I’ve been eating Thanksgiving leftovers for the last couple days for lunch and dinner and as I was slowly making my way through all of the leftovers, I wondered, “How can I turn all of these Thanksgiving leftovers into freeze-dried backpacking food for my next backpacking trip?”

I got to host my very first Thanksgiving in my new home, here in Missoula, Montana this year. And when I say host, I mean I went all out with cooking a full Thanksgiving dinner including a ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, cornbread stuffing, green bean casserole and for dessert, pumpkin pie bars.

It was a LOT of food, and it was so good, but now comes the million-dollar question: “What do I do with all of the leftovers?”

I decided to FINALLY pull my freeze dryer out of the closet, got it set up and started turning my Thanksgiving leftovers into freeze-dried backpacking food …I’m talking ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, gravy and even the pumpkin pie bars.

In this blog post, I’m going to walk you through the entire freeze-drying process, showing you how I turned my Thanksgiving leftovers into backpacking meals for my next trip.

Spoiler Alert: It’s so much easier than you might think!

Okay, let’s turn these Thanksgiving leftovers into freeze-dried backpacking food!

What is Freeze-Drying?

Freeze drying is a way to preserve food by first freezing the food solid, then using a vacuum to pull the water out as vapor, essentially turning the ice directly into a gas without going through a liquid phase, leaving behind a dry, lightweight version of the original food item, which can then be stored for a long period of time without spoiling.

Think of it like “drying something while it’s still frozen.”

How Freeze-Drying Works

Here’s a quick explanation of how freeze-drying works:

  • First, it starts with freezing the food to between -30 degrees and -50 degrees Fahrenheit
  • Once frozen, the vacuum freezing stage starts by the freeze dryer lowering the pressure and creating a vacuum within the food chamber.
  • Thanks to the low temperature used during the Freezing and Vacuum Freezing steps, freeze dried food can retain most of its original shape, color, taste and texture along with a majority of its original nutritional value
  • The final step is the Drying stage where the food is gradually warmed and the water is turned to vapor and evaporates out of the food, which is also known as sublimination.

Freeze-Dried Backpacking Food Using Thanksgiving Leftovers

 On my Thanksgiving leftovers menu, I had ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole and for dessert, pumpkin pie bars. I decided to freeze dry my Thanksgiving leftovers for a few reasons:

1 – I wanted to use my freeze dryer. Thanks to HarvestRight, I have the Medium Pro Freeze dryer with a Premier industrial Pump. HarvestRight sent me this awesome freeze dryer in exchange for creating a few YouTube videos showing how I use it to create my own backpacking meals. So far, I’ve been loving it and it’s incredibly easy to set up and use.

2- I didn’t want to risk wasting food since I had so many leftovers. With freeze-drying, I’m not only able to increase the shelf life of my leftovers, but I’m also able to make a bunch of trail-ready backpacking meals. With two batches of freeze-drying 4 trays at a time, I was able to make 10 backpacking meals, plus a couple hiking snacks.

3 – I’m sick of all my favorite store-bought, freeze-dried backpacking meals. I ate so many of them this summer. Not only am I tired of eating store-bought, freeze-dried backpacking food, but I’m also tired of buying it. Those meals can run anywhere from $9 to $15 a piece.

4 – My big winter project for this year is to focus on prepping as much food as I can for the upcoming warm weather backpacking season. As someone who’s a food motivated hiker and gets food fatigue really easy whenever I’m out on trail, I’m looking to expand my backcountry menu by being able to eat more homemade meals I cook at home myself AND maybe even a few of my favorite restaurant meals too!

 Here’s everything I needed to freeze-dry my Thanksgiving Leftovers:

Here’s the process of how I turned my Thanksgiving Leftovers into freeze-dried backpacking food:

  1. I started by lining each tray with a piece of Parchment paper, a reusable Teflon sheet or one of these HarvestRight silicone mats
  2. I prepped each tray with food by using smaller pieces or spreading the food in a thin layer, being careful not to overcrowd the food on the tray
  3. I decided to put one food or dish on each tray, but you can put multiple dishes on one tray if you’d like. I felt like having one type of food on each tray made it easier during the food storage stage.

Typically, a freeze dry batch will take anywhere from 20 to 40 hours to complete the process.

Pro Tip: For a faster processing time, after I finished prepping the trays, I put them in the freezer overnight. I found that this helped my freeze dryer go through the Freezing stage much quicker than when the food wasn’t frozen.

  1. As soon as I was ready to start the freeze-drying process, I turned on the machine and had to wait about 15 minutes for the machine to cool down.
  2. Once the machine was cooled down and ready to go, I loaded all 4 trays into the freeze dryer, closed the valve and hit “Continue” to start the process.

The freeze-drying process on my HarvestRight freeze-dryer consists of 4 stages: Freezing, Vacuum Freezing, Drying and Drying (Extra Dry Time).

  1. Once completely dry, the freeze dryer made an audible beep to let me know that the process was complete and that I could take the trays out of the machine.
  2. As soon as I took the trays out of the machine, I measured out the portions I wanted for each dish, added them to a mylar bag with an oxygen absorber, closed the bag and then wrote on the bag the name of the meal.

You can store each dish or food item separately. I personally wanted to combine all the dishes from my Thanksgiving leftovers together because I wanted to create a one-bag Thanksgiving Dinner a la casserole style. I figured all of the flavors together would taste delicious and would make for a super easy backpacking meal that I could rehydrate in just one bag when out on trail.

I also want to note that I did not vacuum seal my mylar bags since I plan on consuming these backpacking meals within the next 6-8 months.

Here are the exact measurements of what each of my Thanksgiving Leftover Backpacking Meals contains:

  • ½ cup of ham, broken up into small pieces
  • ½ cup of stuffing, broken up into small clumps
  • ½ cup of mashed potatoes broken up into smaller pieces
  • ½ cup of Green Bean Casserole, broken up into small clumps
  • 4 tbsp of gravy, which I crushed into a powder and then added on top of the meal inside the mylar bag

The weight of each meal came to 4.7 ounces.

I also packed a separate mylar bag with just Green Bean Casserole as a backpacking meal because I had enough leftover and it’s good enough in my book to want to eat this as its own meal.

For the Pumpkin Pie Bars, I stored those separately in another mylar bag with an oxygen absorber so that they would be easily accessible as a future hiking snack.

Freeze-Dried Backpacking Food Thanksgiving Leftovers Taste Test

So now for the taste test! I rehydrated my freeze-dried Thanksgiving leftovers as if I was out on trail, about to enjoy my backpacking dinner at the end of a long day of hiking.

First, I start with boiling water. As for how much water, I’d say anywhere from 1 cup to a cup and a half. In this case, I eyeballed it and added just enough water to barely cover all of the dried food inside the bag.

After adding the boiling water, I stirred the water and food together. Then, close the bag and let it sit in an insulated food pouch for 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes have passed, I removed the food from the insulated food pouch, opened the bag, gave it a good stir and then dinner’s served!

Watch the Video to See the Full Taste Test of This Meal:

 And that is how you make your own freeze-dried backpacking food using Thanksgiving Leftovers! A delicious, home cooked meal out on trail in just 10 minutes…and no dirty dishes or pot to clean up afterwards.

Let me know in the comments down below: What Thanksgiving leftovers would you freeze-dry for your next backpacking trip?

DISCLAIMER: This post and video contain affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps support my blog, The Hungry Hiker and allows me to continue to create content for you free of charge. Thank you for your support!