Freeze-Dried Food Reviews

Freeze-Dried Food Reviews of the Top Brands

If you are looking to stock up on different preserved foods for emergencies (or camping), then you should definitely give freeze-dried foods a spot in your supply. You want to taste-test first or you could be stuck wanting to eat dirt instead of the yucky freeze-dried food you may get stuck with.

So, I figured, what better way to spend Mother’s Day weekend than taste testing various freeze-dried foods with my husband and kids and sharing our results with all you wonderful people! I got out our different samples from companies such as Mountain House, Wise Food Co., My Patriot Supply and more. Some were surprisingly big hits, some were HUGE letdowns and ended up in the trash.

Our Scoring System

We are a family of five with ages ranging from 4 to …well, we won’t go there. Let’s just say the people that tested: toddler, pre-teen, teenager and 2 wonderful adults 😁

Each person got their own score card to judge on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 = yuck, 10=super yum). I then averaged the results and turned the points into pretty stars.

We judged each freeze-dried food on 3 criteria:

• Taste
• Texture
• Ease of Prep

We won’t get into cost on here (often fluctuates from sales, discounts, bulk, etc.). We also didn’t judge based on nutrition facts, but we posted a pic of the packages, so you can check out the ingredients in each one.

Click photo to enlarge

Country Cottage Mac & Cheese

Taste: (7 / 10)
Texture: (10 / 10)
Ease of Prep: (1 / 10)
Overall Score: (6 / 10)

Awards: 👍Tied for Best of Texture 👎Worst of Ease of Prep

Details

Taste – The taste was decent for being a freeze-dried mac & cheese. If you like boxed mac & cheese (that comes with the powdered cheese) then you’ll love this. Me, personally, not a fan and I could smell that fake powdered cheese smell right away. However, my family loves it so they brought the rating up quite a bit.

Texture – I was really impressed with the texture. The noodles were perfectly al dente and the sauce wasn’t too runny or pasty. Texture was a home run.

Ease of Prep – The worst out of all we tested. The instruction were to bring water to a boil, add contents and then simmer another 20 minutes while stirring frequently. Now, if it is truly an emergency situation, you better have plenty of fuel for a fire if you’re going with these. Keeping water simmering that long while having to constantly supervise and stir would be an issue for us.

Click photo to enlarge

Broccoli with Sharp Cheddar Cheese

Taste: (4 / 10)
Texture: (6 / 10)
Ease of Prep: (8 / 10)
Overall Score: (6 / 10)

Awards: 👍 Least Amount of Chemicals

Details

Taste – So the sample we got was a variety of freeze-dried veggies, fruits and cheeses. They weren’t entrees, so I decided to go with broccoli and cheese. The broccoli was pretty good, but the cheese was so gross! We were pretty bummed on the cheese so we actually followed up with pineapple hoping a fruit would hit the spot…it didn’t.

Texture – Broccoli texture was OK. Not like fresh cooked, but not too mushy either. It was what we would expect from freeze-dried broccoli. The cheese, though, was not that gooey melted cheese texture. The texture was weird, almost on the verge of pasty or chalky.

Ease of Prep – I liked the easy prep of this. Because it didn’t come in its own container that you can just pour water into, I didn’t rate as high as some of the others. You also have to guess the water amount on some of their food such as broccoli, as the instructions only state “desired amount of water.” It is nice that all you have to do is boil water, pour onto the food and let sit.

Click photo to enlarge

Stroganoff

Taste: (4 / 10)
Texture: (8 / 10)
Ease of Prep: (2 / 10)
Overall Score: (5 / 10)

Awards: 👎 Worst Overall Score

Details

Taste – Taste? What taste? This had zero flavor. Imagine cooked noodles. No seasoning. No Sauce. Just noodles. That’s all this was.

Texture – Texture of the noodles were good. They weren’t mushy or too hard.

Ease of Prep – Ease of prep scored low due to the fact you are essentially boiling noodles. It’s not a ‘boil water and add to pouch’ like Mountain House is. It must be boiled in a pot for 12-15 minutes. Very inconvenient in emergencies or while hiking/camping.

Click photo to enlarge

Creamy Pasta and Vegetable Rotini

Taste: (9 / 10)
Texture: (8 / 10)
Ease of Prep: (6 / 10)
Overall Score: (8 / 10)

Awards: 🥉Third Place

Details

Taste – We all really liked the taste of this one. The smell was the best out of all them and you could really smell the vegetables in it, like they were fresh.

Texture – Texture was good and saue wasn’t overly watery, it really was creamy as the name states. Noodles were al dente and not mushy. I did get one crunchy pea in mine, but no one else did.

Ease of Prep – Fairly easy to prep, but you do have to add the contents to the pot of boiling water, so you can’t use the package it comes in as the container. However, you do not have to continuously simmer after adding contents of package, unlike the others that you add directly to the pot.

Click photo to enlarge

Lasagna with Meat Sauce

Taste: (9 / 10)
Texture: (8 / 10)
Ease of Prep: (10 / 10)
Overall Score: (9 / 10)

Awards: 🥈 Second Place

Details

Taste – The flavor was really great! It tasted just like a lasagna sauce and everyone loved it. There was no cheese flavor though, but we didn’t mind at all. The taste kind of reminded me of more of a canned food (like canned ravioli or something along that line) rather than a freeze-dried food. Everyone in my family scored this high for taste.

Texture – Texture was more of a problem for me than my family. They all thought it was good texture. I, on the other hand, am a bit more picky and felt the noodles were a tad too al dente and the sauce was too watery. But my complaints were not big ones and I would be happy to have these added to my emergency food supply.

Ease of Prep – LOVE the ease of prep. Not only does it come in it’s own container to just pour the boiled water into (no extra bowls needed), but it also has a lid which is really nice to have.

Click photo to enlarge

Beef Stroganoff with Noodles

Taste: (10 / 10)
Texture: (10 / 10)
Ease of Prep: (10 / 10)
Overall Score: (10 / 10)

Awards: 🏆 First Place

Details

Taste – Phenomenal flavor without any need to add spices of any kind.

Texture – PERFECT texture, which really surprised us since there were 3 components that could go either way – sauce, noodles and meat. All 3 were fantastic as if I had just cooked it all myself.

Ease of Prep – The prep is definitely ideal for camping and in emergencies. Just boil water, pour in bag, let sit and eat out of bag.

Click photo to enlarge

Dried Whole Egg Powder

Taste: (9 / 10)
Texture: (8 / 10)
Ease of Prep: (8 / 10)
Overall Score: (8 / 10)

Awards: 🏅 Honorable Mention

Details

Taste – The eggs tasted just like eggs, but a little more yolky than if using fresh eggs. I think these would be fantastic with some of their freeze dried vegetables like bell peppers.

Texture – So, because these are a freeze dried egg powder, the eggs were a bit different in texture than fresh. I would describe it as more crumbly. It wasn’t grainy and I was pleasantly surprised when they cooked up just like fresh scrambled eggs.

Ease of Prep – The prep is not as convenient as some as you do have to warm water to reconstitute the eggs before cooking, but you don’t have to boil the water so that saves on fuel. And if you’re like us and live in a region where it hits triple digits in the summer, just set the water outside for a few minutes 😉 You could also heat water in a pan, mix with eggs in a bowl then use that same pan to cook the eggs – that saves on having to use multiple pots/pans.

Additional Note: The single serving size of 2 TBSP is very small. While the calorie count may be accurate (since the taste seems to have more yolk), it is not a whole lot of egg. When we tested, we used 1/4 cup of the freeze dried egg and it was more like one egg. If I were to make this for us for a real breakfast, I would add their freeze dried veggies to stretch it out or use 1/2 cup of the freeze dried egg for a single serving if that is all we were eating. Something to keep in mind when planning out your purchase amount for your family.

While canning and home dehydrating are our preferred methods of food preservation, it is important to have some foods with a longer shelf-life, easily portable, light-weight and easy to prepare. This is why we add freeze-dried foods to our emergency supply.

Give these companies a try and let us know what you think! Want us to review another freeze-dried food company? Contact Us to let let us know!