Backpacking Food: Meal Plan Tips & Ideas for Your Next Hike
Last Updated on February 18, 2022
Past attempts at organizing my backpacking food and creating meal plans were always a bit reckless for me. My old approach usually involved jamming a hodgepodge assemblage of hiking food into my over-stuffed bag and hoping for the best.
Ensuing days on the trail were spent hiking around dull and nutritionless food, falling short on calories, and ending up hungry and exhausted. My internal fuel tank was running on fumes, and I suffered as a result.
If I was going to start getting the most out of my backpacking trips, I needed to overhaul my relationship with the food I was bringing along.
So, I reworked everything.
And nowadays, my hiking trips go much differently. I enjoy and savor each meal, my body gets all the nutrients it needs to thrive and recover, and I can pack enough food for a week of hiking. Putting together a solid backpacking meal plan was a game-changer for me, and it can make the same difference for you.
So, let me share all my best tips and ideas about putting together a lightweight, nutritious, and satisfying meal plan for your multi-day hiking trips. Life’s too short to be hungry on the trail.
Step 1: Plan Your Calorie Intake
Savvy food management on the trail starts and ends with numbers. Calories, to be more specific.
The ultimate goal is to consume the perfect amount of food as you hike and camp at correctly timed moments throughout the day.
Here’s some basic math:
The number of estimated calories your body will burn on a given day should be equal to the amount of calories you pack for that day.
So, how can you predict the number of calories you’ll burn on a given day on the trail?
Many factors go into finding that number. Here are a few:
- How much you weigh
- How much your backpack weighs
- The distance you plan on hiking
- The amount of time you plan on hiking each day
- The incline/decline grade of the trail
Instead of giving you a complicated equation to figure out a number on your own, I’d rather point you towards the calories burned hiking calculator.
What’s Your Magic Number?
I weigh about 175 pounds, carry a 20-pound backpack (on average), hike for about six hours, and cover 15 miles of mixed terrain during a typical day on the trail.
According to the calculator, I should expect to burn around 3,000 calories per day. From experience, I know this to be a healthy and accurate amount of food. It hasn’t failed me yet.
Now, find your magic number and start building your best backpacking meal plan with it as your guide.
Step 2: Choose Convenient Food
Feeding yourself on the trail shouldn’t be a chore. Keep it simple and choose food that requires little or no preparation. Exhausted hikers rarely get enthusiastic about preparing elaborate meals.
I ‘cook’ one meal a day, but all I really need to do is boil water, combine it with some ingredients, stir, and wait. The rest of my calories — the energy bars, nuts, fruit, jerky, candy, etc. — requires zero prep whatsoever.
Some people choose to go with a no-cook setup for their backpacking trips to save time and weight.
The more convenient your backpacking food, the more time you’ll have to focus on the trail.
Step 3: Bring a Variety of Food
Do yourself a favor and bring a wide variety of food for your trip. Having lots of options (instead of repeating the same food every day) will prevent you from getting bored and/or sick of your food on the trail.
The food you eat on your backpacking trip should be a reward, not a chore that you choke down reluctantly.
While it may be tempting, avoid packing only processed food. Be sure to bring lots of dehydrated fruits, vegetables, and nuts for your trip. Your body will appreciate these healthy, nutrient-rich options.
Step 4: Assemble a Backpacking Cook Kit (Or Don’t)
As I mentioned earlier, the only ‘cooking’ I’m doing while backpacking is boiling water for my dehydrated meals. I do this once a day at dinner time.
Because of my simple needs, I carry a lightweight, minimalist setup. My entire cooking kit — my stove, pot, spork, lighter, and fuel cartridge — weighs under a pound.
You can save even more weight and time by bringing food that doesn’t require cooking (‘no-cook’ or ‘cold-soaking’ setups), but these methods aren’t for me. Hot meals after a long day of backpacking are something I’ll never give up.
Cooking Gear I Recommend:
Left to right: BRS 3000-T camping stove (25 grams/.9 oz), Toaks 750 ml titanium pot (103 grams/3.6 oz), Toaks spork (11 grams/.4 oz), Jetboil mini propane canister (200 grams/7 oz)
Step 5: Meal Plan for Your Backpacking Trip
Once you’ve calculated how many daily calories you’ll need and you’ve put together a proper cooking setup, it’s time to plan a typical day’s food on the trail.
Backpacking Breakfast Ideas
Calories: 600-700
The goal for breakfast should be to eat a light, nutrient-rich meal that gives you the energy to get moving but doesn’t weigh you down before a full day of backpacking. Don’t frontload too many of your calories during breakfast, as you’ll always have the option to snack as you go throughout the day.
I typically start the day with a Greenbelly meal bar, which has triple the calories of a typical energy bar. They’re full of healthy ingredients, keep you full for hours, and are damn tasty to boot. The Mango Cashew Coconut (665 calories) and Spiced Caramel Apple (695 calories) bars are my favorites.
Flavored granola is another morning favorite of mine, mainly because it’s affordable, convenient, and quite delicious.
Though I love a hot cup of coffee as much as the next backpacker, I opt to take a caffeine pill to start the day instead. It’s less work than brewing coffee, more affordable (8 cents a pill!), and gets me back on the trail faster.
Breakfast Food I Recommend:
Left to right: Greenbelly Spiced Caramel Apple bars (695 calories), KIND Peanut Butter granola (1,300 calories per package), Greenbelly Mango Cashew Coconut bars (665 calories), ProLab caffeine pills
Backpacking Lunch Ideas
Calories: 1200-1400
Since you’ll be on your feet hiking for much of the day, it’s a good idea to consume copious amounts of calorie-rich food between breakfast and dinner. The more protein, the better.
I choose never to cook lunch and instead feast on a steady stream of snacks throughout the day whenever hunger hits. I recommend consuming your hiking calories as you burn them: gradually and consistently.
My daily snacks always consist of a mix of jerky, energy bars, nuts, and dehydrated fruit.
This spread isn’t overly exciting, but it gives my body the high-protein, calorie-dense fuel it needs. Snacks that are high in protein (jerky, nuts, bars) help muscles to recover and stay strong during the constant stress that hiking demands.
Hiking Snacks I Recommend:
Left to right: Ostrim beef and elk jerky (90 calories per stick), Oberto beef jerky (80 calories per serving), Wild Soil almonds (160 calories per serving), Dried mango (160 calories per serving), Luna Lemonzest bar (190 calories), CLIF Peanut Butter and Honey bar (260 calories), CLIF Chocolate Peanut Butter bar (230 calories), Honey Stinger organic waffle (150 calories)
Backpacking Dinner Ideas
Calories: 700-900
For dinner, I recommend eating a filling and carb-and-protein-heavy meal to supplement a hard day on the trail. Doing so is essential in helping your body heal and store energy for the following day of hiking. Eat to get full, eat to recover, and eat to prepare yourself for tomorrow.
I like a nice easy dinner when I’m exhausted, so I always prepare a freeze-dried or dehydrated backpacking package for dinner. All I need to do is boil water, pour it into a pouch, stir in some hot sauce, and wait. Simple and delicious.
I’ll usually eat a handful or two of dehydrated fruit and nuts with my meal. If my muscles are especially achy, I’ll pop some Ibuprofen to help with the inflammation.
Store-bought backpacking meals can get expensive, so if you’re looking to save money in the long run, buy a dehydrator and some mylar food bags, learn a few tasty recipes, and start prepping. Though it’s a bit pricy upfront, the dehydrator should pay for itself after about 15 or 20 homemade meals.
Camping Dinners I Recommend:
Left to right: Mountain House Biscuits and Gravy (560 Calories), Good To-Go Thai Curry (760 Calories), Backpacker’s Pantry Mushroom Stroganoff (600 Calories), Peak Refuel Pasta Marinara (980 Calories), Heather’s Choice Smoked Sockeye Salmon Chowder (490 Calories), AlpineAire Grilled Chicken Jambalaya (600 Calories), Wild Zora Mountain Beef Stew (370 Calories), Mountain House Meal Assortment Bucket (12 Meals)
Calories: 200
No, sugary sweets aren’t a necessity of a backpacking diet, but the extra calories that they provide are. Dessert happens to be the delicious way I prefer to reach my magic number of calories for the day.
I’ll never feel guilty about eating some chocolate or a candy bar after a hard day of hiking. Everything in moderation. That’s what they say.
Backpacking Desserts I Love:
Left to right: Chocolove chocolate bar sampler (200 calories per bar), Snickers Minis (45 calories per minibar), Haribo Happy Cola (130 calories per serving)
Step 6: Organize Your Food
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned over my years of backpacking is this:
Getting the right amount of food every day on the trail is essential.
Organizing your food will ensure that you don’t run out and get hungry in the middle of nowhere. Count out your calories for each day and put everything in its own Ziplock freezer bag. By doing this, you’re rationing your calories for each day on the trail and saving yourself from overeating (or under-eating) on a given day.
If the hike you’re taking is far away from civilization, always pack an extra day’s worth of food in case of emergency.
Step 7: Use Odor-Proof Backpacking Food Storage
Don’t give unwanted company any excuse to know your whereabouts during your hiking trips into the backcountry. You don’t need bears poking around your campsite, and you don’t need mice chewing through your tent in the middle of the night.
So, find a good way to mask the scent of your food. I use lightweight odor-proof bags to stash away all of my food and mask the smell. Some trails require the use of heavy-duty bear canisters as a more airtight means of keeping wildlife at bay.
Below are a couple of great odor-proof food storage options for a multi-day hiking trip. I don’t own a bear canister, but the one I’ve listed below is highly rated in the lightweight backpacking community.
Odor-Proof Food Storage I Recommend:
Left to right: Ultralitesacks DCF Bear Bag (47 grams/1.6 oz per bag), BearVault BV500 food canister (1.16 kilograms/41 oz)
Step 8: Don’t Forget About Water Intake
Struggling with dehydration is a common problem among backpackers, especially at higher elevations. Don’t just worry about the number of calories you need to eat, but also think about how much water your body needs.
Just like the magic number of calories you need to consume, your magic amount of water to drink will vary from hike to hike. Elevation, physical exertion, and weight are all factors to consider.
When you get thirsty, your body is telling you that you’re already dehydrated. Drink a lot of water early in your day and drink it often. Do your best not to let yourself get thirsty.
Here’s a great post on staying hydrated while you hike.
Water Filter System I Recommend:
Sawyer Squeeze Water Filter (85 grams/3 oz)
Step 9: Leave No Trace
Most hikers are great about packing out food-related trash, but all it takes are a careless few to cheapen the experience for everyone.
Store your wrappers and food waste in an odor-proof bag and dispose of them properly when you get the chance. Pack out what you pack in and don’t litter. Help keep trails untainted and clean for the rest of the world to enjoy.
For more information on ways to leave no trace, visit LNT.org.
Find Your Perfect Backpacking Food Strategy
Meal planning for your next backpacking trip is essential. Take it from me.
I’ve already tried haphazardly jamming random food into my pack to prepare for a hike and, believe it or not, it didn’t work out so well. I was the hungry and helpless hiker who’d foolishly set himself up for failure in the middle of the wilderness. That’s no way to live.
The good news is that I’ve learned from my multitude of meal planning errors. And I’ve written this post to help you avoid making the same mistakes I did. The missteps I made are easily preventable if you give yourself the gift of a bullet-proof meal plan.
So, calculate the calories you’re going to burn, get your hands on some nutritious backpacking food, pack it safely in your bag, and start hiking.
The journey’s always smoother when your tank is full and your mind’s at ease.
More Hiking & Backpacking Resources
What’s your best advice to put together a solid backpacking or camping meal plan? What are your favorite types of food to eat while backpacking? Let me know by leaving some feedback in the comments below!
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