Backpacking Meal Pro Tips & Buyer’s Advice

Advantages of Freeze Dried Meals for Backpackers

There are many advantages to choosing freeze dried meals for backpacking. They are delicious, relatively lightweight, require zero effort to prepare, are easy to cook in the backcountry, and require zero clean up. Freeze drying provides access to the world’s worth of options, flavors, textures, styles, and diets. There is significantly more variety than what any one home backpacking chef can create with their food dehydrator or bulk ingredients.

Disadvantages of Freeze Dried Meals for Backpackers

While there’s lots to love about the world of freeze dried meals for backpacking, there’s plenty to dislike as well. The following disadvantages are relative to homemade meals, such as those with a base of couscous, or instant rice and beans.

First and foremost, freeze dried meals are the most expensive way to dine in the backcountry. Most two-serving packet now costs upwards of $15 after tax, 2-3x the price of making your own. Deluxe premium meal packs with just one serving can be found for more than $15. And what’s more, they tend to be a bit heavier and bulkier than homemade meals, in part due to the boil bag pouches. Pouch bulk and the odd vacuum sealed shapes they take on wind up consuming lots of backpack volume. They can be difficult to fit in bear storage containers, and you may not have room for them on longer excursions. A final and minor disadvantage is rehydrating at altitude. Once over 10k feet, they can take over 20-30 minutes to rehydrate.

Caloric and Protein Density

When choosing which exact meal pouch to buy, you should factor in caloric density and protein. Traditionally, most freeze dried food was carb, fiber, and salt heavy, but lacked protein, fat, and vegetables. Less so now. A good baseline for a double serving pouch is 30-40g of protein, and 800-100 calories. You can find even heartier options, but we recommend avoiding lower calorie/protein options. For single serve bags, we recommend at least 500 calories with 600-700 being the sweet spot and 20-30g of protein. Vegetarian and vegan meals are likely lower on both protein and calories, so we highly recommend doctoring them up. See below.

How to Add Calories and Protein to Freeze Dried Backpacking Meals

Single portion or veggie/vegan freeze dried meals can help solve the bulk issue, but are rarely filling enough to satisfy the hungry hiker. A typical single-serve freeze dried meal averages about 400 calories. But dump in some fat and protein (olive oil, cheese, salami, powdered cream, peanut butter, bacon bits, soy protein, etc), and you might be able to stretch that into a full size meal. Doctored up properly, you could easily double or even triple the calories! In fact, you may want to do this anyway just for the flavor and texture benefits. Olive oil goes well on most foods, TBH.

The Advantages of Sharing A Freeze Dried Meal Bag

One of the biggest advantages to freeze dried meals is that you get food that is hot and varied in texture and flavor from most other dry backpacking foods. To alleviate the expensiveness and high volume bulk problems of freeze dried meals, consider sharing one meal pouch between you and your partner, enhancing it with denser and more affordable fats and proteins (see above) such that both hikers still get enough nourishment, while still enjoying the variety, flavor, and texture benefits of a warm freeze dried meal.

Double Serving vs Single Serving Sized Pouches

When choosing between double and single serving pouches, it depends on a lot of factors. Smaller bodies who tend to eat smaller than average volumes of food can get away with single serving pouches. But average or larger bodied people who consume average to large volumes of food should opt for the double serving size, and/or doctoring up their meal with extra fats and protein. Especially so on high mileage days.

Freeze Dried Breakfasts are a Low Priority

Freeze dried breakfasts can be a really nice treat. However, we generally prefer to avoid them and recommend against them for the following reason: 1. Dinners are a higher priority in terms of allocating food volume and budget. 2. If you don’t have enough budget to buy freeze dried dinners every night, definitely don’t buy breakfasts. 3. If you can barely fit all of your freeze dried meals in your bear can/bag, ditch the freeze dried breakfasts before the dinners. 4. There are far simpler and faster ways to prepare a hearty breakfast with less bulk, money, and time spent at camp waiting for food to rehydrate. 5. They require more fuel than cold breakfasts.

Pouring Slightly Too Much vs Slightly Too Little Water

It’s not always easy to measure the exact right amount of water to boil in the backcountry, which often results in meals that are under or over watered. Gross and unpleasant. Do your best to measure the right amount of water into your pot (identify the amount needed on the package and where that is in your pot). Make sure your pot is level. Then as you pour in water to the pot before boiling, add just a splash extra. It’s almost always better to err on the side of too much water than too little in case you need to add extra.

Since most freeze dried meals are wet, saucy foods to begin with, they can tolerate excess water more easily than not enough. On the other hand, spooning a dry, chalky section of an under-watered freeze dried meal is a textural nightmare. And in that vein, make sure to give it a really good stir before you seal it off to let your food rehydrate. Many brands recommend a bonus stir at the half way point, never a bad idea.