Backpacking Food List – Simple and Nutritious for 7 days
NEW June 2016 – Meal Recipes are Posted. See Nutritious Backpacking Meal Recipes here
This list is packed with nutritious backpacking food for a “week long” trip of 7 days
- 6 nights of dinners and breakfasts
- 7 days of lunches and daytime snacks
That is you don’t eat breakfast on the day your go in. And you don’t eat dinner on the day you come out. This is equivalent to around 6.6 full days hiking. I’ve organized the food so that it should be easy to scale to more or fewer hiking days.
Note: any entry with a blank in “qty” means the food item is an alternative that may be a) added and/or b) substituted for another item on the list. For example if you are veggie, you could substitute one of the soy jerkies (Primal & Stonewall) the meat jerky. And to easily add vegetables to my homemade dinners I use freeze dried vegetables from Just Tomatoes. I like the “Hot Just Veggies.”
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A Simple and Nutritious Backpacking Food List for 7 days
Breakfasts (6 mornings) | qty | oz | tot | c/oz | Comments |
Familia Breakfast (with Bob’s Red Mill Muesli) | 2 | 5.5 | 11.0 | 125 | see Recipe Page |
Grape Nuts/Kashi Seven Nuggets (my recipe) | 2 | 5.0 | 10.0 | 124 | see Recipe Page |
Oatmeal Breakfast (my recipe) | 2 | 5.4 | 10.8 | 115 | see Recipe Page |
Coffee, Starbuck’s VIA ($0.72/cup @Amazon) | 6 | 0.1 | 0.8 | 4g pkt = 130-140 mg caffeine | |
Coffee for gold filter brewing 25g per 12 fl-oz | 0.9 | alternative to instant coffee, less $ | |||
Tea – bag or loose leaf (4-6g per 12 fl-oz) | 0.1 | if using bags, sealed packets are best | |||
Lunches (7 days) | qty | oz | tot | c/oz | Comments |
Dense whole grain bread (lunch serving) | 3 | 2.0 | 6.0 | 80 | |
Almond Butter (2 oz serv) | 3 | 2.0 | 6.0 | 155 | pers fave – eat w bread/crackers |
Tuna in olive oil 2.6 oz pkt (2.9 oz incl packet) | 2.9 | 65 | eat w bread, oil adds cal’s & healthy fat | ||
Crackers, Dr Kracker (lunch serving) | 2 | 1.5 | 3.0 | 125 | Awesome, high calorie & indestructible |
Cheese (lunch serving) | 2 | 2.5 | 5.0 | 115 | eat with crackers |
TJ’s whole wheat tortillas | 2 | 2.0 | 4.0 | 80 | |
Dry salami (without nitrates) | 2 | 2.5 | 5.0 | 105 | eat with tortillas |
Mustard packets | n/a | to eat with cheese or salami | |||
Bison Jerkey (3.5 oz bag) | 3.5 | 60 | online, or TJs and Whole Foods | ||
Turkey Jerky | 4.0 | 90 | online, or TJs and Whole Foods | ||
Primal Strips Meatless Vegan Jerkey (teriyaki) | 1.0 | 100 | vegan protein option – up to 11g prot. | ||
Stonewall’s Jerquee (soy based) | 1.5 | 110 | veggie protein option – up to 14g prot. | ||
Dinners (6 nights) | qty | oz | tot | c/oz | Comments |
Black Beans & Rice w Cheese & Corn Chips (yum!) | 2 | 5.5 | 11.0 | 115 | see Recipe Page |
Chili Mac Dinner | 2 | 5.5 | 11.0 | 120 | see Recipe Page |
Curry Cous Cous Dinner | 2 | 6.0 | 12.0 | 135 | see Recipe Page |
Desserts (6 nights) | qty | oz | tot | c/oz | Comments |
Snickers Bar or MilkyWay Midnight | 2 | 2.1 | 4.2 | 135 | daytime snack or dessert |
Chocolate (dark) | 4 | 2.0 | 8.0 | 153 | great when eaten with dried fruit |
Cocoa Nibs | 1.0 | 150 | tasty when added to dark chocolate | ||
Snakwell Cookie Packet | 2 | 1.7 | 3.4 | 123 | great with hot chocolate |
Hot Chocolate (make your own with Nido) | 2 | 2.2 | 4.4 | 130 | see Dessert recipe Page |
Snack Bars (for ~7 days) | qty | oz | tot | c/oz | Comments |
Kind Bars | 4 | 1.4 | 5.6 | 150 | |
Lara Bar | 1.8 | 130 | |||
Pro Bar Meal Bar | 2 | 3.0 | 6.0 | 125 | healthy, easy to eat |
ProBar’s Base Protein Bars | 2 | 2.5 | 4.9 | 114 | adds 20g of soy protein |
Cliff Builder’s Protein Bar | 2 | 2.5 | 4.9 | 115 | adds 20g of soy protein |
Snacks (for ~7 days) | qty | oz | tot | c/oz | Comments |
Gorp (50% walnuts, 50% dried fruit – raisins?) | 7 | 2.0 | 14.0 | 150 | usually mix my own |
Honey sesame sticks | 7 | 1.8 | 12.6 | 150 | online or at Whole Foods |
Candied nuts (TJs has a ton of varieties) | 3 | 1.5 | 4.5 | 150 | |
Almonds, raw | 4 | 2.0 | 8.0 | 165 | |
Walnuts, raw | 185 | ||||
Dried mango un-sweetened/sulfered | 3 | 2.0 | 6.0 | 90 | also great dessert with dark chocolate! |
Apricots (dried, un-sweetened, un-sulfered) | 4 | 1.5 | 6.0 | 87 | also great dessert with dark chocolate! |
Papaya (dried, un-sweetened, un-sulfered) | 100 | at Whole Foods | |||
Raisins, organic (Thompson, TJs) | 95 | ||||
Generic dried fruit | 85 | ||||
Jelly Bellies | 93 | ||||
Tic-Tacs | 0 | mindless fun to eat on trail | |||
Pringles | 150 | tasty, high in calories | |||
Totals | |||||
Lb of food for trip | 11.5 | ||||
Lb food per day | 1.7 | ||||
Calories/day | 3,530 | ||||
Calories/oz of food | 127 |