John's Meat Sauce Recipe

My meat sauce is a family favorite at home, but I bet you're wondering why I'm writing about it in my ultralight backpacking blog. In its dehydrated form, it turns into a wonderful home cooked meal and all you have to do is add some boiling water. Check out my article on how to Make Your Own Dehydrated Meat Sauce for more on dehydrating this recipe.

Let's start with the ingredients (listed in detail in the chart below). Most of the calories come from the meat, and you can mix it up depending on your taste and desired calorie & fat content. I typically go with 1lb of beef stew meat, 1lb of ground pork, and 1lb of hot  Italian  sausage, which is high calorie and very tasty! Three cans of diced tomatoes, and two cans each of tomato sauce and tomato paste are the base for the sauce. I like to add a white onion and a bell pepper, and sometimes I will substitute portobello mushrooms in lieu of the bell pepper. Round it out with some extra virgin olive oil for calories and taste.

Using a large pot, heat about four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil on high, then add all of the meat to the pot. I squeeze the sausages out of their skins and discard them. Brown the meat for 10-15 minutes stirring frequently. The kitchen is already starting to smell good!

While you're browning the meat, roughly chop the onion and bell pepper. Add some fresh garlic and anything else that sounds good too!

Using your food processor or chopper, finely chop the vegetables and set them aside.

With a slotted spoon, start scooping meat out of the pot and into your food processor. Make sure you drain the juices back into the pot as you go...this is the messy part!

Finely chop the meat and place it in a large bowl until all thats left in your pot are the juices from the meat. You can now drain the juices for a leaner recipe, but I suggest you do not, as there's a ton of great flavor and calories in there!

Add the chopped meat and vegetables back into the pot now and brown for a few more minutes, stirring frequently. 

Add the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and tomato paste, then stir. 

Season to taste, using spices such as salt, pepper, bay leaves, oregano, rosemary, and thyme. 

I like a lot of spices!

Now all of the hard work is done. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for two hours (if you can wait that long)! It actually tastes great right away, but the longer you wait, the better the flavor!

Make some great pasta to go with it, such as this whole wheat penne, then add some parmigiano reggiano cheese on top. Pour yourself a glass of red wine and enjoy! 

Dehydrate the left-overs for your next backpacking trip and you'll have all this great comfort food in the back country (minus the wine).

This chart shows the specifics of this recipe. We typically use 1 1/2 to 2 servings of sauce and pasta when backpacking. The result is a good balance of carbs, fats, and protein and a 600-800 calorie meal.

	Wt	Fl		Cal	Carbs	Fat	Protein
Description	Oz	Oz	Qty	Total	Total	Total	Total
Beef - round stew meat	16		1	871	0	52	94
Italian sausage (pork)	16		1	1200	0	95	65
Ground pork	19.2		1	900	0	20	80
tomato sauce - 15oz		30	2	280	56	0	1
chopped tomatos - 14.5oz		43.5	3	263	63	0	3
tomato paste - 6oz		12	2	300	60	0	4
EVOO (1tbsp = 0.5oz)		2	4	476	0	56	0
Lg Green Bell Pepper	5.8		1	33	8	0	1
1 medium onion	14		1	518	28	42	0
Totals in batch				4841	215	265	248
1/3 cup dehydrated	1.85	(1 serving)		219.66	9.74	12.04	11.27

This makes about 21 one cup servings, but I know you'll use more than one cup! Link to Make Your Own Dehydrated Meat Sauce Enjoy!