Cooking in the Backcountry
Basic Backcountry Kitchen Skills
You don’t have to be a worldly chef to cook amazing food while hiking around in the backcountry. With so many ready to cook meals available it’s easy to eat like a king on the trail. There are a few things that will make your cooking experience stress free.
It is a good rule of thumb to avoid glass, cans, plastic, and other foods that require large or odd packaging. This is important because items of this nature make a lot of trash. You don’t want any more trash in your pack then you have to carry and hopefully you pack out your trash!
What you can do to save room in your pack is to repackage all your foods. Take contents of boxes such as instant pasts and put them in a zip-lock bag. Don’t forget to put the directions in the zip lock bag. This not only makes it easier to remember how to cook the food but also acts as a label if the bag is nothing more than pancake mix or some other cooking powder. You can buy small plastic bottles at your local sporting goods store for liquids like syrup or cooking oil. By doing this you are also cutting down on the amount of unwanted trash you would be taking along.
Now that they have precooked package meat the possibilities for what you can cook on the trail are almost endless. If you are unaware of what they make, there is, tuna, chicken, and bacon. The amounts are good for one person but probably feed two depending on what you are cooking.
What To Eat
It takes a lot of energy to scale mountains and forge rivers. Its very important to make sure you replenish your body to keep you in shape and help you feel better in the long run. You need foods that will help your endurance. These kind of foods can be found in complex carbohydrates. No cutting carbs in the backcountry. You will want to make sure you have a good mix of carbs, protein, and fat.
Some classic trail food that is ready to cook is:
Breakfast:
- Pop tarts
- Instant oat meal
- Mal-to-meal
- Grits
- Jerky and Eggs
Crack 2 eggs into a good quality zip lock bag, crumble in some beef jerky.
Close the bag and scramble by squeezing the bag. Place the bag into a pan
of boiling water, remove occasionally and mix around the contents till
cooked through.
Lunch: Usually you eat lunch on the trail so you don’t really want to spend the time to get your cooking gear out and setup shop. Here are some good snack foods.
- Trail mix
- Sausage and cheese
- PB&J with tortillias
- Tuna and crackers
- Lunchables
- Jerky
Dinner: This is where you get to really put your culinary skills to the test. Besides the basic ready to eat foods like pastas and soups, here are some of my favorite foods to fix in the backcountry.
Chicken Quesadillas
4-5 small flour or corn tortillas
1 small onion
1 6-ounce can chicken
1 teaspoon oil
4 ounces Monterey jack
Dice onion, packing out the outer skin and end pieces. Thinly slice up
cheese. Drain the chicken well away from camp. Assemble quesadillas by sprinkling chicken, onion, and cheese on half of the tortilla. Fold the tortilla over omelet style and lightly brown in oil.
Ham a la Ramen
1-2 packages Ramen (oriental noodle soup)
1/2 cup dried peas
Parmesan cheese to taste
1 5 ounce can ham
Red pepper flakes to taste
Cook the Ramen noodles (without the flavor pack) along with the dried peas. When the noodles are cooked, drain away from camp. Top with ham and add red pepper and parmesan cheese to taste. Mix, eat and enjoy.
And for the vegan�
Middle Eastern Stew
1 cup couscous
1 eggplant, diced
2-3 garlic cloves
2 zucchini or 1 each zucchini and summer squash, diced
Vegetable Broth
2 tablespoons olive oil and Feta cheese
8 oz can tomatoes or 8 sun-dried tomatoes
If using sun-dried tomatoes, rehydrate in four cups hot water for 10 minutes or until soft. Saut�© vegetables and garlic in olive oil; cover and simmer until done. Meanwhile bring two cups water and vegetable broth to boil, add couscous and remove from heat. Wait five minutes allowing couscous to absorb all the water. Serve vegetables over couscous and sprinkle with feta cheese.
