Good Backpacking Dinners

[Parma]

I'm always looking for good meals for backpacking trips. I'm good with my breakfast, lunch, and snacks...I'm interested in what you guys eat for dinner. I've done the freeze dried meals, and am looking for something different/better.
So what are some things yall eat when backpacking? Obviously I like simple/light meals, good tasting is preferable too.
Here's what I eat typically on multi day trips:
Breakfast- Cliff bar and packet or 2 of oatmeal.
Lunch- i stole this from my brother and love it...croissant, pepperoni, cucumber, and jalapeno cream cheese. it packs quite nicely and it tastes really good! Some use a bagel instead of the croissant.
Dinner- it's usually been a mountain house or backpackers pantry.

I've seen some stuff in magazines, but they usually aren't very practical. One had a recipe for french toast...it said to being a loaf of bread! not sure how they pack, but a loaf of bread wouldn't work for me.

Let me know what you guys do

 

[Nick]

I keep it simple. Easy to plan that way and easy to keep things on hand for short notice trips.

My typical backpacking menu:

Breakfast: Dried fruit, nuts and Trader Joe's Instant Coffee. TJ's is also an excellent source for the fruit and nuts, especially if you don't like your fruit candied and/or really expensive.

Lunch: Jerky, cheese, nut butter, dried fruit, nuts, lara bars, kind bars, etc. Whatever I feel like snacking on.

Dinner: A package of loaded baked mashed potatoes and a 5 oz. pouch of salmon in it. Add cheese if I have it for delicious gooeyness. Cheap, easy and nutritious. Those potato packs are usually closer to $1 at the local grocery store. I buy the salmon by the case on Amazon though.

 

[Seldom Seen Anderson]

Breakfast- Brown Sugar Oatmeal
Lunch- Snacks like Nick said...add granola bars and single pack of PB
Dinner- One of my new favorites freeze dried hamburger and then a pack of Ramen Noodles

 

[Vegan.Hiker]

This won't help you much but there are 4 Backpackers Pantry meals that are labeled vegan (Pad Thai, Louisiana Rice and Beans, Spaghetti, and Katmandu Curry). Of those 4, only the pad thai and spaghetti are edible imo. There's a company called Good To Go though that now makes vegan meals but they are really expensive ($10.50 a meal!!). I may try them anyways since I'm really getting sick of the pad thai.

One of my favorite trail foods are fresh avocados, they're calorie, fat, and protein dense. They taste great especially with a little salt sprinkled and give you lots of energy.

Other things I pack are lots of dried fruit (usually mandarin oranges and pineapple), fresh fruit (apples, pears), dried banana chips, candied pecans, clif bars, peanut butter filled pretzel nuggets, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, oatmeal (in a used and cleaned backpackers pantry bag), ramen noodles, etc.

 

[Nick]

@Vegan.Hiker - How do you keep your avocados from becoming a beat up mess? That would be a great trail snack but I'm afraid it would be beat to death and broken apart after a few miles in the pack.

 

[Mike K]

Hmm...dinners. I agree with you. It's tough to find simple, light, tasty, and new/different meals. I don't have any great ideas for you but I'll share some of my experiences and maybe you'll find one new thing to try out. =)

Masaman Curry - My girlfriend has made this. Tasty but it's little heavy and requires prep work. Consider for the first night of a short trip.
Fancy Couscous - She's also made some fancied up couscous Ziploc meals. Cranberries, chicken, nuts, and honey maybe?
Fish - great idea if you like it and are near fish-able waters.

Other go-to foods for me (that are pretty common):

Instant potatoes
Ramen - some times I'll add bacon crumbles (learned from @steve)
Mountain House
Triscuit, salami or beef stick, and cheese (if cooler temps)

I've also done heavy "fancy" meals if my pack is light and the trip is short...usually for the first night only and usually precooked. Stuff like:
Tin foil dinners, pizza, chipoltle pork burritos, steak...

Unrelated to dinners, but, I love my desserts and drinks, too. My current favorite powdered drinks are the Hawaiian Punch ones. I love Swiss Miss Dark Chocolate packets but the weight adds up. So I've been taking Good Earth Sweet and Spicy Tea which is way lighter. It's sweet enough for me and doesn't need sugar added. And then my favorite desserts are Peanut M&Ms, GORP, and a variety of mini candy bars. Or if you're backpacking with @Tess, sometimes she'll make (and SHARE) some awesome cheesecake.

 

[Vegan.Hiker]

@Nick They're really not that fragile, the skin is rather thick and tough so they won't get punctured. They could get a little squished if you put them in the bottom of your pack but putting them towards the top has worked fine for me.

 

[John Goering]

We try to keep things simple also. Breakfast is usually oatmeal that my wife makes from quick oats, freeze dried strawberries/raspberries/blue berries, cinnamon, and brown sugar-sometimes with dried apples also. On multi-day trips of late, we throw in a few Mountain House Breakfast Skillets. Coffee is a freeze dried Colombian french roast.

Lunch: jerky, nuts, dried fruit, crackers, trail mix and usually something like a Cliff bar.

Dinner: almost always Mountain House. For those that have Costco access, every so often they have 10 packs for $40. Not sure I can come up with anything a lot cheaper than $2.00/person. We also have a freeze dried desert with most dinners. Raspberry Crumble is the favorite.

With the exception of the freeze dried meals, a significant amount of all items are prepackaged-vacuum packed-and thrown in the freezer. Makes packing food a short exercise.

 

[Parma]

@Vegan.Hiker avocados! i never thought of that! they are like the super food, packed with a ton of nutrients and mega healthy.
love it!
i'm adding an avocado next trip for sure.

and i always love the taste of an apple after 2 or 3 days backpacking. a good ole granny smith tastes amazing every time.

 

[Nick]

Speaking of superfoods, don't forget to gather some dandelions along the trail. They taste best before they flower.

 

[Mike K]

Speaking of superfoods, don't forget to gather some dandelions along the trail. They taste best before they flower.

 

[Ben]

i find planning a week long backpack with some thing like mountain house to be prohibitively expensive. so having found ways around them, i don't use them at all any more.

what i do.
breakfast, quick oatmeal and brown sugar.
for dinners i prepare my own meat. i boil chicken, shred it, and dehydrate it, and i fry hamburger and dehydrate it. those give you a few options.

chili. with the hamburger, instant refried beans, taco seasoning, may be cheese powder, may be macaroni noodles for chili mac.

i also make the instant mashed potatoes but with hamburger added.

spaghetti. with the hamburger dehydrated spaghetti sauce, regular spaghetti noodles. i enjoy mine with some dehydrated crushed pineapple. cheese powder can be nice also.

chicken and rice. the dehydrated chicken, minute rice, and some asian sauce packet. a sweet & sour, spicy orange, or some thing like that. i also like some of the dehydrated pineapple in this one too.

chicken noodle soup. the dehydrated chicken, ramen, and a vegetable soup mix.


i get every thing that i use from the bulk food section at winco, except the meat, and the spaghetti sauce, which i also dehydrate my self. i've found that corner of winco to be the best thing in the world for backpacking food. i'm pretty sure i even come out below $2/meal this way. and i'll eat a whole mountain house bag by my self.

i believe these meals would all work in the freezer bag, just add water system, but i just cook them in the pot because i prefer washing it out to carrying around the trash.


the spaghetti is my favorite, it's delicious.

 

[Nick]

Speaking of superfoods, don't forget to gather some dandelions along the trail. They taste best before they flower.

They're loaded with good stuff and supposedly at near-vegetable status in other parts of the world. Toss some in with your next tin foil backcountry fish.

 

[Nick]

Some good ideas there, @ben cowan. I've lost the motivation to dehydrate lately, but I might have to try that when I get it back.

 

[Ben]

i'm financially motivated Nick

 

[Joey]

One of my favorite backcountry meals is pasta with pesto sauce. Angel hair pasta is the best, and easiest/fastest to cook. I bring a jar of pesto sauce, but I know they sell pesto paste, and there is a form of dehydrated pesto as well. The real stuff is packed with calories. Of course I also always bring parmesan cheese, which I use on everything. I also always have tortilla wraps with me, and love making pasta burritos. You can use Tortilla wraps with everything.

Another cheap easy meal is to mix the Shrimp Ramen noodles with Instant Loaded Potatoes. Simply cook up the ramen, then add the instant potatoes in after the noodles are cooked. Carb overload!

 

[Ben]

^^i meant to mention how well tortillas backpack

 

[balzaccom]

WE finally bought a dehydrator to help solve this problem. And while we haven't had perfect success with it, one meal has been the best dinner we've ever eaten backpacking. WE buy a Super Carnitas Burrito from Tanya's Taqueria--top rated small place in our town. We slice up the burrito like a loaf of bread, and then lay it out on the dehydrator for a day.

Pack it in a ziplock and take it on the trip. Add two cups of boiling water and let it re-hydrate for 15 minutes or so at 10,000 feet.

Way better than any of our commercial freeze dried dinners.

Now if they just made freeze dried Lagunitas IPA to go with it....

 

[John Goering]

Now if they just made freeze dried Lagunitas IPA to go with it....

The powdered alcohol is a real deal now so if there is enough demand, it could happen. That said, I would have big questions as to whether you could actually drink it and it's probably too dilute to use for stove fuel.

 

[andyjaggy]

I did the freeze dried meals up until recently, but have gotten to the point where I just can't justify the money for them. I find the Bear Creek Country kitchen soups quite good and very reasonably priced, add a package of chicken or salmon for a good meal. The only drawback is they take a while to cook, you can't just dump hot water in the package and call it good. I've decided I would rather spend 10 extra minutes cleaning up than 10 extra dollars for the convenience of the freeze dried stuff.