The Honest Kitchen Dog Food Copycat Recipes: 2 Homemade Dehydrated Meals Worth the Effort

Snickers was doing his slow circle around the kitchen on a Tuesday night while I was making myself dinner. Just walking the perimeter, nose up, tail low, like a tiny health inspector. I wasn’t even cooking anything interesting. Pasta with jarred sauce. But he was committed to the patrol.

I’d ordered a sample box of The Honest Kitchen a few days earlier after reading about it on a Cavalier forum. The whole idea sounded odd to me at first. Dehydrated dog food that you rehydrate with water before serving. Like instant oatmeal, but for dogs.

Made with human-grade ingredients and processed at low temperatures instead of the extreme heat they use for regular kibble. I figured I’d try it and see if Snickers noticed a difference.

He noticed. I scooped the dry flakes into his bowl, added warm water, let it sit for five minutes, and put it down.

He ate the entire thing in maybe two minutes and then stood next to the empty bowl staring at me like I’d been holding out on him his entire life.

So naturally, I kept buying it. For about six weeks. Then I pulled up my order history and realized I’d spent almost $90 on what was essentially dehydrated chicken, oats, and vegetables. The food was good. Genuinely good.

But $90 every few weeks for a small Cavalier? I started wondering if I could make something similar in my own kitchen. Turns out, you can. It takes a food dehydrator and a free afternoon, but you absolutely can.

What Makes The Honest Kitchen Different (And What We’re Copying)

Most premium dog food brands cook their food at high temperatures or use extrusion, which is basically forcing ingredients through a machine under extreme heat and pressure. The Honest Kitchen skips all of that. They gently dehydrate whole ingredients at low heat, which removes the moisture but keeps more of the natural nutrients intact. You add warm water before serving and it turns back into a soft, thick meal.

Here’s what separates their food from the average bag of kibble.

Every single ingredient is human-grade. Not “made with human-grade ingredients,” which is a meaningless marketing phrase. The Honest Kitchen was the first pet food company to get FDA approval to actually use the term on their label. That means every ingredient, every facility, every step of the process meets the same safety standards as the food at your grocery store.
Named whole proteins, not mystery meals. Their labels say “chicken” or “turkey” or “beef.” Not chicken meal, not poultry by-product, not animal digest. Just the actual meat.
Real vegetables and fruits mixed in. Carrots, spinach, pumpkin, apples, cranberries, blueberries. If you’ve ever made your own human-grade dog food at home, you’ll recognize most of the ingredient list.
Dehydration instead of extrusion. Low heat preserves vitamins, enzymes, and nutrients that get destroyed in standard kibble manufacturing. It also means the food is shelf-stable without artificial preservatives.

What You Need Before Starting

You don’t need a commercial kitchen. But you do need a food dehydrator. A regular oven set to its lowest temperature can work in a pinch, but a dehydrator gives you even airflow and consistent results. I use a basic Nesco model that cost about $70.

Here’s your equipment list.

Food dehydrator with adjustable temperature (needs to reach at least 155F for meat)
Food processor or blender for grinding dried ingredients into flakes
Large pot for cooking
Baking sheets for spreading food before dehydrating
Airtight containers or vacuum seal bags for storage
Kitchen scale for portioning

One more thing before we get to the recipes. Dehydrated food, whether you buy it or make it, isn’t automatically nutritionally complete without a few supplements. The Honest Kitchen adds a specific vitamin and mineral blend to every formula.

I use a combination of eggshell powder for calcium and a general-purpose dog multivitamin. My vet reviewed both recipes and gave them the thumbs up for regular rotation feeding.

Recipe 1: Chicken & Oat Dehydrated Mix (The Honest Kitchen’s Signature Style)

This one is modeled after The Honest Kitchen’s Whole Grain Chicken recipe, which is their most popular formula. The original contains chicken, organic barley, potatoes, flaxseed, oats, peas, carrots, bananas, parsley, and kelp. I simplified a few things and swapped barley for rolled oats since they’re easier to find and dehydrate well.

Ingredients

Ingredient	Amount
Boneless, skinless chicken breast	2 lbs
Rolled oats (plain, not instant)	2 cups
Carrots	3 medium, diced small
Fresh spinach	2 cups, roughly chopped
Frozen peas	1 cup
Apple	1 medium, cored and diced (no seeds)
Ground flaxseed	3 tablespoons
Dried kelp powder	1/2 teaspoon
Eggshell powder	1.5 teaspoons
Fish oil	1 tablespoon (added at rehydration, not before)
Water	6 cups

Don’t add the fish oil before dehydrating. Oil goes rancid when exposed to low heat for hours. Stir it in when you rehydrate each serving instead.

Steps

Step 1: Cook the Chicken

Place the chicken breasts in a pot with 6 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook for 20 to 25 minutes until the internal temperature hits 165F. Pull the chicken out and set it on a cutting board. Save the broth.

Step 2: Cook the Oats and Vegetables in the Broth

Add the rolled oats, diced carrots, and frozen peas to the chicken broth. Bring to a simmer and cook for 12 to 15 minutes until the oats are soft and the carrots are tender enough to mash with a fork. In the last 2 minutes, stir in the chopped spinach until it wilts.

Step 3: Shred the Chicken Small

While the oats cook, shred the chicken into the smallest pieces you can manage. Two forks work, but honestly I find it faster to pulse it a few times in the food processor. You want it almost ground, not chunky. The Honest Kitchen’s texture is fine and uniform, not like a stew with big pieces.

Step 4: Combine Everything

In a large bowl, mix the shredded chicken, the oat and vegetable mixture, diced apple, ground flaxseed, kelp powder, and eggshell powder. Stir it all together thoroughly. The consistency will be thick, like a dense porridge.

The apple goes in raw. It dehydrates well and adds a slight natural sweetness that mimics what Honest Kitchen does with their fruit additions. Remove all seeds first (and yes, I’ve made this mistake). Apple seeds contain a compound that’s mildly toxic to dogs.

Step 5: Spread on Dehydrator Trays

Spread the mixture onto your dehydrator trays in a thin, even layer. About 1/4 inch thick is what you’re aiming for. If you have parchment paper inserts or fruit leather sheets for your dehydrator, use them. The mixture is wet and will fall through the mesh otherwise.

Step 6: Dehydrate

Set your dehydrator to 155F and run it for 10 to 14 hours. Check it around the 10-hour mark. The food is done when it’s completely dry and brittle. Break a piece in half. If there’s any moisture or softness in the center, keep going. Underdrying is the one thing you can’t afford to get wrong here. Any remaining moisture will cause mold during storage.

Step 7: Grind Into Flakes

Once everything is bone dry and cooled to room temperature, break the dried sheets into chunks and run them through your food processor. Pulse until you get a coarse, flaky texture similar to what comes out of an Honest Kitchen box. Don’t over-process it into a fine powder. You want small flakes, not dust.

Step 8: Store

Transfer the ground flakes into airtight containers or vacuum-sealed bags. Label with the date.

Storage

Room temperature in a sealed container for up to 3 weeks. Vacuum sealed at room temperature for up to 3 months. Freezer in a vacuum-sealed bag for up to 6 months. The key is keeping moisture out. If you live somewhere humid, go with vacuum sealing. It makes a real difference.

Rehydrating and Serving

Scoop your portion of dry flakes into your dog’s bowl. Add warm water at a 1 to 1.5 ratio (1 cup of flakes gets about 1 to 1.5 cups of warm water). Stir it up and let it sit for 8 to 10 minutes. It’ll absorb the water and turn into a thick, soft meal. Stir in the fish oil right before serving.

This batch makes roughly 5 to 6 cups of dried flakes, which rehydrates into about 12 to 15 cups of food.

Serving Guidelines (Rehydrated)

Dog Weight	Daily Amount (Rehydrated)	Meals Per Day
10 lbs	1 cup	Split into 2
15 lbs	1.25 cups	Split into 2
20 lbs	1.5 cups	Split into 2
25 lbs	1.75 cups	Split into 2
30 lbs	2 cups	Split into 2

Start with these amounts and weigh your dog every two weeks. Adjust up or down based on whether they’re gaining or losing. Dehydrated food is calorie-dense, so it’s easy to overfeed if you eyeball it.

Recipe 2: Turkey & Sweet Potato Dehydrated Mix (Grain-Free Version)

This one is based on The Honest Kitchen’s Grain-Free Turkey recipe, which uses turkey, flaxseed, potatoes, spinach, carrots, coconut, apples, eggs, cranberries, and kelp. It’s their go-to for dogs with grain sensitivities. I swapped regular potatoes for sweet potatoes since they dehydrate better and added pumpkin because it shows up in several of their other grain-free formulas.