Barry Farm Cheddar Cheese Powder

Cheddar cheese in powder form with flavor comparable to boxed mac and cheese or cheesy popcorn. Good base for cheesy trail dinners. I would recommend for both making freezer bag meals or provisioning pot meals.

Whether you make individual dehydrated meals in a bag or like to mix up dinner in a pot for the whole crew Barry Farm's Cheddar Cheese Powder is a great start to making a delicious cheese sauce on the trail.

They sell a lot of it for flavoring popcorn, but it isn't intended to be used as a complete stand alone sauce. It does work great at providing a flavorful base to get you started and with a little experimenting you can come up with applications that suit your tastes.

Alone the product has a very strong cheese flavor I find familiar from cheese popcorn or boxed mac and cheese dinners. It is a very fine powder that mixes easily with liquids without clumping. Mixed with NIDO Dry Whole Milk it takes on a much creamier flavor and a few drops of canola or other low flavor oil can produce an almost buttery texture. (Olive oil overwhelms the cheese flavor so I don't recommend using that.)

Once you've created a basic sauce that fits your tastes you can create a variety of meals by swapping out different meats, veggies, and starches. Both my wife and three-year-old daughter say the cheesy dinners I've made for them with this product are one of their favorite on-trail meals.

The product comes in a minimally packaged one pound bag so you'll need to store it in something else once opened. When I purchased it in February of '14 it came with an expiration of February '15 so using up the entire pound that fast may be a challenge. Kept tightly sealed in a zip bag I have not noticed any loss of flavor or texture to this point.

I haven't tried making any cheese popcorn with this stuff, but if you like to make your own meals on trail I can definitely recommend the Barry Farm's Cheddar Powder. It it nice for adding some variety on a longer trip when even the chili mac is starting to get boring.

Ingredients: Whey, Buttermilk Solids, Cheese (Granular and Cheddar (Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes)), Whey Protein Concentrate, Salt, Sodium Phosphate, Citric Acid, Yellow 5 & 6, Lactic Acid, Enzyme

Nutrition: (based on 1/4 cup portion. I use less per serving)

Calories 49, Calories from fat 9, Total fat 1g, Saturated fat 1g, Cholesterol 6mg, Sodium 482mg, Total carbs 8g, Dietary fiber 1g, Protein 2g

Sample application for single serving freezer bag meal:

3 Tbsp Barry Farm Cheddar Powder

1 Tbsp Nido Whole Dry Milk

1.5 Cup Dehydrated ditalini

.75 Cup Dehydrated ground beef with onion powder

.25 Cup Dehydrated broccoli