Review of Mountain House Freeze Dried Ground Beef

As I said in this post I've been using some of the freeze dried products I have on hand to rotate the stock and to try them out. Today I'm going to talk about Mountain House Freeze Dried Ground Beef. It is fully cooked and very lean, as might be expected for a product to be stored long term at room temperature. The can contains about 22 half cup servings or about 11 cups of cooked ground beef., per the label. A web search shows a pound of uncooked ground beef is approximately 2 cups. 80% lean ground beef is what I use for most recipes that call for browning and draining off the fat (Pasta, chili, etc) so that would equate to approximately 1.6 cups of this product per pound and I would most likely round it down to 1.5 cups for a pound equivalent.

I emailed Mountain House about storage of the products after opening and was told to treat them like any other food, refrigerate for up to a week or freeze. So the unused portion was placed in a zip lock bag and frozen.

So far I've used it to make "quick and easy chili" and "one pot pasta". These are camping recipes I've used for some time as they take one pot, minimal prep and are ready fast. They are so convenient I now make them at home too. That's what happens as you get older. I plan on posting these recipes with pics in the near future.

The good points of this product are it's ability to be stored long term, it's low fat content makes it go further in recipes and it's ease of prep. It is real ground beef and has the taste and texture as such. So far it has worked fine in any recipe using browned ground beef that I've tried.

To me the only negatives are it's high price per pound (which is to be expected for a speciality product like this) and the fact it is only available in the #10 can. While that may be good for larger groups, in an emergency situation storing the unused portion may be problematic if there are only a few of you. I do wish Mountain House would make this available in the pouches with only a cup of product.

If this product in the current size available would meet your needs, then I would wholeheartedly recommend it.