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 –
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Baked quinoa, freeze dried sweet corn & black bean flakes in our baja dressing. Delicious as a salad or as a soft taco.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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Great list of no-cook backing meals! I'm also a big fan of the powdered peanut butter. There's also powdered hummus in many bulk stores that would make a great addition too!