No Cook Backpacking | 15+ Easy No Cook Backpacking Lunches

Lunch on the trail should be easy, quick, and energy-dense. Eating a large meal in the afternoon can slow you down, so your strategy is to eat light and often by snacking during the day and having a light meal for lunch. These cold-water prep meals are packed with complex carbohydrates, are quick to make, and are incredibly delicious.

Here are a few easy options –

Trail Salads

Who says you can’t have a salad on the trail? Salads are refreshing, restorative, quick, and light. Here’s a glance at some of our favorite cold soak salads.

1. Mojo Mango Bowl – 121 Cal/Oz

This bright and warming Cuban-inspired trail salad features cabbage, black beans, crisped quinoa, and mango chunks marinated in a citrus Mojo sauce. ¡Buen Provecho!

2. Pacific Crest Vinaigrette – 133 Cal/Oz

This is the answer to a fresh salad on the trail. Made with locally grown freeze-dried broccoli, slivered almonds, sweet cranberries, and plump raisins marinated in a zesty vinaigrette.

3. Hop Pea Slop – 138 Cal/Oz

Do you love peas? This protein-packed salad contains a generous amount of freeze-dried organic sweet peas with chopped carrots, onion, celery flakes, and walnuts in a dairy-free ranch dressing. The herbaceous punchy flavor of dill and onion makes this salad a winner.

4. Waldorf Salad – 144 Cal/Oz

This powerhouse salad will fill you up! The Swiss immigrant, Mr. Tschirky, known as “Oscar of the Waldorf,” is credited with creating this famous dish in 1893. Our trail version of this popular salad features freeze-dried organic granny smith apple chunks, raisins, diced celery, and crunchy walnuts tossed in a creamy eggless dressing. Give it a try!

5. Open Sky Yasai – 130 Cal/Oz

If you love stir fry, you have to try this cold version made with cabbage, broccoli, peas, and carrot marinated in a ginger sesame vinaigrette. Delicious as a salad or a tortilla wrap for lunch.

6. Lemony Herb Quinoa Salad – 123 Cal/Oz

Baked quinoa crisps paired with tangy, clean flavors of lemon, parsley, thyme, flaked celery, and carrot. Tossed with thinly sliced almonds for a tender crunch. Delicious and uber-healthy.

7. Lazy Lentil Salad – 123 Cal/Oz

This sweet and zesty salad is made for those blazing hot summer days. Flaked lentils, sunflower seeds, freeze-dried organic apple chunks, and sweet cranberries dressed in vinaigrette.

8. Fiesta Quinoa Salad – 123 Cal/Oz

Baked quinoa, freeze dried sweet corn & black bean flakes in our baja dressing. Delicious as a salad or as a soft taco. 

Dips & Spreads with Bread

Spreads are another quick option for a light lunch. Look for dense bread and sturdy crackers that will hold up to packing.

Dense Bread

• Bavarian Multi Grain Bread
• Bagel
• Tortilla
• Pita
• English Muffin

Sturdy Crackers

• Rye Crackers
• Flax Seed Crackers
• Wasa
• Sesame Sticks
• Triscuits

9. On the Go Garbanzo – 126 Cal/Oz

This quick and delicious no-cook spread crafted with garbanzo beans, crunchy walnuts, carrots, and diced celery in a creamy dill dressing makes a wonderful on-the-go trail-side lunch. Pair with crackers/bread, or enjoy it as a salad. It’s packed with complex carbohydrates, healthy fats, and protein to keep your energy levels up. At 530 calories per pouch, it’s very filling.

10. Instant Hummus –  138 Cal/Oz

Hummus offers a rich source of complex carbohydrates and fat. This dried mix is seasoned with cumin, pepper, lemon, and garlic for a robust flavor.

11. Pesto Herbilicous – 153 Cal/Oz

This non-dairy walnut herb pesto tastes delicious on just about anything. Spread it on bread or crackers, or use it as a seasoning mix for noodles, rice, couscous, and flaked potatoes.

12. Sunny Sunflower Spread – 139 Cal/Oz

This seasoned mixture of ground black beans, sweet corn, and sunflower seeds makes a delicious spread for crackers. Enjoy this spread with fresh trail sprouts.

13. Cheese Powder – 175 Cal/Oz

If you don’t want to worry about fresh cheese turning rancid, the next best version is powdered cheese, to which you add water. We make a pure organic sharp cheddar cheese in three variations: spicy, herby, and Pub Cheese. To make a cheese sauce, add 3 Tbsp. of water to the included packet, seal shut, knead, and squeeze onto crackers or bread. Spicy Vegan Squeezy is our non-dairy (vegan) cheese sauce.

Cheese is excellent for adding flavor and fat calories to dishes.

• Aged fresh hard dairy cheeses may keep in your pack for a few days when temperatures are cooler outside (less than 50 degrees Fahrenheit). Look for sharp cheddar, gouda, and parmesan. We don’t recommend packing cheese during warm weather due to the likelihood of the cheese melting and the chance of bacteria multiplying and causing illness.

14. Backpacker’s Peanut Butter Powder – 150 Cal/Oz

Rather than carrying around individual nut butter squeeze packets, try peanut butter mix. You can make as much as you need by mixing it with water. Look for powders that contain fat. Many commercial powdered peanut butter brands are defatted for dieters. The peanut butter powder we carry retains a high percentage of fat and is made from U.S-grown organic roasted peanuts.

Add dried fruit pieces such as raisins, cranberries, cherries, and mango and roll it up for a sweet treat.

Chia Seed Puddings

We’ve written before about the benefits of backpacking with chia seed. Chia seed comes alive with flavor when paired with flaked coconut and fruit.

15. Coconut Chia Peel – 123 Cal/Oz

Coconut Chia Peel is our most popular chia meal for a good reason. The combination of coconut, banana, mango, and dates makes for a sweet and creamy meal that is loaded with fruit carbohydrates, protein, and fat. Not a fan of banana or chia? Bear Patch Cobbler is delicious cold as is cereal!

Cold Cereals

16. Blueberry Vanilla Crunch  – 128 Cal/Oz

Why not enjoy cold cereal for lunch? Muesli or granola cereal is fast, tasty, and loaded with calories. Outdoor Herbivore makes two kinds of calorie-dense cold cereal, fruit and nut muesli and blueberry vanilla crunch. Both are packed with fruit, nuts, and seeds mixed with instant organic soy milk.  All you have to do is add water, stir, and enjoy.

 

Make a cereal mix

Muesli or Granola cereals made with whole-grain ingredients, nuts, and seeds contain the most calories. For the milk powder, look for instant ones to prevent clumps and graininess. If you must use cow’s milk, get a version that contains fat. Many dried milk brands, such as Carnation, are non-fat, which will not give you enough energy (calories) to endure long days of hiking. Nestle Nido is a popular whole milk choice among backpackers and is easy to find. You can usually find it in Hispanic grocery stores or the food aisle. Instant dried soy milk and dried coconut milk are at health food stores. Before hitting the trail: Measure out the desired amount of cereal, add a scoop of milk powder, and package it in a zipper bag. You can also add water and forgo the dried milk entirely. Milk on cereal is not necessary. 

Junk Food!

Many thru-hikers eat heaps of wrapped trail bars, cookies, and candy on the trail. It is no surprise because these foods are cheap, easy to find, convenient, addictive, and contain a good deal of calories. The calories in these snacks are mostly from refined white sugar. Although you burn off all those calories from hiking, your body will suffer from eating so much refined sugar. While muscles don’t know the difference between carbohydrate sugar from a pop tart versus those from fruit, the body does. The difference shows up in health, immune response, and ability to fight off infections, colds, and other viruses.

The next time you crave candy or other junk foods, try one of these 15 healthy, quick, no-cook backpacking lunches instead.

Related Posts:

• Eating on the Playa: Food options for Burning Man
• On the Go Garbanzo: A Quick & Easy Backpacking Lunch
• No Cook Trail Salads by Outdoor Herbivore
• Planning Your Backpacking Meals
• Tips for Purchasing Backpacking Meals made with Real Food