!)
Optional: 1 Tbs grass-fed collagen hydrolysate per person
Optional: 1 to 2 cups dried kale, added in camp. Because, kale!

STEP 1: DRY THE SOUP BASE AND VEGGIES

1. Steam the sweet potatoes and garlic together in their own pot.

2. Steam the carrots and onions together in a separate pot.

3. Steam the beets separately.

4. Drain all steamed veggies separately, and keep separate for now.

5. For the soup base, combine the sweet potatoes, garlic, water, oregano, onion powder, sea salt, garlic granules and cinnamon in a food processor and blend till smooth. A food processor will be more effective than a blender since the water content of the mix is not very high. Do not add extra water to accommodate for this, it will add a lot of drying time! The mix will have the consistency of rough mashed potatoes.

6. Lay out parchment paper, Paraflexx sheets or fruit leather inserts on 4 to 6 dehydrator trays.

7. Spoon about 3/4 cup of the soup base onto each tray, and spread thinly and evenly (about 1/8 inch) using a spatula or large spoon. If in doubt, go thinner. Leave the edges of the mix a bit thicker; they tend to dry faster than the middle, and leaving them thicker will help them dry at a similar rate to the rest. Place trays in dehydrator.

soup base ready to dry

8. Spread out the carrots and onions together on a dehydrator tray (directly on the mesh, no parchment paper), so it is one layer and not stacked. Place tray in dehydrator.

9. Spread out the beets on a separate dehydrator tray (directly on the mesh, no parchment paper), so it is one layer and not stacked. Place tray in dehydrator.

10. At this point, all of the soup base trays and vegetable trays should be loaded in the dehydrator. They all start at the same time but you will need to monitor things because some trays will come out before others. Set the dehydrator to 135°F and turn it on.

11. Dry the soup base for 8 to 12 hours or until crumbly and crackled like dried mud. The center will dry slowest. Be patient. Let cool on the trays.

dried soup base

12. Dry the carrot/onion mix and beets for 6 to 12 hours or until dry, hard, and not squishy. The beets may dry faster than the rest, so they may come out earlier. While drying, check the veggies from time to time and stir/turn them on the trays. Let cool completely on the trays.

13. Once cool, remove the carrot/onion mix and beets from the trays and keep in separate bowls. If in doubt about final dryness, dry for more time. Leftover moisture can encourage spoilage.

dried carrots and onions

dried beets

14. Once completely cool, remove the soup mix from the parchment paper/fruit leather inserts, place in a bowl and smash/crumble into small pieces. If in doubt about final dryness, dry for more time. Careful, those pieces can be sharp!

TIP: Smaller pieces are better – they are less likely to puncture the plastic bag the soup mix is carried in. The image below is before the pieces were crumbled.

15. Place the soup base, dried carrot/onion mix and beets in separate, sealed storage containers and store in a cool, dark place while you dry the turkey.

dried soup base in bowl before crumbling

A NOTE ABOUT GAUGING FOOD DRYNESS: It’s easy to think foods are dry when they come out of the dehydrator all warm and tasty. To avoid packaging up food that is not totally dry, always let it cool completely. Once cooled, to be sure of complete dryness, put the food in a clear (preferably glass) container with a tightly sealed lid. Store in a cool, dark place for a day or two. If you notice condensation in the jar after a day, the food is not dry and needs to be returned to the dehydrator/oven for more time. Repeat this process until you are certain the food is dry. Excess moisture in dehydrated food can encourage spoilage. Once you are sure of dryness, package for long-term storage in an airtight container or sealed in a vacuum packed bag, and store in a cool, dry place such as a closet, refrigerator or freezer. Check periodically for mold, moisture and bugs. Ick happens, best to catch it before you are out on the trail! Being OCD about food dehydration is your best tool in assuring high quality food with a long shelf life.

STEP 2: DRY THE TURKEY

Preparing meat for dehydration requires squeaky clean kitchen hygiene to best assure food safety. Use clean bowls, utensils and kitchen towels, and wash your hands frequently during the process of handling the meat. This goes from the time it comes out of the fridge until it goes into storage for your trip. And make sure your hands are always completely dry once you are in the post-drying stage. No sense in introducing added moisture, as this can encourage food spoilage. Do not dry the turkey at the same time as the rest of the meal; the meat must dry at a higher temperature to help assure food safety.

1. Mix the light and dark turkey together with your (clean!) hands until well combined. With a minimum of olive or coconut oil, saute the turkey to brown it lightly. Excess oil can encourage spoilage on the trail. Mix in 1 tsp of sea salt while cooking. Stir and break up the larger chunks and create even, small chunks throughout.

2. Let turkey cool, then break into very small pieces with your hands, before drying.

3. Lay out turkey on dehydrator trays in a single layer, not stacked.

dried turkey

4. Dehydrate at 155°F for 3 to 6 hours or until hard and dry. Keep a sheet of parchment paper below the bottom tray in the dehydrator to catch small pieces that fall through the mesh trays. If in doubt about dryness, dry for more time. If you are using your oven to dry the meat, be sure it’s an oven that can hold a steady temperature for hours at a time. I recommend using a good quality dehydrator to best assure food quality and safety.

5. Allow the meat to cool completely.

STEP 3: COMBINE THE PARTS FOR THE TRAIL

If you plan to take the entire 4 servings for one single meal in the backcountry, combine all parts in an airtight plastic bag, squeezing out all excess air, or vacuum pack the meal for long term storage. If you need to divide the batch out into two or more separate meals, divide the soup base, veggie chunks and turkey accordingly and package servings together as mentioned above.

Recipe Variation:

soup base flakes with beets blended in

If you appreciate the goodness of beets but don’t like the taste when you bite into one, include the diced beets in the blended soup base. This helps blend the taste in, while providing the nutritional benefits of beets (they’re good for yer liver!). It also makes a soup base that is more tomato-ish in look, taste and texture. Tasty stuff!

Preparing the Stew in Camp:

1. Place the stew mix in a pot.
2. Add 1.5 times as much filtered water as stew mix (ie: 1 part stew mix to 1.5 parts filtered water) and let sit for five minutes. This amount of water will make a thick stew. If you like a soupier stew, make the ratio 1 part mix to 2 parts filtered water. I prefer the 2x water. If you’re not sure, start with the 1.5x water and increase as desired.
3. Bring the stew to a boil. Boil for one minute, then turn the heat off.
4. Add 1tsp to 1Tbs coconut oil per serving for added healthy fat, since turkey is naturally low in fat. Fat = warm sleep and long-term energy!
Optional: Add a handful of dried kale per serving.
5. Let the pot sit for ten minutes with the lid on tightly. If possible, surround the pot with a pot cozy.
6. Reheat the stew briefly if it has become too cold for your taste.
7. You can also add 1 Tbs Collagen Hydrolysate per serving right before eating, to up your collagen intake (great for joint recovery!). Remember, it won’t gel like gelatin will.

Chow down and enjoy! This stew is great served with plantain crackers or tortillas.

Click below for easy print-out version of campsite instructions