A Guide to Planning Nutritious Backpacking Meals

Keeping fueled during long days out on the trail is essential, however it’s not always easy to find options that tick all the boxes of being lightweight, affordable, simple to prepare, tasty and nutritious.

So, we’ve put together some ideas to give you inspiration and hopefully making planning meals and snacks for your next backpacking trip a little easier.

Things to Take into Account When Choosing Backpacking Food

Hiking is a great hobby, but it can also be quite taxing on the body especially if you’re doing long days, covering steep sections of trail all while carrying a heavy pack, so when it comes to choosing the food to take with you on your adventures there’s a few key points to consider.

1. Nutrition

You want to ensure that you’re fueling your body with the right nutrients to keep you feeling good and full of energy. The last thing you want when out climbing mountains is to feel bloated and sluggish, so a bit of thought is required when it comes to choosing foods that are going to give you the nutrition and energy you need while out exploring. Foods that are calorically dense, including a range of carbohydrates, protein and fats, fiber for a healthy gut, and salts to replace electrolytes are all good things to focus on when it comes to covering your bases on the trail.

2. Weight

Another important consideration when choosing your backpacking food is how much the food weighs. When you’re out on the trail, you don't want additional weight to carry when slogging it up that big hill! Now, some ultralighters will go to great lengths to get their pack weight down (including cutting half the handle off their toothbrush!), so whether that’s your style or if you don’t take it quite that far, a good tip is to choose foods that are high in nutrients but also lightweight and to remove any excess food packaging.

3. Convenience

When making food choices for backpacking, be sure to think about how easy it is to carry (most food will need to be able to withstand a bit of a beating in your backpack), how much preparation is involved, and how easy it is to eat. If you don’t like to stop often you might want to consider foods that can be eaten one-handed on the go. Or if you’re anything like us and are starving and ready to refuel as soon as you get into camp and don’t want to wait long to prepare dinner, consider foods that will cook quickly.

The Best Backpacking Foods

Nutrition should be at the forefront of your choices to ensure you are getting a range of nutrients across different food groups. Aim to go for the highest calorie foods that are the most nutritious (however in saying that if you only have access to foods that are less nutrient dense, any calories are better than no calories at all).

Here’s a list of some great calorically dense foods:

Carbohydrates
Good quality carbohydrates are essential for fuelling your activity, these should come from foods with a low Glycaemic Index that will provide a slow and steady release of energy to keep you going for hours.

Options:

• Oats (as the name suggests ‘quick oats’ cook faster and can also be soaked overnight)
• Wholemeal bread/wraps
• Multigrain cereals
• Instant mash
• Couscous
• Rice noodles
• Banana chips
• Oatcakes

Protein
Protein provides the building blocks for repair and helps your body recover after a long day hiking.

Here are some options high in protein:

• Beans (you can buy dehydrated beans that will cook much faster)
• Chickpeas
• Lentils
• Bulgur Wheat
• Barely
• Amaranth
• Chia seeds
• Flax seeds
• Oats
• Farro
• Hemp hearts
• Nuts and nut butters
• Protein powder (you can also stir this into porridge, etc)
• Energy bars
• Homemade energy balls (these are a great way to pack lots of different nutrient dense foods into an easy to eat snack!)

Fats
Often overlooked (or avoided), fats are vital for your body and help with absorption of a number of key vitamins. Of course we’re talking about healthy fats (unsaturated), which will provide energy, protect your organs, support cell growth and can lower LDL Cholesterol.

These can be found in things like:

• Nuts & seeds (especially chia and flax seeds which are high in Omega 3s)
• Avocados
• Plant oils (eg, Olive oil, Peanut oil, Walnut oil, Sesame oil)

*A great tip for oil is to buy or find a small plastic bottle and fill this to bring with you as you only need a little and it’s not practical to bring a normal sized bottle. You can then drizzle this on to dinners etc to bulk up the calorie content as well as the nutrition. Another great option is to make some homemade backpacking recipes before you leave and include some of these ingredients into them.

Vitamins and Minerals
A good idea is to try and pack out a few fresh ingredients with you so you can at least enjoy these on the first day or two of your backpacking trip. Some good options are:

• Carrots
• Peas
• Broccoli
• Apples
• Other seasonal fruit
• Vegetable pastes and powders can also be a great option as these are often nutrient packed and are easy to carry.

Some great nutrient boosters to add into homemade backpacking meals or to sprinkle onto camp meals include:

• Nutritional yeast
• Miso paste
• Spirulina
• Turmeric
• Cacao
• Matcha
• Superfood blends
• Protein powder

Salts and Electrolytes
When you’re out hiking, working hard to make it up the mountain, it’s important at the end of the day to replace the electrolytes and salt that you’ve lost throughout the day – often you lose more than you realize. Some good options are:

• Salted nuts
• Seaweed
• Electrolytes tablets or powders
• Himalayan salt (add to camp meals)

Planning What You’ll Need and Different Options

It can be hard to know just how much food you’ll need, especially on a multi-day hiking trip. A good way to plan this is by looking at the number of days you’ll be backpacking, then working out how many calories you’ll need each day (you will need additional calories than what you normally would as you will be highly active and burning much more energy), the nutrient content, and then work this into the meals and snacks needed for the day.

There are a few different options when it comes to how to make up the meals and snacks you’ll need for your trip and you’ll likely find that a mix of all 3 options will help you maximize on convenience as well as saving space during your trip.

The options are:

A. Bringing whole foods to make meals on the trail
Things like oats to make porridge, or rice noodles, instant mash and other ingredients to make breakfasts and dinners at camp.

Whole foods are a great option that most hikers take advantage of as they’re cheaper, healthier and can usually be found in most places you’ll be resupplying at along the way. The downsides can be that they’re often heavier and take longer to cook/prepare.

B. Pre-packaged backpacker meals or ready to eat foods
This can be things like store-bought crackers, biscuits, granola bars, sauces and soup sachets or complete dehydrated backpacker meals.
These foods are usually convenient quick and easy to eat, and are often lighter. However, they are usually more expensive, less nutritious and are not always available at resupply points.

C. Homemade meals and snacks (prepared beforehand)
If you have the time and resources, preparing food beforehand can be an excellent option. You can make your own trail mix or energy balls, dehydrate fruit and other things to snack on, or even make and dehydrate full meals.

This gives you the option to choose/create your own flavors for things, and is often cheaper, healthier and a lighter option (when dehydrated). With this option though, it requires a bit of additional planning, can be time consuming and there is no option to resupply along the way.

Easily Accessible Foods (found in most stores)

These foods are great for stocking up on prior to your trip and can usually be found in most stores along the way for resupplying. A few tips when choosing foods are to go for things that have a long shelf life, won’t get damaged easily, and to avoid things like tinned foods or things in glass containers - see if you can find them in sachets instead. You can also take things out of their packaging and put them into ziplock bags to avoid unnecessary heavy packaging or to ration things out.

• Oats
• Nut butters
• Dried fruit or fruit leathers
• Baby food pouches (easy to eat, cheap and nutritious)
• Noodles/ramen
• Rice/pasta/couscous
• Nuts and seeds
• Trail mix
• Candy (for energy)
• Instant mash
• Sauce packets
• Bean or pulse sachets
• Ready meal pouches
• TVP – textured vegetable protein
• Nutritional yeast
• Herbs, seasoning and condiments

Who Said Backpacking Food has to be Boring!?

Getting into camp each night and eating the same tasteless mush can be so disappointing. Taking a few extras to spruce up your meals can make all the difference.

Here are some options to make things tastier:

• Soup mix sachets (powdered)
• Nutritional yeast
• Tomato puree
• Stock cubes
• Salt and pepper
• Onion and garlic powder
• Chilli flakes
• A range of other dried herbs and spices

*You can also make your own spice mixes using your favorite flavors – just mix in a Ziplock bag

Breakfast Ideas

Start your day right by fueling your body with nutritious carbohydrates for sustained energy, as well as protein for muscle repair.

• Oatmeal
• Wrap with nut butter and banana
• Oaty granola bars (easy if you want to just get up and go in the morning)

You can add extra nutrition to breakfast meals by adding things like protein powder or supergreens powder to your oats or sprinkling seeds and dried fruit on top or in your wrap.

Lunches

Often when you get in the groove of hiking you don’t want to have to stop long to prepare and eat lunches so having options that are quick and easy is a must have:

• Tortillas – these are a go-to for hikers as you can make any type of sweet or savoury version to suit your tastes and since they’re already flat they don’t get quite so damaged kicking around in your pack.
• A range of snacks – if you’re on the go sometimes having a selection of snack type foods can make a great middle of the day meal option, some of our favorites include:
• Oaty biscuits
• Wholewheat crackers with jam, dehydrated hummus (or any other spread you like!)
• Granola or protein bars
• Energy balls
• Trail mix with dried fruit, nuts and seeds and chocolate chips
• ‘Overnight’ oats – you can make this in the morning and then enjoy at lunchtime for a snack to keep your energy levels sustained for the rest of the day

Dinners

At dinner time it’s important to replenish and provide your body with as many nutrients as possible for recovery overnight. It is important to try and get a little bit of everything, carbohydrates, protein, fats and to replace salts lost during the day.

You can buy backpacking meals that usually just require hot water for preparation so are relatively fast, easy to make and are usually lightweight.

However, if you don’t have the option of these meals or simply prefer to make your own meals, here’s our guide to base building your meals off:

Step 1: Carbohydrate: This will usually be the base of your meal so something like rice noodles, couscous, wraps, etc. are great options

Step 2: Protein: Some excellent options to increase the protein in a meal include things like TVP (textured vegetable protein), or dehydrated legumes (chickpeas, lentils, beans, etc.)

Step 3: Flavor: This is what really makes the meal come to life and changing up the flavor gives you variety in your meals even though the base and protein might be the same. You can use things like, soup mixes, sauce sachets, herb mixes, nutritional yeast, etc.

Step 4: Add any other extras you like. You can use this as an opportunity to bump up the nutrition of the meal and may want to add things like dehydrated vegetables, chia or flax seeds (healthy fats), oil, turmeric, miso, dried mushrooms, etc.

Food is an important aspect of backpacking and being fueled properly allows you to feel and perform your best, which ultimately makes the whole experience that much better.

We hope this guide has given you some tips on how to create healthy, practical, tasty, inexpensive meals on trail, so you can head out with confidence on your next backpacking trip!