I make fast pasta thin spaghetti and fast pasta macaroni. We love it! One thing to consider is that you do not need that much water to reconstitute. In a water scarcity situation you only need 1 to 1 1/2 ratio pasta to water. We have even added the pasta into the sauce pan when creating the sauce (oil based) and in a few minutes they are both done. There is a tremendous amount of time saved when you don't boil 3 quarts of water. I use my water bath canner to cook 4 to 5 packages of pasta at a time and fill 2 dehydrators. I store it in glass jars. Another trick is to make nests of the thin spaghetti then dehydrate. 1 nest equals 1 serving. Easy to cook for 1 or 2.
When making pasta with a tomato or tomato w/meat sauce, I just put the pasta in the pot with the cooked sauce, add another cup of water, bring to a boil and simmer for about 5 or 6 minutes, then put the lid on until ready to serve. Until the salad or other vegetables are ready...lol.
I have done it but only to put in Bags for MRE meals with dehydrated sauce and freeze dried meat. Well worth it. Just pour hot water in the bag and leave 15 mins inside an insulated bag. Comes out really well without any extra boiling. I’ve done rice as well for the same scenario. If the grid is down and we can only boil a kettle then I have a hot meal without having to cook snd waste fuel.
I have cooked rice then dehydrated it. Now I have instant rice. Only a couple of minutes soaking and it's perfect. Great for a grid-down situation when water or fuel are scarce. Might work for pasta too.
Hello Pam! Love your tests! I watch YT instead of TV, and I watch a lot of different channels. I watch some preppers, but I also watch campers and hikers. The campers and hikers have used fast pasta and fast beans for years as a way of not having to pack a lot of water for cooking. Fast past can be added directly to sauce, and it will cook in the sauce, thickening it slightly by absorbing a bit of the liquid. I would love to see you test this for taste and conservation of water.
The water was starchy the first time around but not the second time around. With grid down, less time and fuel to cook and clear water, you could use the left over water for coffee or tea or to do whatever with it. I think it might be worth it for me. Thank you for testing this out for us.
Hi Pam, my Granddaughter recently put me wise to your videos So I' ve been catching up and been dehydrating everything! Told my friends if they stood still long enough I will dehydrate them too! Had dehydrated elbow macaroni and decided to try rehydrating it. Put some in cold water , to see if I could save on fuel if necessary and actually forgot about it for almost 45 min. When I finally checked on it, it was fully hydrated and soft like it was just cooked! So, I guess if your not in a hurry to eat, this would save on actually having to re-cook it again and just needs to warm up in what ever you need to add it to! I'm VERY close to hitting the big 80 and have to work quickly! Haha
I also love doing the tests! Fast pasta and rice works really well for making hiking meals or 72hr kit meals where you don’t want to cook food but just add boiling water.
Great experiment! I am not sure that it is truly worth it, except for a grid-down situation to save fuel, which is why I have put bigger pasta away, but I have opted to put away more small pasta, i.e. stars, pastina, orzo, etc. But I loved that you put the effort into trying this and showing us.
I have done this only when I've made too much pasta. Freezing pasta turns it to mush. So I thought dehydrate it. Works for me. I don't think I would just cook the pasta ahead of time and then dehydrate it but it works great when you have left overs
I started out just dehydrating leftover angel hair spaghetti when I inevitably made too much. That made me realize that I could just double the amount of pasta that we needed to eat that night (so there was no excess heating or water use), and dehydrate the extra.
I live in hurricane country. I make fast rice for hurricane preps and to have readily available "instant rice" for everyday use. We use brown rice so the time savings is more significant. I don't boil a large pot of water to rehydrate. I only boil enough water to cover the rice in a serving dish - usually an individual dish. The rice rehydrates in less than 10 minutes. I soak rice overnight before cooking originally and cook large amounts in an instant pot. Water can be a factor in emergency situations and rehydration takes a lot less water and fuel.
That's just what I thought. Getting the water boiling to begin cooking is where the majority of the time is used when preparing pasta. Thank you for testing this so thoroughly.
Thank you for another great video. "Fast" pasta works great when adding to soups or other dishes that have a high amount of liquid. You can add the pasta directly to the dish a few minutes before serving, which not only conserves fuel, but also precious water. It also cuts down on the number of pots and pans to be washed.
I know this video was about pasta, but since you mentioned rice, I thought I would bring up my experiment. I cooked up some brown rice and then dehydrated that, figuring that since you can purchase “quick brown rice,” maybe that would be a good option. Well, obviously there is something more that the food industry does to brown rice to remove the oil because after the dehydrated brown rice was in the jar a week or two, I noticed that there was OIL in the bottom of the jar! Fortunately it wasn’t rancid (although over time, I’m sure that might have happened) and it cooked up just fine and about half the time of the original. However, brown rice is definitely NOT a good option for cooking and then dehydrating by the home cook!
I always throw in extra rice when i make a batch, then dry the leftover for my own minute rice. I sometimes throw in spices during cooking to make it flavored. Thanks again Pam and Jim.
I dehydrate egg noodles to use in my home canned soup. When I warm up the soup it is very convenient to add a handful of noodles while it is heating up. I cook the whole bag of noodles then dehydrate them and store them in a jar. Works good for egg noodles, I found that small shells took longer to get done in the soup so it wasn’t as convenient.
I agree with you. Your time and cost of electricity, does not save you anything in my personal opinion. Thank you for explaining this to us. You are such a great teacher!
I am not a scientist nor a science fan. What I love about your scientific work with a practical angle is that you can actually PROVE how and why to do things. NOT just your opinion backed up with how your grandma/the mormons/the amish/your friend/neighbor always did it and nobody died.
Thanks this was great! Can’t wait to see the freeze dryer version for pasta. I made your burrito filling with fast beans and fast rice and it takes less water and only a couple minutes to warm and eat! A winner in my book!
A couple years ago I came across a Utuber who said waiting for the water to boil first is crazy & entirely unnecessary.... so, I had to try it, bc who ever heard of doing other than boil first??? Adding the pasta to the water, salt if you choose, then bring to boil and cook a couple minutes til desired tenderness turns out 100% every time and saves the 8 or ten minutes waiting for the water to boil, plus, saves all that energy/fuel. This is the only way I do it since, and it's perfect every single time. *I've not tried it with lasagna noodles however, so idk about that.
I do this too, and it works great! I've done it with Lasagna noodles and they work. I've also found that starting with raw pasta in my pan works when I add an extra cup and a half of water to the sauce. The pasta turns out tender and I don't have to work with wet sticky noodles. Cooking that 45 minutes anyway cooks the pasta without having to buy the more expensive Ready to Bake ones.
@@patriciaanderson8556 right??? Agree with cooking the dry pasta right in the sauce.... here's my favorite recipe to date: Open a can of Cream of Mushroom soup, add a half can of milk, a handful of mixed variety dried mushrooms, Oregano, garlic and pepper and toss in Rotting or Penne dry pasta. Cook until the pasta is tender and the soup has condensed into a glorious thick, rich white sauce. Top with a sprinkle of Parmigiano and chopped Parsley 👌 Its a BEAUTIFUL thong
Great way to save extra pasta. There's a Depression Era video showing bringing water to boil. Adding pasta bring back to boil and shut it off and let it sit. Stir and check occasionally til done. Saving gas.
I am of the mindset that right now I have water unlimited, but there may be an emergency time where water may be scarce, that's why I cook and dehydrate now, just in case water is scarce in the future.
I was really hoping that you would do a trial on freeze drying it. I make a lot of homemade pasta and I know that there are a lot of other people that are turning to making their own pasta. I have never tried freeze dry it. Not sure how to go about it. Have you ever experimented with homemade pasta, freeze drying process.
For backpacking it is much better to cook and dehydrate pasta before incorporating it into meals. For reconstitution on the trail the pasta meal is added to cold water, brought to a boil and boiled for 1 or 2 minutes, taken off the heat and put in a pot cosie (or cozy) for 15 minutes. It will be entirely cooked and piping hot after 15 minutes in the cosie. This saves an incredible amount of weight by reducing the amount of fuel that needs to be carried. Uncooked pasta out of the box does not reconstitute as well using a pot cosie method.
Wow!! Thank you for taking the time to do this! To me, it isn't worth it because I only have one dehydrator, andvid rather use it to presevevmy garden produce. As much as I enjoy dehydrating, I have come to realize that some things just aren't worth it.
Good test! What I would be interested in knowing though is whether having pre-cooked and dried the pasta would make it possible to just pour boiling water over it in a thermos or thermal cooker and have the pasta come back to an edible state more quickly? That is, not actually having to boil it again, just having to pour boiling water over it, turn off the heat (to save on fuel) and let it heat up just by the residual heat. If so, it seems to me the fuel savings in a grid-down situation would be more significant than just 2-3 minutes worth - and could possibly be as much as 8 minutes worth.
Yes, you can just pour boiling water over to rehydrate, or even just water. That's what I do.....takes only a few minutes, and voila! It's a big energy and water saver.
Interesting to me, was I had a fellow from Haiti staying with me for a while. He said they cook uncooked pasta in a sauce. I didn't possibly see how that would work. But I tried it. It takes like 20 minutes for noodles to get done that way. But in the area he came from water was hard to get. So this was practical.
I found an oval shaped thermos at WalMart - I put the “fast” pasta in it and add boiling water. By the time I have the sauce heated the pasta is ready to add. If I want to add dehydrated veggies of any kind I have another thermos for that and they all will be ready at the same time. Totally has been a game changer!!!
I cook & dehydrate pasta & rice as I go camping whenever I can. It’s faster and saves having to carry in so much water plus I can cook whatever in one pot rather than having an extra one to cook the pasta or rice.
Interesting that you mentioned the conservation of energy if things changed and you wanted the pasta to be prepped for faster cooking. I happened to listen to a woman (now deceased) who has a TH-cam channel called 'Depression cooking." She was cooking the pasta and happened to mention that during the depression they had to conserve the gas cooking and she said she would cook the pasta up to a point, shut off the gas, cover the pasta and let the pasta cook with the heat already in the pot. I have done this and it works. So in desperate times that would be my way of coping. Also for the rice, wouldn't parboiled rice suffice? Anyway I just subscribed and appreciate your videos.
Parboiled white rice uses hot water to take the husk off. It keeps more of the vitamins in the husk, but with less oil and fiber. It was the traditional way and it does not cook the kernel. See Uncle Ben converted rice. Polished white rice uses a rolling drum with abrasive to basically sand off the husk. That rice has less nutrients but looks prettier (more white). I have not found any different in the time for cooking the kernels.
I do this all the time on my Electric stove to jest about everything I cook. It keeps many thing from over cooking. Hot iron skillet, sear a steak on both sides, turn off my electric stove and cover lightly with foil. Juicy steak
Yes, sounds like you been watching, Clara and her depression foods. She was a great story teller. Her grandson did the filming. I’m so thankful he did. She was such a gem! I think she published a book as well.
@@grannygoose3532 Yes for sure that is her. She does have a book but I think it retails for very high on book sites. I am hearing about the way our food shortages may be going so I am keeping her site and any other site (like the Hillbilly Kitchen site) close at hand to at least know about food preparation that is meager to live on. Yes her grandson was the one that filmed it. I come from an Italian heritage and my mother use to remind me of the foods they prepared as the Italians called them 'peasant meals." But to be honest they were tasty. Thank you for replying.
The fast pasta can be rehydrated in cold water for pasta salad without heating your kitchen up. The fast pasta can be heated in whatever sauce you are serving it in, there is no need to reboil it in water whatsoever. Both of these are significant savings in fuel, though the cold water rehydration is not a savings in time it is passive time. As for rice, they call it Minute Rice for a reason.
Grid down or bug out, remember the loss of carbs is more important, thank you for all you 2 are doing for others, God bless. The loss of multiple supply depots and storage facilities in the last couple months is quite concerning.
Not worth it to me to cook then dehydrate. But as far as storage options for pasta, noodles, rice, or dry beans, I would, and do, store in vacuum-packed glass jars. Great experiment! I love your scientific approach and appreciate the time and effort you put into providing your viewers with accurate, important information. Thank you!
I call this instant pasta. In the winter I cook and dehydrate enough pasta in various shapes to last the year. I do this so that I don't have to heat the house up in the summer. I just pour boiling water over it and let it sit until rehydrated . Then I use it for pasta salad, casseroles and to be covered with my favorite sauces. It's well worth it to me.
I love these ideas of yours, Karen and I absolutely am in love with Rosered homestead. I even had my hubby watch some of the canning videos of her because we just purchased electric canners and he was so impressed with her teaching and mannerisms. He was glued and that has never, ever happened with my utube stuff I watch all day. She is a natural at educating and explaining things even to average intelligence beginners. I’m Learning so much from her and ppl like you as well Karen!
I really couldn't see spending so much time to do all that if we are only getting that small amount of time. I feel my time is always precious so going through all these extra steps and with the cost of electricity it's not worth it for me. I thank you for sharing your experiments. I might have tried this if I thought it was a good idea. It helps me to save $ by watching you and others who give true results and honest opinions. Thank you very very much.
I recruited my daughter to dehydrating and to your channel. She loves you and your videos as much as I do! She loves yours tests and your scientific explanations. Thank you Pam! I’m definitely going to do this for my jar meals!
If your goal is to save on fuel, then just bring your water to a boil, add your pasta, bring back up to a boil, stir the pasta well, put a lid on your pot and turn off your burner. The pasta will cook. I've done this many time in order to keep my house from heating up from the steam produced from the boiling water.
LOVE your scientific mind! I think I agree with you…not so useful when you consider the amount of time and effort to get it to the shortened cooking time.
I did this year's ago when my husband and I were backpacking. I would make meals in a pouch. It's just like your meals in a jar but everything was in the same pouch. Just boil water, add the dried food (usually with pasta), cover for 15-20 minutes and eat. We used the same little pots and burners that you have in your car kit.
Thanks for the video and being open minded enough to test it. I was wondering about making fast pasta for a backcountry camping trip and saving fuel as well as cooking time. From the comments I also learned that you can rehydrate the fast pasta with regular temp water beforehand or even while warming the sauce.
I tried this for my Italian granddaughter that loves pasta. I dehydrated bow ties and I just add equal parts of water and pasta and microwave it for about 6 minutes, let it set for a few, pour out excess liquid, if any and add butter and parm. One of her favorite meals. That way she can just deal with a serving size. Thanks for all your videos, still learning.
I use my freeze dried rice and chicken for a meal the other day. Just rehydrate both with hot water, drained of extra water, and mixed together. Tasted good and texture was fine.
You are a mind reader!. I was debating this very thing. However for a very different reason. If you have type 2 diabetes or watching your carb intake, it is recommended that you cook and save your pasta. The first cooking removes the excess starch. The second cooking makes it safer for us food watchers of pasta. It may not be a time saver so much but will help with my nutrition. Thank you. PS. another project if you're looking for one would be water bath canning pickled Cole Slaw. It sounds fabulous 😍
As always, bang-up job with testing. One point I would like to make, related to fuel conservation. In an emergency, we can conserve fuel by soaking cold for some amount of time before cooking. The texture is different, but not necessarily worse (we do spaghetti this way intentionally sometimes) and in an emergency gourmet isn't the goal.
So, are you referring to soaking coal in a type lighter fluid? In the 50s and 60s, when I grew up, that was the common practice, and as advertised in TV. But, we could not use too much, and would have to stand back from the grill when threw the lit match on it. If too close, it would "practically blow-up" and singe our hair. I am not sure that make charcoal lighter fluid anymore. Did I misunderstand your comment? Jim
@@RoseRedHomestead No, I’m sorry. What I meant was soak the noodles before cooking them to save fuel. The only advantage you gave them was to “maybe” save fuel, so I was saying that the fuel saving, already minimal, are even less if you soak them cold for a while before cooking. We do that with some noodle dishes already when we have time. Soaking them cold for about an hour and then cooking them in the sauce makes the pasta absorb more of the sauce and it’s good. However, the leftovers are terribly mushy. In an emergency situation, however, we aren’t attempting to be gourmet chefs.
This method of food prep is useful for so many situations that involve fuel and water consumption. Putting it right in sauce would probably work well so long as it is not a heavy pasta like the ziti that you boiled.
Rhonda and Cynthia: I have removed Christopher Johnson and another individual from this comment page. I do not kno9w if we can block them. Just do not respond and click on the three vertical to the right of the heart and remove the message. I will see what I can do to block them. Add James Morgan to that list. Jim
I do it because i dont like to waste food and i can use what i need at the moment sometimes i open a bag or box of rice or pasta cook what i need then forget about it and it gets stale...so i cook it dehydrate it vacuum seal then use what i need (sometimes i cook too much so i dehydrate) and seal again🙂
I love having cooked dried pasta and rice on hand, we not only use it at home for quick meals but take it with us when we stay in our travel travel.. we tend to spend the day on our ATV's and I don't feel like doing a lot of cooking when we return. Instant rice and pasta are my best friends.
PS I forgot to mention that there are times when we have to limit how much water we use from our trailer tank and certainly do not want to be boiling a lot of water to cook pasta. I can reconstitute a cup of pasta or rice by using my single cup coffee maker. Just trying to give you some idea's because I know you guys spend time in a travel trailer too and love to spend the day riding ATV's..
I have seen this done and am so happy you are doing it as you will bring a more scientific kitchen perspective on this. I want to do this as well. I have lots of regular pasta but was thinking on dehydrating for if a fast meal is needed like when we travel to town, which is an all day event most times. On something that Emmy eats did was take the dehydrated elbow noodles she did and then deep fry them for a snack. This time I watched an emmy made or emmy eats video on making "blooming flowers" by shaping and frying rice paper spring roll wrappers in 350' hot oil. the rice paper used for spring rolls. By the way these store my rice paper spring wraps quite well with oxygen absorber.
I appreciate your intelligent approach and willingness to experiment with this, learning keeps us vital. I agree with you and Jim, the resources and time consumed don’t seem to balance out the 2-3 minute advantage, considering a grid down or SHTF situation, resources like fuel and energy might not be available. Thanks again for the great experiment!
one thing that may make it worthwhile is the ability to use less water- you can boil the redried pasta in its own sauce, basically. however in a grid down situation i advise using something like angel hair- which cooks in under 2 minutes anyway
Pam is a frontier of testing stuff out. I love it. I think the best result would be to make the pasta and dehydrate it. For storage. Philips has a nice pastamaker 😁 I have one and make pasta for storage this way, since i have abundance of eggs.
Love your analysis. I will typically dehydrate leftover pasta…I always make too much. So, if I’m cooking pasta instead of tossing the extra, I just toss into the dehydrator. But I am a camper and it works well with solar cooking as well imo. Blessings!
I have a recipe for a goulash type stove top casserole. I brown the meat and onions, then toss in the macaroni and salute it a bit, then pour in the tomato and seasoning and cover and simmer. Mac absorbs the tomato flavor and very tasty. Seems like it would work with spaghetti too. I use angel hair as it cooks fast.
I have tried this for backpacking meals. Our preference is to just add boiling water to our backpacking meals to keep things simple, have less fuel to carry, and less cleanup. It didn’t work that well. The pasta was too chewy. It really does need to be boiled again, not just reconstituted. Now I dehydrate all my other ingredients and just use ramen noodles. Works great.
Pam, I Freeze Dry my pasta's and just add hot/boiling water to rehydrate, it's quick! I make Mac and cheese and it rehydrates perfectly. Turkey Tetrazinni is also quick and delicious freeze dried. Great for backpacking or grid down or just a lazy cook!
No self-respecting Nonna would want pasta without the starchy water because it aids in thickening the sauce at the end. Just saying...😂 Thanks, Pam and Jim for the programme. Cheers from Oz! 🦘
I'm thinking of the carbon footprint and energy usage for all this. Cooking then dehydrating and then recooking. It isn't energy efficient. I see one of the comments said to throw the uncooked pasta in with the prepared sauce and some extra water. One cooking time no energy spent on dehydrating and a great result in the end. I like that method. Going to give that a try. Thanks @MQ.
Aloha Pam and Jim! Great video. I too was wondering what the result would be if the pasta was freeze dried versus dehydrated. Pam I am right there with you on pasta not taking that long to cook in the first place. However, I have seen on other YT channels people just adding hot water to freeze dried (so not having to "boil"). I don't recall how long it took to reconstitute. Would love to see a FD pasta test. Thanks so much for all of your great content!
What are you two?? Mind readers..?? Can't get over that this is what I've been asking of myself to myself. Thank you. A couple or a few minutes & less starchy hmmm I like the idea 💡.
Thanks, an interesting experiment. Question though. When I cook and freeze dry a cup rice, I only need to pour something less than a cup of hot water over it and let it sit. I do not need 3 cups of boiling water and a simmer. For camping or fuel that seems a win. Does the dehydrated pasta work somewhat the same. I do find dehydrated takes longer to reconstitute in most cases but if only a little hot water.... BTW making a metal pot with pot cosy out the aluminized bubble wrap used for insulation makes a good vessel to rehydrate in. Not quite hay box cooking, but it does keep the heat in.
“Yea, Science!” Like you said; it doesn’t matter what we “think”…. A well controlled experiment is always what we should use to consider what is best. I really appreciate the way you & Jim strive to be accurate when testing different methods of food preservation. 🤗🏆👏👏👏
One thing I do to conserve heat source (not dehydrated pasta ) is bring the water to a boil , add pasta , stir., Turn off heat source and cover . The past will still cook in the hot water and usually only takes on the amount of water needed . Try this . It's amazing . :) No need for dehydration if conserving heat source is the issue .
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I make fast pasta thin spaghetti and fast pasta macaroni. We love it! One thing to consider is that you do not need that much water to reconstitute. In a water scarcity situation you only need 1 to 1 1/2 ratio pasta to water. We have even added the pasta into the sauce pan when creating the sauce (oil based) and in a few minutes they are both done. There is a tremendous amount of time saved when you don't boil 3 quarts of water. I use my water bath canner to cook 4 to 5 packages of pasta at a time and fill 2 dehydrators. I store it in glass jars. Another trick is to make nests of the thin spaghetti then dehydrate. 1 nest equals 1 serving. Easy to cook for 1 or 2.
Cool ideas! P S Don’t reply to James Morgan, he’s a phisher.
When making pasta with a tomato or tomato w/meat sauce, I just put the pasta in the pot with the cooked sauce, add another cup of water, bring to a boil and simmer for about 5 or 6 minutes, then put the lid on until ready to serve. Until the salad or other vegetables are ready...lol.
Diana - thank you for the tip of spaghetti nests - I am definitely going to use it!
Less water and less fuel.
Love the nest idea!
I have done it but only to put in Bags for MRE meals with dehydrated sauce and freeze dried meat. Well worth it. Just pour hot water in the bag and leave 15 mins inside an insulated bag. Comes out really well without any extra boiling. I’ve done rice as well for the same scenario. If the grid is down and we can only boil a kettle then I have a hot meal without having to cook snd waste fuel.
Hello Susie how's it going with you over there?
I do the same and you can rehydrate the pasta to eat cold in a pasta salad which saves even more fuel.
I use the thermos.
I have cooked rice then dehydrated it. Now I have instant rice. Only a couple of minutes soaking and it's perfect. Great for a grid-down situation when water or fuel are scarce. Might work for pasta too.
Great idea ✌🏼
I’ve done this too
I dehydrate both pasta and rice.....save on water, time and energy, and makes putting a dish together quickly a breeze.
Of course it works for pasta, they’ve been selling “dehydrated pasta” for about 70 years now.
If the grid goes down wouldn’t it be better to just make fresh pasta and then boil it for one minute?
Hello Pam! Love your tests! I watch YT instead of TV, and I watch a lot of different channels. I watch some preppers, but I also watch campers and hikers. The campers and hikers have used fast pasta and fast beans for years as a way of not having to pack a lot of water for cooking. Fast past can be added directly to sauce, and it will cook in the sauce, thickening it slightly by absorbing a bit of the liquid. I would love to see you test this for taste and conservation of water.
The water was starchy the first time around but not the second time around. With grid down, less time and fuel to cook and clear water, you could use the left over water for coffee or tea or to do whatever with it. I think it might be worth it for me. Thank you for testing this out for us.
Hi Pam, my Granddaughter recently put me wise to your videos So I' ve been catching up and been dehydrating everything! Told my friends if they stood still long enough I will dehydrate them too! Had dehydrated elbow macaroni and decided to try rehydrating it. Put some in cold water , to see if I could save on fuel if necessary and actually forgot about it for almost 45 min. When I finally checked on it, it was fully hydrated and soft like it was just cooked! So, I guess if your not in a hurry to eat, this would save on actually having to re-cook it again and just needs to warm up in what ever you need to add it to! I'm VERY close to hitting the big 80 and have to work quickly! Haha
Thanks to your Granddaughter for introducing you to us. Jim
I also love doing the tests! Fast pasta and rice works really well for making hiking meals or 72hr kit meals where you don’t want to cook food but just add boiling water.
Good afternoon! Love the micro moments.
Great experiment! I am not sure that it is truly worth it, except for a grid-down situation to save fuel, which is why I have put bigger pasta away, but I have opted to put away more small pasta, i.e. stars, pastina, orzo, etc. But I loved that you put the effort into trying this and showing us.
I have done this only when I've made too much pasta. Freezing pasta turns it to mush. So I thought dehydrate it. Works for me. I don't think I would just cook the pasta ahead of time and then dehydrate it but it works great when you have left overs
I started out just dehydrating leftover angel hair spaghetti when I inevitably made too much. That made me realize that I could just double the amount of pasta that we needed to eat that night (so there was no excess heating or water use), and dehydrate the extra.
I live in hurricane country. I make fast rice for hurricane preps and to have readily available "instant rice" for everyday use. We use brown rice so the time savings is more significant. I don't boil a large pot of water to rehydrate. I only boil enough water to cover the rice in a serving dish - usually an individual dish. The rice rehydrates in less than 10 minutes. I soak rice overnight before cooking originally and cook large amounts in an instant pot. Water can be a factor in emergency situations and rehydration takes a lot less water and fuel.
That's just what I thought. Getting the water boiling to begin cooking is where the majority of the time is used when preparing pasta. Thank you for testing this so thoroughly.
Thank you for another great video. "Fast" pasta works great when adding to soups or other dishes that have a high amount of liquid. You can add the pasta directly to the dish a few minutes before serving, which not only conserves fuel, but also precious water. It also cuts down on the number of pots and pans to be washed.
I know this video was about pasta, but since you mentioned rice, I thought I would bring up my experiment. I cooked up some brown rice and then dehydrated that, figuring that since you can purchase “quick brown rice,” maybe that would be a good option. Well, obviously there is something more that the food industry does to brown rice to remove the oil because after the dehydrated brown rice was in the jar a week or two, I noticed that there was OIL in the bottom of the jar! Fortunately it wasn’t rancid (although over time, I’m sure that might have happened) and it cooked up just fine and about half the time of the original. However, brown rice is definitely NOT a good option for cooking and then dehydrating by the home cook!
I always throw in extra rice when i make a batch, then dry the leftover for my own minute rice. I sometimes throw in spices during cooking to make it flavored. Thanks again Pam and Jim.
I dehydrate egg noodles to use in my home canned soup. When I warm up the soup it is very convenient to add a handful of noodles while it is heating up. I cook the whole bag of noodles then dehydrate them and store them in a jar. Works good for egg noodles, I found that small shells took longer to get done in the soup so it wasn’t as convenient.
Be just as energy efficient is to bring water to boil, add pasta, put lid on until boils again, turn off heat and leave sit for 20 mins.
Yes, I saw instructions decades ago on an off brand pasta pkg. That's how I cook it since.
@@gwizu3 I think I saw it in a book called, Tightwad Gazette many years ago.
Thanks Pam and Jim.
I agree with you. Your time and cost of electricity, does not save you anything in my personal opinion. Thank you for explaining this to us. You are such a great teacher!
You are very welcome.
I am not a scientist nor a science fan. What I love about your scientific work with a practical angle is that you can actually PROVE how and why to do things. NOT just your opinion backed up with how your grandma/the mormons/the amish/your friend/neighbor always did it and nobody died.
Thanks this was great! Can’t wait to see the freeze dryer version for pasta. I made your burrito filling with fast beans and fast rice and it takes less water and only a couple minutes to warm and eat! A winner in my book!
A couple years ago I came across a Utuber who said waiting for the water to boil first is crazy & entirely unnecessary.... so, I had to try it, bc who ever heard of doing other than boil first???
Adding the pasta to the water, salt if you choose, then bring to boil and cook a couple minutes til desired tenderness turns out 100% every time and saves the 8 or ten minutes waiting for the water to boil, plus, saves all that energy/fuel.
This is the only way I do it since, and it's perfect every single time.
*I've not tried it with lasagna noodles however, so idk about that.
Thanks for the tip.
I do this too, and it works great! I've done it with Lasagna noodles and they work. I've also found that starting with raw pasta in my pan works when I add an extra cup and a half of water to the sauce. The pasta turns out tender and I don't have to work with wet sticky noodles. Cooking that 45 minutes anyway cooks the pasta without having to buy the more expensive Ready to Bake ones.
@@patriciaanderson8556 right??? Agree with cooking the dry pasta right in the sauce.... here's my favorite recipe to date:
Open a can of Cream of Mushroom soup, add a half can of milk, a handful of mixed variety dried mushrooms, Oregano, garlic and pepper and toss in Rotting or Penne dry pasta. Cook until the pasta is tender and the soup has condensed into a glorious thick, rich white sauce. Top with a sprinkle of Parmigiano and chopped Parsley 👌
Its a BEAUTIFUL thong
@@mermer58 You're Welcome 😊
I do it that way as well. Works for lasagna noodles just fine too.
Holy cow, 159k subscribers!,, you and Jim need to take a bow! You must be the fastest growing channel on TH-cam!,,, congrats😃
Rlynn: Wow, thanks! Jim
This experiment was awesome!
Great way to save extra pasta. There's a Depression Era video showing bringing water to boil. Adding pasta bring back to boil and shut it off and let it sit. Stir and check occasionally til done. Saving gas.
Thank you for doing these tests for us!
I am of the mindset that right now I have water unlimited, but there may be an emergency time where water may be scarce, that's why I cook and dehydrate now, just in case water is scarce in the future.
I was really hoping that you would do a trial on freeze drying it. I make a lot of homemade pasta and I know that there are a lot of other people that are turning to making their own pasta. I have never tried freeze dry it. Not sure how to go about it. Have you ever experimented with homemade pasta, freeze drying process.
For backpacking it is much better to cook and dehydrate pasta before incorporating it into meals. For reconstitution on the trail the pasta meal is added to cold water, brought to a boil and boiled for 1 or 2 minutes, taken off the heat and put in a pot cosie (or cozy) for 15 minutes. It will be entirely cooked and piping hot after 15 minutes in the cosie. This saves an incredible amount of weight by reducing the amount of fuel that needs to be carried. Uncooked pasta out of the box does not reconstitute as well using a pot cosie method.
This was a fun & interesting experiment! Great job Pam & Jim!
Wow!! Thank you for taking the time to do this! To me, it isn't worth it because I only have one dehydrator, andvid rather use it to presevevmy garden produce. As much as I enjoy dehydrating, I have come to realize that some things just aren't worth it.
Mary: Ok Jim
Good test! What I would be interested in knowing though is whether having pre-cooked and dried the pasta would make it possible to just pour boiling water over it in a thermos or thermal cooker and have the pasta come back to an edible state more quickly? That is, not actually having to boil it again, just having to pour boiling water over it, turn off the heat (to save on fuel) and let it heat up just by the residual heat. If so, it seems to me the fuel savings in a grid-down situation would be more significant than just 2-3 minutes worth - and could possibly be as much as 8 minutes worth.
I was wondering the same.
Yes, you can just pour boiling water over to rehydrate, or even just water. That's what I do.....takes only a few minutes, and voila! It's a big energy and water saver.
Interesting to me, was I had a fellow from Haiti staying with me for a while. He said they cook uncooked pasta in a sauce. I didn't possibly see how that would work. But I tried it. It takes like 20 minutes for noodles to get done that way. But in the area he came from water was hard to get. So this was practical.
I found an oval shaped thermos at WalMart - I put the “fast” pasta in it and add boiling water. By the time I have the sauce heated the pasta is ready to add. If I want to add dehydrated veggies of any kind I have another thermos for that and they all will be ready at the same time. Totally has been a game changer!!!
@@kathyfifer7966 oooh! An OVAL thermos...? Is it a thermos brand....? Or...? Do you know how much it holds? Enough for just one person or more...?
I cook & dehydrate pasta & rice as I go camping whenever I can. It’s faster and saves having to carry in so much water plus I can cook whatever in one pot rather than having an extra one to cook the pasta or rice.
Interesting that you mentioned the conservation of energy if things changed and you wanted the pasta to be prepped for faster cooking. I happened to listen to a woman (now deceased) who has a TH-cam channel called 'Depression cooking." She was cooking the pasta and happened to mention that during the depression they had to conserve the gas cooking and she said she would cook the pasta up to a point, shut off the gas, cover the pasta and let the pasta cook with the heat already in the pot. I have done this and it works. So in desperate times that would be my way of coping. Also for the rice, wouldn't parboiled rice suffice?
Anyway I just subscribed and appreciate your videos.
Parboiled white rice uses hot water to take the husk off. It keeps more of the vitamins in the husk, but with less oil and fiber. It was the traditional way and it does not cook the kernel. See Uncle Ben converted rice. Polished white rice uses a rolling drum with abrasive to basically sand off the husk. That rice has less nutrients but looks prettier (more white). I have not found any different in the time for cooking the kernels.
I do this all the time on my Electric stove to jest about everything I cook. It keeps many thing from over cooking. Hot iron skillet, sear a steak on both sides, turn off my electric stove and cover lightly with foil. Juicy steak
I loved her channel and her cooking. Actually it was the son or grand daughter that that was doing all the filming, I think. Blessings
Yes, sounds like you been watching, Clara and her depression foods. She was a great story teller. Her grandson did the filming. I’m so thankful he did. She was such a gem! I think she published a book as well.
@@grannygoose3532 Yes for sure that is her. She does have a book but I think it retails for very high on book sites. I am hearing about the way our food shortages may be going so I am keeping her site and any other site (like the Hillbilly Kitchen site) close at hand to at least know about food preparation that is meager to live on.
Yes her grandson was the one that filmed it. I come from an Italian heritage and my mother use to remind me of the foods they prepared as the Italians called them 'peasant meals." But to be honest they were tasty. Thank you for replying.
That shade of grey looks fantastic with your coloring.
Thank you! Cheers!
The fast pasta can be rehydrated in cold water for pasta salad without heating your kitchen up.
The fast pasta can be heated in whatever sauce you are serving it in, there is no need to reboil it in water whatsoever.
Both of these are significant savings in fuel, though the cold water rehydration is not a savings in time it is passive time.
As for rice, they call it Minute Rice for a reason.
Grid down or bug out, remember the loss of carbs is more important, thank you for all you 2 are doing for others, God bless. The loss of multiple supply depots and storage facilities in the last couple months is quite concerning.
I love having quick cook dehydrated pasta and rice on hand.....saves time, fuel and water in times when all may be need to be conserved.
Thank you for doing the testing for us!
Not worth it to me to cook then dehydrate. But as far as storage options for pasta, noodles, rice, or dry beans, I would, and do, store in vacuum-packed glass jars. Great experiment! I love your scientific approach and appreciate the time and effort you put into providing your viewers with accurate, important information. Thank you!
I love your experiments!!
I call this instant pasta. In the winter I cook and dehydrate enough pasta in various shapes to last the year. I do this so that I don't have to heat the house up in the summer. I just pour boiling water over it and let it sit until rehydrated . Then I use it for pasta salad, casseroles and to be covered with my favorite sauces. It's well worth it to me.
I love these ideas of yours, Karen and I absolutely am in love with Rosered homestead. I even had my hubby watch some of the canning videos of her because we just purchased electric canners and he was so impressed with her teaching and mannerisms. He was glued and that has never, ever happened with my utube stuff I watch all day. She is a natural at educating and explaining things even to average intelligence beginners. I’m
Learning so much from her and ppl like you as well Karen!
Thank you both!
I really couldn't see spending so much time to do all that if we are only getting that small amount of time. I feel my time is always precious so going through all these extra steps and with the cost of electricity it's not worth it for me. I thank you for sharing your experiments. I might have tried this if I thought it was a good idea. It helps me to save $ by watching you and others who give true results and honest opinions. Thank you very very much.
I recruited my daughter to dehydrating and to your channel. She loves you and your videos as much as I do! She loves yours tests and your scientific explanations. Thank you Pam!
I’m definitely going to do this for my jar meals!
If your goal is to save on fuel, then just bring your water to a boil, add your pasta, bring back up to a boil, stir the pasta well, put a lid on your pot and turn off your burner. The pasta will cook. I've done this many time in order to keep my house from heating up from the steam produced from the boiling water.
Yes. I have done this for years. I have never seen this method described in a cookbook, but I use it always.
Sounds good.
LOVE your scientific mind! I think I agree with you…not so useful when you consider the amount of time and effort to get it to the shortened cooking time.
Thank you Pam . Great experiments. Love your science tests.
Thank you folks! Very interesting experiment and test. Appreciate your time.
betty: Our pleasure! Jim
I did this year's ago when my husband and I were backpacking. I would make meals in a pouch. It's just like your meals in a jar but everything was in the same pouch. Just boil water, add the dried food (usually with pasta), cover for 15-20 minutes and eat. We used the same little pots and burners that you have in your car kit.
Thanks for the video and being open minded enough to test it. I was wondering about making fast pasta for a backcountry camping trip and saving fuel as well as cooking time. From the comments I also learned that you can rehydrate the fast pasta with regular temp water beforehand or even while warming the sauce.
I tried this for my Italian granddaughter that loves pasta. I dehydrated bow ties and I just add equal parts of water and pasta and microwave it for about 6 minutes, let it set for a few, pour out excess liquid, if any and add butter and parm. One of her favorite meals. That way she can just deal with a serving size. Thanks for all your videos, still learning.
Thank you for your energy and work hard…. It’s interesting to follow your testing with joy and exciting. Loved it.
Vanna: You are welcome! Jim
Putting together your dried soups is a benefit with decreased startch and time.
I use my freeze dried rice and chicken for a meal the other day. Just rehydrate both with hot water, drained of extra water, and mixed together. Tasted good and texture was fine.
I've been wondering about this. Thanks for testing!
You are welcome.
You are a mind reader!. I was debating this very thing. However for a very different reason. If you have type 2 diabetes or watching your carb intake, it is recommended that you cook and save your pasta. The first cooking removes the excess starch. The second cooking makes it safer for us food watchers of pasta. It may not be a time saver so much but will help with my nutrition. Thank you. PS. another project if you're looking for one would be water bath canning pickled Cole Slaw. It sounds fabulous 😍
Benita: It depends on individual needs as whether it is a time saver or not. Jim
I agree, it doesn't seem worth it. Thank you, Pam, for testing it out and sharing the results with us.
You are so welcome!
I also dehydrated some pasta, but mostly jarred it up. You are amazing, taking the time to do the experiments! What fun you made it. ❤
Thanks. It is fun to test things out and get a definitive answer!
As always, bang-up job with testing. One point I would like to make, related to fuel conservation. In an emergency, we can conserve fuel by soaking cold for some amount of time before cooking. The texture is different, but not necessarily worse (we do spaghetti this way intentionally sometimes) and in an emergency gourmet isn't the goal.
So, are you referring to soaking coal in a type lighter fluid? In the 50s and 60s, when I grew up, that was the common practice, and as advertised in TV. But, we could not use too much, and would have to stand back from the grill when threw the lit match on it. If too close, it would "practically blow-up" and singe our hair. I am not sure that make charcoal lighter fluid anymore. Did I misunderstand your comment? Jim
@@RoseRedHomestead No, I’m sorry. What I meant was soak the noodles before cooking them to save fuel. The only advantage you gave them was to “maybe” save fuel, so I was saying that the fuel saving, already minimal, are even less if you soak them cold for a while before cooking. We do that with some noodle dishes already when we have time. Soaking them cold for about an hour and then cooking them in the sauce makes the pasta absorb more of the sauce and it’s good. However, the leftovers are terribly mushy. In an emergency situation, however, we aren’t attempting to be gourmet chefs.
Thank you doing this test. I was wondering about it too.
Linda: Glad it was helpful!
Cost-wise and time I don't think it worth me doing. I really appreciate your test, Thank you
This method of food prep is useful for so many situations that involve fuel and water consumption. Putting it right in sauce would probably work well so long as it is not a heavy pasta like the ziti that you boiled.
Rhonda: I think it would take much longer to warm/cook if you added the pasta directly to the sauce. Jim
@@RoseRedHomestead Can You block James Morgan? And Christopher Johnson?
Rhonda Calderone please don’t respond to the guys saying hello or asking where you’re from. They are phishing.
@@cynthiafisher9907 I know. I was ignoring them. I always do. It's the world that we live in. Thanks for the concern! It's much appreciated!
Rhonda and Cynthia: I have removed Christopher Johnson and another individual from this comment page. I do not kno9w if we can block them. Just do not respond and click on the three vertical to the right of the heart and remove the message. I will see what I can do to block them. Add James Morgan to that list. Jim
I do it because i dont like to waste food and i can use what i need at the moment sometimes i open a bag or box of rice or pasta cook what i need then forget about it and it gets stale...so i cook it dehydrate it vacuum seal then use what i need (sometimes i cook too much so i dehydrate) and seal again🙂
I love having cooked dried pasta and rice on hand, we not only use it at home for quick meals but take it with us when we stay in our travel travel.. we tend to spend the day on our ATV's and I don't feel like doing a lot of cooking when we return. Instant rice and pasta are my best friends.
PS I forgot to mention that there are times when we have to limit how much water we use from our trailer tank and certainly do not want to be boiling a lot of water to cook pasta. I can reconstitute a cup of pasta or rice by using my single cup coffee maker. Just trying to give you some idea's because I know you guys spend time in a travel trailer too and love to spend the day riding ATV's..
Patricia: Sounds great! Jim
I have seen this done and am so happy you are doing it as you will bring a more scientific kitchen perspective on this. I want to do this as well. I have lots of regular pasta but was thinking on dehydrating for if a fast meal is needed like when we travel to town, which is an all day event most times. On something that Emmy eats did was take the dehydrated elbow noodles she did and then deep fry them for a snack. This time I watched an emmy made or emmy eats video on making "blooming flowers" by shaping and frying rice paper spring roll wrappers in 350' hot oil. the rice paper used for spring rolls. By the way these store my rice paper spring wraps quite well with oxygen absorber.
Interesting test.
Have a blessed day!
Thanks Pam
I appreciate your intelligent approach and willingness to experiment with this, learning keeps us vital. I agree with you and Jim, the resources and time consumed don’t seem to balance out the 2-3 minute advantage, considering a grid down or SHTF situation, resources like fuel and energy might not be available. Thanks again for the great experiment!
You are welcome.
Thank you for sharing your experiment.^_^ Wonderful insight!
Thank you Pam.
You are so welcome
If you cook the pasta and then freeze dry it It works great just pour a little hot water on it
Mike and I use this in our semi trucks
one thing that may make it worthwhile is the ability to use less water- you can boil the redried pasta in its own sauce, basically.
however
in a grid down situation i advise using something like angel hair- which cooks in under 2 minutes anyway
Pam is a frontier of testing stuff out. I love it. I think the best result would be to make the pasta and dehydrate it. For storage. Philips has a nice pastamaker 😁 I have one and make pasta for storage this way, since i have abundance of eggs.
Good to know. Thank you.
Love your analysis. I will typically dehydrate leftover pasta…I always make too much. So, if I’m cooking pasta instead of tossing the extra, I just toss into the dehydrator. But I am a camper and it works well with solar cooking as well imo. Blessings!
Thanks for sharing.
I have a recipe for a goulash type stove top casserole. I brown the meat and onions, then toss in the macaroni and salute it a bit, then pour in the tomato and seasoning and cover and simmer. Mac absorbs the tomato flavor and very tasty. Seems like it would work with spaghetti too. I use angel hair as it cooks fast.
Karen: That is awesome! Jim
I have tried this for backpacking meals. Our preference is to just add boiling water to our backpacking meals to keep things simple, have less fuel to carry, and less cleanup. It didn’t work that well. The pasta was too chewy. It really does need to be boiled again, not just reconstituted. Now I dehydrate all my other ingredients and just use ramen noodles. Works great.
Pam, I Freeze Dry my pasta's and just add hot/boiling water to rehydrate, it's quick! I make Mac and cheese and it rehydrates perfectly. Turkey Tetrazinni is also quick and delicious freeze dried. Great for backpacking or grid down or just a lazy cook!
Great information! Thank you
thank you
No self-respecting Nonna would want pasta without the starchy water because it aids in thickening the sauce at the end. Just saying...😂 Thanks, Pam and Jim for the programme. Cheers from Oz! 🦘
My thoughts exactly! My Italian grandmother would be horrified 😳 ~ Lisa
@@LB-vl3qn Haha, right? Cheers!🦘
LOL--nicely done! And frankly, I agree!
Very interesting thank you for sharing
Great info. I will not be doing this unless I have leftover pasta.
I'm thinking of the carbon footprint and energy usage for all this. Cooking then dehydrating and then recooking. It isn't energy efficient. I see one of the comments said to throw the uncooked pasta in with the prepared sauce and some extra water. One cooking time no energy spent on dehydrating and a great result in the end. I like that method. Going to give that a try. Thanks @MQ.
So happy to see another person think the same as me. My thought exactly as this would be a very wasteful use of energy!
Thank you for another informative video!
Aloha Pam and Jim! Great video. I too was wondering what the result would be if the pasta was freeze dried versus dehydrated. Pam I am right there with you on pasta not taking that long to cook in the first place. However, I have seen on other YT channels people just adding hot water to freeze dried (so not having to "boil"). I don't recall how long it took to reconstitute. Would love to see a FD pasta test. Thanks so much for all of your great content!
I love your videos! I make my pasta from scratch so there are no preservatives...then I dehydrate and store
Nice!
Im with you on that one. I store pasta as it comes in containers. Thank you for the video
You are welcome.
Very good. I appreciate your tests.
What are you two?? Mind readers..?? Can't get over that this is what I've been asking of myself to myself. Thank you. A couple or a few minutes & less starchy hmmm I like the idea 💡.
Its not a matter of how long. When you are in a situation and limited water, rehydration is the way to go. So it is worth it..
Thanks, an interesting experiment. Question though. When I cook and freeze dry a cup rice, I only need to pour something less than a cup of hot water over it and let it sit. I do not need 3 cups of boiling water and a simmer. For camping or fuel that seems a win. Does the dehydrated pasta work somewhat the same. I do find dehydrated takes longer to reconstitute in most cases but if only a little hot water....
BTW making a metal pot with pot cosy out the aluminized bubble wrap used for insulation makes a good vessel to rehydrate in. Not quite hay box cooking, but it does keep the heat in.
Hi Rose. I'm doing this specifically for grid down.
I have made my pasta many times in the pressure cooker. It's very easy and convenient.
Put some freshly cooked small pasta in the air fryer after you sprinkle it with savory seasonings and eat it like chips. Or add it to trail mix.
“Yea, Science!” Like you said; it doesn’t matter what we “think”…. A well controlled experiment is always what we should use to consider what is best. I really appreciate the way you & Jim strive to be accurate when testing different methods of food preservation. 🤗🏆👏👏👏
Very interesting!
That’s the story!🧐😄👍🏻
One thing I do to conserve heat source (not dehydrated pasta ) is bring the water to a boil , add pasta , stir., Turn off heat source and cover . The past will still cook in the hot water and usually only takes on the amount of water needed . Try this . It's amazing . :)
No need for dehydration if conserving heat source is the issue .
Thanks for sharing this idea. Makes sense.