My favorite trail breakfast consists of three packs of instant wheat cereal and dried fruit and nuts. You just need to boil water to make it. I like to make mine the consistency of soup because the extra liquid helps me rehydrate in the morning and because it makes it …
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Backpacking Recipes: Polenta Mush
Polenta Mush is an amazingly simple one-pot backpacking meal that can be combined with all kinds of different add-ins such as cheese, nuts, dried fruit, spices, dried vegetables, olive oil, butter, honey, maple syrup, or even canned fish to produce a wide variety of breakfast or dinner meals. If you’ve …
Read More »Forget Boiling: How to Cook Pasta and Save Cooking Fuel
Many of us shy away from eating dried pasta on backpacking trips because it takes so long to cook and uses too much stove fuel. But did you know that you don’t have boil dried pasta using the amount of water recommended on the package or for the entire boil time? Simply …
Read More »Freeze Dried vs. Dehydrated Backpacking Meals and Ingredients
Freeze-dried or dehydrated? That is the question. When making your own backpacking meals, is it nobler to buy freeze-dried ingredients or dehydrate them yourself in a food dehydrator? I think it really comes down to how you want to spend your time and how complicated your meals are. I spent one …
Read More »Recipes for Adventure: The Backpacking Chef’s Dehydrated Food Bible
The Backpacking Chef’s backpacking and camping cookbook called Recipes for Adventure is chock full of healthy, hearty, and homemade backpacking recipes. I know this first-hand because I’ve made many of them, like this Ratatoille. But while the meals and snack recipes in Recipes for Adventure are excellent, the real value of …
Read More »Best Backpacking Stoves and Pots for Cooking Simple One Pot Meals
Simple one pot backpacking meals are a great option if you want more variety in your backpacking diet, you want to eat real food with less preservatives, or you want to adapt your meals to seasonal or locally available ingredients that you encounter on your hike. But if your existing stove …
Read More »How to Fight Backpacking Meal Fatigue
Have you even opened your backpacking food bag and lost your appetite at the prospect of eating the same boring meal again? Do yourself a favor and increase the variety of food you bring on backpacking trips. Develop a menu that keeps you interested in eating, so you can refuel with …
Read More »10 Ultralight Backpacking Foods
The best ultralight backpacking foods are high in calories, compact, and fast to prepare. In order to keep your food load as lightweight as possible, you want to carry foods that have 100 calories per ounce or more. One ounce is 28.3 grams, a fact that will help you compare food …
Read More »Logan Bread Recipe
Logan bread is a dense quick bread full of dried fruits and nuts. Named after Mount Logan in the Yukon, Logan Bread’s delicious taste, high-calorie content, indestructibility, and non-perishability make it an ideal backpacking food. I first learned about Logan Bread in 2008 from my friend John on a section …
Read More »How Much Food Should You Pack for a 3 Day Backpacking Trip?
As a rule of thumb, you can figure on using 2 lbs of food per person per day on a 3 season backpacking trip. Depending on your body weight and exertion level, you may need more or less food, but that’s a pretty reliable estimation to begin with. When I …
Read More »Gas Station and Convenience Store Resupply Guide
It’s a sad fact that many of the grocery stores you used to find in small towns along the Appalachian Trail and other hiking trails have been replaced by gas station convenience stores. The quality of food available has suffered and it can be difficult to walk away with anything resembling …
Read More »Reader Poll: Who Makes the Best Freeze-Dried or Pre-Packaged Backpacking Meals?
If you were to look into the foodbags of most hikers, you’d be horrified or amazed, or maybe both. I know a few hikers who only eat pre-processed, pre-packaged meals for months at a time on thru-hikes, others who carefully pre-bag freezer bag meals, and still others who subsist almost entirely …
Read More »Low Sodium Backpacking Meals
Have you ever looked at the nutrition labels on Mountain House and Harmony House backpacking meals and Knorr Rice and Pasta sides. You’ll be appalled by the amount of sodium included in these meals, especially since the other trail foods (nuts, bars, salty snacks) most people eat during the day, also …
Read More »No Cook Backpacking 101
Backpackers are always looking for ways to save pack weight. Some continuously upgrade to the latest lightweight gear, while others remain solely focused on eliminating all but the necessities. Regardless of the motivation, the objective is the same – to lessen the load so that hiking is easier and more …
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