DIY Backpacking Food: Grab a spoon and let's get started!
Want to eat the best-tasting backpacking food on the trail?
Forget the expensive freeze dried backpacking meals that require a magnifying glass to find the vegetables. Go for healthy, hearty meals you can make at home before you head to the woods.
Welcome to BackpackingChef.com, an entire website devoted to helping you learn how to dehydrate food, and how to assemble light-weight, nutritious backpacking meals. Here you will find over 100 trail-tested backpacking recipes for dinners, lunches, breakfasts, desserts, and snacks.
Greetings. Chef Glenn here.
Imagine
sitting by a peaceful campfire after a beautiful hike in the forest.
Wouldn't it be nice to savor the last moments of the day with a pot of
homemade shrimp linguine?
That's what I thought.
When I started backpacking on the Appalachian Trail several years ago, I
developed a complete menu of healthy backpacking recipes. In addition
to tasting great, the trail meals packed light, kept well, and were easy
to cook with a small backpacking pot and stove.
You, too, can make your own backpacking food: I'll show you how to dehydrate and assemble trail meals; and how to store and pack them safely. Learn how to easily rehydrate and cook healthy backpacking meals while watching the sun go down over the mountains. Soon your hiking meals will include risotto, ratatouille, and pumpkin pie.
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If you're ready to start making the best backpacking food you will ever taste... Pick a topic and let's get started! |
Navigation: The main topics are listed behind the brown buttons in the navigation column. These provide a lot of information and serve as mini table of contents to many more pages of backpacking food recipes and dehydration techniques. At the bottom of every page are a few navigational choices, so you can continue on to the next recipe or go back to the table of contents for the topic you are reading.
I've also listed and linked to the main topics below with a brief introduction.
Dehydrating Backpacking Food
Dehydrating food substantially reduces pack weight and preserves the food.
Learn how to dehydrate backpacking food including vegetables, meat, beans, fruit, sauces, and starches.
Check out the sweet potato bark backpacking recipe, a favorite trail snack that can be eaten dry or rehydrated into pudding.
Quick Links to Learn about Drying Food
Dehydrating Food Table of Contents
Backpacking Recipes
Explore new backpacking recipes
Find 100+ breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack and dessert recipes. Learn how to assemble dehydrated meats, vegetables, and starches into a great variety of delicious backpacking
meals. There are also recipes for dehydrating whole meals.
Photos of every recipe are included with exact quantities for each ingredient, packing instructions, and how to rehydrate and prepare the meals on the trail with minimal effort and fuel.
Backpacking Recipe Books by Chef Glenn
Recipes for Adventure II: The Best of Trail Bytes
My new cookbook features the best backpacking recipes and food dehydrating techniques collected from over 100 issues of Trail Bytes, plus new topics that will make your backpacking meals as memorable as your adventures.
Recipes for Adventure: Healthy, Hearty & Homemade Backpacking Recipes
If you like what you find on the website, you will love my cookbook, Recipes for Adventure. It covers everything from the website plus more recipes and dehydrating techniques. Nicely formatted with hundreds of photos, it is available as a PDF download for computer viewing or as a full-color printed edition.
The Ultimate Guide to Dehydrating Food for the Trail
Customer Reviews:
"This cookbook is exactly what I needed to prepare for our first backpacking trip. Chef Glenn provides you with great tips, basic instructions, and helpful hints to make DELICIOUS meals for the trail. Chef Glenn has taken all the guess work out of preparing foods and makes it SIMPLE for anyone to use. If you spend some time with this cookbook you will be thrilled with what can be made, dehydrated, packed, and then re-hydrated and enjoyed on the trail. You will be glad you have this cookbook after trying the first meal you make! Side note: I tell everyone about this cool cookbook and my sister in law bought one for her and her daughter. Bon Appetit!"
"My
girlfriend and I used tips and recipes in this book to feed ourselves
two meals each day as we hiked the Appalachian Trail for five months in
2015. The book was very helpful and our meals were envied by most other
hikers we encountered. We met several other hikers who also used this
book and dehydrated all of their meals for the AT."
Menu Planning & Food Drying Workbook
Use the workbook to plan your menus and estimate how much food to purchase and dry.
It's a great tool to go with Recipes for Adventure.
Recipes for Adventure Action Guide
A Step-by-step Action Guide to put together 31 dehydrated meals.
Includes the shopping list, drying instructions, meal assembly, cooking directions, and packing.
"When you keep a supply of dehydrated meals on hand – for adventure, work, and travel – you’re automatically prepared for emergencies."
1001 Miles on the Appalachian Trail
Join me on an Appalachian Trail adventure from Georgia through West Virginia. The journal covers 1001 miles of rugged footpath, inspirational mountaintops, and unbounded nature.
"Received your book yesterday and just finished. Congratulations on such a wonderfully written book. It is a beautiful love story between you, Dominique, and nature." - Annette
Available in paperback or download. Free download when purchased with any other book.
Home & Trail: An Introduction to Drying Food
Get my free e-book with your subscription to Trail Bytes!
Receive one inspiring article per month with new backpacking food recipes and food dehydrating guidance.
Subscribe. It's free.
I'll send you a new article each month with backpacking food recipes, food dehydration tips, and trail cooking techniques.
You will also receive my 50-page e-book, Home & Trail: An Introduction to Drying Food.
"Chef Glen, There's no better time than now for the information on dehydrating food and the backpacking recipes in your newsletter. A very big thank you, keep up the great work and stay safe". -Ray
Storing & Packing Backpacking Food
How to pack and store backpacking food.
The longer the trip, the better it is to keep backpacking food well-organized and air and water-tight, so that it keeps well.
I pack my food into daily rations, which I vacuum seal. Breakfast, lunch, supper, dessert and snacks all go into one vacuum sealed bag.
Trail Cooking
How to cook dehydrated backpacking meals
Just about any backpacking pot and stove will work to heat and rehydrate the meals. With dehydrated meals, there’s no need to rush the boil with a high-powered stove. All you need to do is reach a boil, and hold it for a minute or two. I’ll show you how to cook backpacking food efficiently with the simplest of alcohol stoves, and how to heat up sides and desserts with three tea light candles.
Question? Ask the Chef
Contact: If you have questions or comments after exploring the website, feel free to contact me.
Pick a Topic to Explore
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Dehydrating Cake & Breadcrumbs for Backpacking Desserts
Dehydrating cake & breadcrumbs, plus how to use them in backpacking desserts like Trail Angel Cake, Banana-Pecan Cookies, and Pineapple Upside-Down Cake.
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22 Dehydrated Soup Recipes from Backpacking Chef
Create delicious dehydrated soup recipes with dried vegetables, beans, meats, starches, and homemade dry soup mixes. Learn five methods of dehydrating soup.
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25 Vegan & Vegetarian Backpacking Meals
Backpacking Chef’s recipe collection of vegan and vegetarian backpacking meals you can dehydrate at home. Light-weight, easy-to-cook, nutritious, and delicious.
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How to Make & Dehydrate Chili | Backpacking Chef's Best Recipes
Dehydrating chili and chili mac. This Beef & Bean Chili recipe is #1 at Backpacking Chef. Rehydrates well in backpacking meals.
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Dehydrating Zucchini: The last but not least word in food dehydration.
How to dehydrate zucchini chips, noodles, cubes, and skins. Dehydrating zucchini casserole, ratatouille, zucchini-potato soup, and zucchini-macaroni in sauce.
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Dehydrating Corn and How to Use It in Meals
Instructions for dehydrating corn that is fresh off the cob, frozen, or canned; plus how to use dehydrated corn in backpacking and emergency preparedness meals.
Recipes for Adventure II: The Best of Trail Bytes
Recipes for Adventure: Healthy, Hearty & Homemade Backpacking Recipes
Action Guide: Dehydrating 31 Meals
Free e-books:
1001 Miles on the Appalachian Trail
Free with any book purchase.
Home & Trail: An Introduction to Drying Food
Free with newsletter subscription.
Dehydrating Food from A – Z
From the mailbag:
“Thank you for all the work that goes into these great backpacking recipes and hints. We have used many of the recipes in preparing food for my son’s hike on the Appalachian Trail. He leaves next Saturday from Georgia and will likely be packing some of the best backpacking food on the trail thanks to you sharing your work.” – Carrie