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May 21, 2015 / Comments (2)

No Fuss No Cook Foods

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Allison is the founder of trailtosummit.com which she began as a way to track and share her first round of the NH 4000 Footers. Now on round 5 (the first round for her dog Ruckus) she has been honored to have taken part of many people’s firsts. She is an experienced trail maintainer, speaker, and passionate member of the outdoor community. In New England, Allison enjoys trekking along the highest peaks, bushwhacking to less traveled areas, and has a fondness for sunrise and sunset trips. Outside of New England Allison has also thru hiked the John Muir Trail and explored mountains in the German and Austrian Alps, Israel, and the Azores. Her goal is to share her passion for hiking and backpacking with others, especially with women, to inspire them to experience the freedom of the trail!
no cook backpacking food

There are tons of food options for you to bring on a backpacking trip, but compiling a list is the trick! I’ve gone ahead and created some resources for your next backpacking food haul. How much of your backpacking meal plan can you go sans stove? If it’s 1/3 or more you may want to consider leaving that Jetboil behind and opting for a smaller and lighter setup like a stove that uses an Esbit solid fuel cube or a tiny alcohol stove. If your food is 3/4 stoveless make a plan to ditch the stove altogether! Going sans stove can lead to a more simplistic camp ritual so you can focus more on hiking. To learn more about going stoveless, read my introduction to no cook backpacking.

While going stoveless you still have an opportunity to get creative with your meals. However, if you are looking to simplify your prep before and during your hike, these options will do the trick. Each has just about no prep work. Simply repackage your food and you have a full menu you don’t have to fuss with. No worrying about fuel, flames, or mushy slop. Some meals rehydrate as you hike or just require a quick smear on tortilla.

Outdoor Herbivore:

Breakfast

Entrees

no cook backpacking food

Just one of many no cook options from Outdoor Herbivore

Packit Gourmet:

They have a whole section of “Super EZ” meals, snacks, and desserts that you just add cold water to!

Tasty (and easy!) food from Packit Gourmet

Tasty (and easy!) food from Packit Gourmet

Amazon:

Check out my list of meals and goodies that are no cook! If you have prime, what can beat 2 day shipping?

 

stoveless backpacking food

A sampling of my Amazon No Cook Food List

Are you transitioning to a no cook system? Let me know how it’s going!

 

Last modified: January 29, 2016

trail snacks

2 Responses to :
No Fuss No Cook Foods

  1. Amanda says:
    May 21, 2015 at 2:26 pm

    Thanks for the Amazon list! I can’t find many of these items in stores (we don’t have a TJs or whole foods near me) so Amazon is the next best thing!

    Reply
  2. L-Train says:
    June 5, 2015 at 7:47 am

    Hey Allison!

    Thanks for compiling this. During a thruhike, I decided to dapple with the stoveless lifestyle and mailed my stove north a few hundred miles. Here are some findings:

    The stove free backpacker needs to make a few decisions about what is most important for their body / wallet/ time. Faults of this diet trend towards either expensive, has to soak forever / is difficult to prepare in the forest or is a powder. I think this means the ultimate easy cheap dish for the stove- free backpacker is a gravy packet, bacon bits and instant mashed potatoes. I’ve seen variations on this theme but if it’s all you’re eating, you will learn that eating instant mashed potatoes is no way to live. My body basically no longer recognizes instant mashed potatoes as a nutritional benefit.

    Reply

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