Trail Food Recipe: Big Daddy Buffalo Chicken Mac & Cheese

This is one of those easy, tasty and reliable comfort food recipes! If you've notice a theme lately, you're correct! WE NEED CALORIES! Well, Jamie needs calories... Enter pasta, cheeses, and creams for 906 calories in the meal. That is major bang for the buck!

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup Quick Cooking Elbow Macaroni

1/2 cup Freeze Dried Chicken

1 Tbsp Big Daddy Mac Mix

1 tsp Butter Powder

1 Tbsp Heavy Cream Powder

2 Tbsp Cream Cheese Powder

1 1/2 tsp Frank's Red Hot Buffalo Seasoning

1/4 tsp Garlic Powder

1/4 tsp Salt

*2 Tbsp Freeze-Dried Cheddar Cheese

*2 Tbsp Olive Oil (Always added when preparing on the trail, not when packaging.)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Combine the ingredients (excluding freeze-dried cheese and olive oil) in a meal pouch or prep bowl, tossing to integrate all the ingredients better.

2. Put the freeze-dried cheese in a separate baggie.

3. Remove as much air as possible and seal.

PREPARATION:

1. Add 1 1/4 cups boiling water and 2 Tbsp olive oil to the meal pouch.

2. Let rest in a meal cozy or other insulated container 8-10 minutes, mixing in the freeze-dried cheese toward the end of the rest.

3. Stir well and dig in.

A Word or Two About the Ingredients

This recipe uses several of our standard hiker pantry ingredients. Quick cooking pasta, freeze-dried chicken, butter powder, heavy cream powder, and freeze-dried cheese.

A new addition from my old favorite Hoosier Hill Farm is also included. When I decided o try out some of their cheese powders I was a little torn between just going with the simple Cheddar Cheese Powder or trying one of their cheese sauce mixes. There are several, but this Big Daddy Mac Mix stood out to me! It seemed appropriate. So much so that I decided to include it in the name!

I'm going to do a little taste test of these products - maybe a little comparison of these vs. the good ol' "blue box" version we all grew up with.

I'll let you know!

Of course, it wouldn't be Buffalo Chicken Mac & Cheese without some "buffalo" flavor! This Frank's RedHot Buffalo Seasoning Blend is really great, and the flavor is just what I associate with buffalo chicken.

The added bonus is that a dry seasoning that can be included easily in the pouch, rather than a separate sauce packet, which makes for an easy, one step prep!

Let me know what you think!

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