Take your outdoor cooking to crazy-delicious heights with these easy backpacking meals from the experts at Dirty Gourmet. (And keep the recipes in mind for lightweight car camping, too.)
Elaine Johnson
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French Toast with Pineapple Berry Syrup
High-quality powdered eggs and milk make a big difference when it comes to good French toast in the backcountry, but syrup made from freeze-dried fruit and maple sugar seals the deal.
Here’s proof that you can create a backpacking meal out of ingredients you can find at a regular grocery store—in this case, steel-cut oats, chia seeds, dried blueberries, and almond butter.
“You might think you can’t bring fresh thing backpacking,” says Aimee Trudeau of Dirty Gourmet. “But kale, lemon, and avocado keep a long time.” When we’re in town, we like to keep their kale salad sandwiches in mind for brown-bag lunches, too.
Want to watch dehydrated ingredients make a magical, crowd-pleasing transformation? Whip this up in camp, and see the faces around your stove light up.
Because the dry mix for this filling, gently spiced soup is divided into two bags, you can easily cook just half of it at a time if you want a lighter meal or are serving only two people.
For an ingenious (and easy) treat, soak chia seeds with rehydrated coconut milk to create a no-cook pudding; then sweeten it and top with marshmallows, nuts, and chocolate.