Idahoan Premium Hash Browns

Shredded potato in a light, easy to carry dehydrated form. Used alone or with other ingredients it creates a genuine potato experience that satisfies the desire for "real" food on extended trips.

You've seen plenty of folks on trail eating instant mashed potatoes. Maybe even eaten a few bags yourself. On the same rack at the store that has those pouches you may find these beauties hiding in plain sight. Nothing more than shredded potato, but your imagination is the only limit as far as what they can become.

Prep:

Package directions say to put dry potato in a bowl and add boiling water, stir, cover, and let sit for 8-10 minutes. My field prep process involved putting a single portion of potato into my silicon muffin mold and adding water from my coffee boil. I poked it with a spork and let it sit uncovered while I drank some coffee.

Package directions say to add oil to a hot pan, then add potato, cook for about 5 minutes, flip and cook for a minute. My field process involved adding a squirt of olive oil and dumping the potato into a pan I was hoping not to melt over my stove and gently frying for a long time mixing it around with a spork now and again.

Added flavor is definitely needed as the product is just potato. At the least you will want to add salt and pepper, but adding other ingredients really adds to the experience. For this batch I chopped up a few tiny red peppers I'd carried along. This was morning of day 4 and fresh veggies were a nice treat.

Packaging:

If you intend to use all four portions at one time you can leave the product in its packaging; a light plastic pouch. It is not resealable though so for single portions repackaging may work better. I use lightweight zip bags to carry individual portions. I don't pour boiling water into those bags though!

Ingredients & Nutrition:

It really is a bag of potatoes with some oils and preservatives. Those who oppose those additions will have to dry their own or look elsewhere. Sorry for the bad flash that wiped out the soy warning. I added my own in post production :p

To be honest, I didn't spend much time reading the nutrition label before deciding to try this product. If I had I may have skipped it since I'm fat fueling these days and these babies are all about the carbs.

Conclusion:

I've only begun to explore what I can do with these potatoes and I am sold. Doing just the obvious frying in a pan is a wonderful thing. Being just potato without added flavors is a drawback if you are uninspired, but to a trail chef they present a sturdy canvas to paint a meal on. I'm thinking soups and stews have potential. Of course all manner of things can be fried up with these and rolled into a tortilla.

If you are no longer willing to pretend that the mush in a standard prepared breakfast pouch is hash browns these Idahoan Hash Browns are the real deal. Yes, you will have to cook them. That means a pan for frying or you'll need to boil them for a good long while, but the effort is worth it when you get the texture of real food in your mouth. For folks who go out for a night or two it may not matter much, but after a week or more the satisfaction of food that feels real in your mouth does wonders to keep the spirits high.

My last thought on these things is that you should try out your plans for them at home first. This is not an instant meal and you will need to do more than just add water. Figure stuff out at home so you don't go hungry on trail. Bon appotato!