At the end of a hard day's hike, a hot meal can be an appreciated treat. While keeping weight down and packing smart is essential on the trail, you can prepare simple, healthy and delicious hot meals on backpacking trips. With a bit of creativity, you can move beyond instant soups and opt for flavorful and calorie dense breakfasts and dinners with even the most basic camping gear.
Calories
The first thing to consider when planning hot backpacking meals is calories. If you're hiking all day, you'll need a lot of them, and you should aim for 125 to 130 calories per ounce of food, according to backpacking site AdventureAlan.com. This will help you minimize weight and maximize nutrition on your trip. Nuts, seeds, dried fruit, chocolate, peanut butter and hard cheese can all help to add calories to your hot meals on the trail.
Considerations
Prepare your hot trail meals in quart size reusable zipper storage bags, recommends AdventureAlan.com. Opt for the heavy-duty freezer bags to reduce breakage. Add boiling water directly to the bag to prepare hot cereal or other grain based meals. These travel well, add limited weight and eliminate the need to carry additional cooking gear. While you can buy freeze dried meals for backpacking, making your own is an affordable and practical choice.
Types
Most hikers will plan for a hot breakfast and hot dinner at camp, while eating lunch hiking on the trail. Hot breakfast options are usually hot cereals. Before you leave, combine oatmeal, muesli or another hot cereal with powdered full fat milk, dehydrated fruit, nuts, sugar and spices. Keep in mind that you'll want a generous portion. For dinners on the trail, consider basics, including instant mashed potatoes, whole wheat couscous and instant rice. Add dehydrated vegetables, spices, whole milk powder and cheese powder.
Significance
Trail food needs to contain not only adequate calories, but also adequate nutrition. Include whole grains in your hot meals for complex carbohydrates. Look to easily packed protein sources, including hard cheeses, nuts and nut butters, jerky or summer sausage. Although fresh fruit and vegetables can be heavy and hard to carry, dehydrated and freeze dried fruits and vegetables are an ideal choice, offering a lot of nutrition and calories per ounce.
Benefits
A hot meal on the trail can be more filling and can help you warm up in cold weather, according to Ultimate-Ultralight-Backpacking.com. If you're backpacking for several days, hot meals can help to provide you with a relaxing ritual at the end of the day and a good start to a new day. While some ultra-light backpackers opt to forgo even a small alcohol stove, planning hot meals also allows you to plan for coffee, tea or calorie dense hot chocolate, suggests AdventureAlan.com.
Member Comments