DIY Freeze Dried Backpacking Meals from Bulk Ingredients

Freeze-dried meals are awesome for backpacking and camping.  They are lightweight, cook quickly, and have a long shelf life.  The only problem is that commercial freeze-dried meals can be really expensive.  A way around this is to buy bulk freeze dried foods and assemble your own trail meals.

Jump to:

• How to make your own freeze-dried meals
• Calculating calories and nutrients
• Shelf life and packaging methods
• Where to buy bulk freeze-dried foods
• Combining freeze-dried and dehydrated ingredients

 

Interested in dehydrating your own backpacking meals?
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How to Make Your Own Freeze Dried Meals

Step 1: Choose Your Carb

This will be the base of your meal.  Think pasta, instant mashed potatoes, couscous, rice noodles, ramen, polenta…

 

Step 2: Add Protein

Most commercial freeze-dried backpacking meals suck in terms of protein.  One of the benefits of going the DIY approach is that you can really load up on the protein.

You can get bulk containers of freeze-dried meat.  They aren’t cheap though.  If you want to save money or are vegan, then consider freeze-dried beans instead. TVP (though not freeze-dried) is also a good cheap protein option.

 

Step 3: Add Veggies and Fruits

This is where making your own freeze-dried meals really pays off.  You can omit any veggies that you hate and put in the veggies you actually like.

Don’t skimp on the fruits and veggies!  I know that they don’t have a lot of calories per weight, but they are crucial for antioxidants and vitamins.  How are you supposed to recover from a long day of hiking if you don’t have nutrients???

 

Step 4: Add Healthy Fat

Without fat, your meals will taste boring and you won’t feel satiated. Ideally, about 50% of your calories should come from fat.

What fat to add to your DIY meals?

• Cheese powder: Most store-bought backpacking meals are loaded with freeze-dried cheese or dairy.  It’s kind of hard for a meal to taste bad whe it is covered in cheese!  To replicate this, just buy freeze-dried cheese powder in bulk. You can buy freeze-dried cheese powder in bulk.
• Olive oil: Bring a bottle of olive oil with you on the trail. Olive oil has a great calorie/weight ratio and is almost pure fat. Add it to meals after they rehdyrate.
• Nuts and seeds: Preferably in nut/seed butter form as your body will absorb it better. Here are some backpacking meal ideas with peanut butter.

 

Step 5: Add Flavor

Now choose flavors like herbs and spices.  The more flavor you add, the less salt you will need.  Note that your sense of taste changes at high altitudes so you’ll probably need more salt and flavoring than you normally would.

 

Packing Meals for the Trail

You’ve got two options for packaging your meals: in one bag or in two bags.

All In One Bag:

As a general rule, ingredients for soups and stews can be packaged together in one baggie.  When it’s time eat, just dump all the ingredients in your pot and cook until rehydrated.

Likewise, if all of your foods take a similar time to cook/rehydrate, then you can package them all in one baggie.  For example, instant rice with freeze dried beans and veggies should be fine all in one baggie.

 

Two Bags: 

Some ingredients may have shorter rehydrating times than others. Because of this, you may need to package ingredients separately. Otherwise, some ingredients may burn to the pot, or will turn to mush.

For example: Instant mashed potato flakes cook very quickly.  If you were to mix all your bulk freeze-dried ingredients in with the flakes, you’d end up with crunchy bits in the potatoes.  Yuck!

Because of this, you should:

• Package the quick-cook and longer-cooking ingredients separately.
• Put the longer-cooking ingredients into the pot first. Cook until rehydrated.
• Add the quick-cook ingredients to the pot, adding more water if necessary. Cook until done.

 

Keep Cheese Powder Separate

With few exceptions, it’s best to package cheese powder separately.  Wait until all the other ingredients are fully cooked/rehydrated.  Then add the cheese powder, along with a bit more water if necessary.  Trying to cook with the cheese powder already mixed in will cause everything to stick or burn to the pot!

 

Tips for Making Your Own Freeze-Dried Meals

Start with Breakfast

If you aren’t sure how to get started with DIY backpacking meals, start with breakfast.  Those bags of Mountain House oatmeal are really expensive (especially considering how cheap oats are!). You are paying a premium price for what essential is some oats and a few freeze-dried fruits in fancy packaging.

To make your own, just combine some freeze-dried fruits with oats, nuts, and some sugar. You can also add freeze-dried milk powder to make it creamier.  I like to add superfoods like chia seeds to my trail oatmeal too.

 

Choose “Wet” Meals

Avoid dry meals like scrambled eggs with freeze-dried veggies.  Why? Because you can end up with soggy eggs if you accidentally add too much water (gross!).  Or the eggs will rehydrate before the veggies, leaving you with crunchy bits.  You are also more likely to burn your pot while rehydrating dry meals.

Instead, opt for “wet” meals. They are much more forgiving!

Try:

• Stews
• Hearty soups
• Chili
• Lentils or beans with rice in sauce

 

Pasta Is Also Easy

For DIY backpacking pasta:

1. At home:
   1. Pack pasta + freeze-dried protein and veggies in one baggie
   2. Pack freeze-dried sauce ingredients (such as cheese powder or tomato powder) in another baggie.
2. On the Trail:
   1. Presoak the pasta bag contents. This cuts down on cooking time (saves fuel!) and helps you see how much water you really need.
   2. Cook the pasta.
   3. Make sure there’s a bit of water left in the pot.
   4. Remove pot from stove.
   5. Add sauce bag contents. Mix and wait 5 minutes.

 

Steal Ideas from Backpacking Meal Brands

An easy way to come up with meal ideas is this: Look at what the backpacking meal companies offer.  Then just replicate them, with some more of your favorite spices or ingredients added in.

 

Calculating Calories and Nutrients

Most backpackers and thru-hikers I know focus solely on calories when doing their meal planning.  Hence why Pringles are so damn popular as a trail food!

I’d encourage you to think beyond calories.  Without protein and fiber, all those calories will rush into your bloodstream too quickly.  This will cause your blood sugar to skyrocket, and subsequently crash.  And when it crashes, you will feel tired and very hungry.

There isn’t too much research on thru-hiking nutrition.  Most macronutrient recommendations are based on Brenda L. Braaten’s info. She recommends:

• 50% fat
• 35% carbs
• 15% protein (you’ll need about 0.8 to 1g of protein per kilogram of bodyweight)

But don’t forget about micronutrients too.  Fruits and vegetables might not deliver much in terms of calories/ounce, but they are crucial for muscle repair, immune response, and mental clarity.

If you really can’t be bothered to get 6 servings each of fruits and veggies into your backpacking meals, at least carry a veggie-based supplement powder.

 

Shelf-Life of DIY Freeze Dried Meals

The freeze-dried meals you buy can last for years…until you open them.  Once the package is open, the shelf life shrinks drastically.  Some companies recommend eating opened packages of freeze-dried foods within 1-3 weeks!

So long as you keep the contents of your DIY meals dry (which also means out of humidity), they should still last for months.  But any amount of humidity can drastically shorten shelf life. Something to think about if you are mail-dropping yourself food to a humid area!

 

Storage Bags for DIY Trail Meals

Backpacking meals like those from Mountain House are in foil-lined bags.  These are sealed to keep out oxygen and humidity. However, you can probably get by with using regular zip bags for packaging your DIY meals.

For longer trips, or high-humidity situations, you’ll want to seal your meals.  Consider getting a vacuum sealer like this one. Alternatively, you can get foil-lined Ziplock bags.  They aren’t air-tight, but should be okay for most trips of 4+ weeks.

*Many hikers like to put each meal in its own pouch.  This makes it easy to portion out meals and prevents you from overeating.  But you can also store your meals in bulk and just measure them out before preparing on the trail.

 

Where to Buy Freeze-Dried Foods in Bulk

There are a lot of brands which offer freeze-dried foods in bulk containers.  Your best option is to shop at Amazon.  They have all the major brands, often have sales and you’ll save money on shipping. See bulk freeze dried foods at Amazon here. 

Below are some other brands and places where you can buy bulk freeze dried foods for your DIY backpacking meals.

Bulk Freeze-Dried Meat

*Note that many companies put fillers like flour in their freeze-dried meat.  These options are for 100% meat without fillers.

• The Ready Store: They have a big selection of freeze-dried meats including beef, chicken, sausage, turkey, and bacon.
• Valley Food Storage: They have chicken, beef, sausage and lots of freeze-dried cheese too.
• Augason Farms: Chicken, beef, and variety packs available
• Nutristore: Available on Amazon, they have chicken and beef in bulk.
• Mountain House: They have chicken and beef cans.

 

Freeze-Dried Vegetarian Proteins

You are pretty limited here.  Most products are dehydrated and not freeze-dried.  It’s pretty easy to dehydrate your own beans though.

• Valley Food Storage: They have freeze-dried peanut butter, cheese, and some other vegetarian proteins.
• Augason Farms: Freeze-dried peanut butter, taco mix, black bean burger mix, “bacon” bits, egg powder, and variety packs.

 

Bulk Freeze-Dried Fruits and Veggies

Unfortunately, there aren’t too many options when it comes to freeze dried veggies. For this reason, you might need to combine some dehydrated ingredients with your freeze-dried bulk ingredients. It will take some experimentation to get the ratios and cook times right.  But, I think it is worth it in the long run – you’ll save money on backpacking meals plus be able to customize them for your nutritional and taste needs. 🙂

*I love mushrooms, but they are really difficult to rehydrate.  They almost always end up chewy.  So keep that in mind if you try to make trail meals with freeze dried mushrooms.

• Augason Farms: They have the most options when it comes to bulk freeze-dried fruits and veggies.
• The Ready Store: They also have a good selection which includes fruit and veggie buckets that include a variety of different products.
• Mother Earth: Has freeze-dried berries, bananas, broccoli, and some other fruits
• Karen’s Naturals Freeze Dried variety pack (fruits)

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Bulk Freeze-Dried Sauces and Cheese

• Augason Farms: Four different freeze-dried cheeses
• The Ready Store: Three different cheeses and lots of other freeze-dried dairy products (like butter) too
• Backpacker’s Pantry freeze dried whole milk
• Nutristore freeze dried cheddar

 

Combining Dehydrated and Freeze-Dried Ingredients

Even with the DIY approach, freeze-dried foods are expensive and you don’t have too many options.

For this reason, I dehydrate my own meals instead.  It’s also possible to combine dehydrated and freeze-dried foods in the same meal.

Some things to keep in mind when combining dehydrated and freeze-dried ingredients:

• Dehydrated foods contain moisture. If you mix them with your freeze-dried foods, some moisture will get into the freeze-dried ingredients.  This will reduce shelf life.
• Rehydration times may vary. If you boil all the ingredients together, some ingredients might end up mushy.  So, you will likely need to package meal ingredients in two baggies.

Below are some of the dehydrator meals I’ve made. You can find all of these in my Trail Recipes eBook.  Buy it here.

Because you made it to the end of this post, I’ll even give you 50% off. 

Buy the eBook here for 50% off.

 

Do you make your own backpacking meals with freeze-dried ingredients? What’s your favorite recipe? Let us know in the comments.

 

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Resources for this article include:

http://www.marathonguide.com/training/articles/Nutrition.cfm
https://www.msrgear.com/blog/nutrition-for-thru-hikers-part-1-food-for-fuel/
https://thru-hiker.com/articles/PackLightEatRight/protein.htm
https://blackwoodspress.com/blog/21416/high-protein-hiking-foods/

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