Vegan Freeze-Dried Backpacking Meals List (Including Small, Local Brands)

Most free-dried foods companies skimp on meat, so you’ll find plenty of vegetarian freeze-dried meals for backpacking. But if you are looking for vegan freeze-dried backpacking meals, you’ll find your options limited.

Luckily, there are now a lot of smaller brands which make vegan freeze-dried meals — and a lot of them are healthy too. Below I’ve compiled a list of vegan backpacking meals, including the smaller brands as well as some of the big names like Mountain House.

Consider Making Some of Your Own Backpacking Meals

I dehydrate almost all of my backpacking meals. This does take some time (but not as much as you’d think) and planning. However, it is VERY cheap and I get to choose whatever the heck I want to eat.

Guess what? I wrote an eBook on how to dehydrate backpacking meals. The book has over 50 recipes and all of the recipes are VEGAN!

The recipes are also lightweight, nutritious, and tasty. 🙂 Plus there’s tons of info on backpacking nutrition and meal planning.

Some of the recipes include:

Creamy cashew tomato sauce
Barley walnut risotto
Pumpkin quinoa chili
Red pepper crackers
Mashed potatoes with white bean gravy
Beetroot “salami”

Just because you’re vegan, get 50% off my eBook now. 😀

***Buy it here for 50% off***

List of Vegan Freeze Dried Backpacking Meals

*I didn’t include any vegan trail breakfasts in the list because I think they are a rip-off. You can easily just buy freeze dried fruits in bulk and pack them with oats + vegan milk powder to make your own trail breakfasts for a fraction of the cost. Here’s where you can find a list of bulk freeze dried ingredients.

**REI gives 10% when you buy 8 or more backpacking meals. They have a search filter for “vegan”.
Shop REI meals here.

***If you’d rather buy from smaller brands, check out the vegan food for sale at Garage Grown Gear.

1. Backpacker’s Pantry Vegan Meals

Best For: When you want lots of calories for an affordable price

This is one of the most popular brands of vegan backpacking food and happen to be affordable for the amount of food you get. They have two servings per package, which means you get a lot of calories for dinner. The calorie density is pretty good and the meals are tasty (though some are admittedly a bit boring). The main issue is that their sodium amount is very high.

Vegan meal options:

Three Sisters Stew
Chana masala
Pad thai
Louisiana red beans and rice
Kathmandu curry
Mango sticky rice

Buy Here at REI

2. Good to-Go Vegan Meals

Best For: When you want lots of veggies and don’t mind paying for them

Good To-Go actually puts lots of veggies in their meals instead of just loading up on cheap carbs. As a result, the calorie density and price aren’t great. Some single serving pouches only have 350 calories. You need the pricier double-serving pouches to fill you up after a day of hiking.

Vegan meal options:

Marina with penne
Herbed mushroom risotto
Smoked three bean chili
Kale and white bean stew
Mexican quinoa bowl
Bibimap

Buy at their website. You can also buy them at REI.

3. RightOnTrek Meals

Best For: Their cool meal-planning tool makes it insanely easy to plan food for your trip

These backpacking meals are actually dehydrated and not freeze-dried, but they are so good that I had to include them on this list anyway. The brand also uses eco-friendly packaging. They have several vegan meal options, all of which are packed with flavor and have a really good texture. What they have changes.

RightOnTrek sells meals individually but you’ll get a better deal if you use their meal-planning tool. The tool gives you ALL the food you need per day — including vegan snacks — and calculates calories and weight for you. Read my full review of RightOnTrek here.

Vegan meal options (dehydrated):

Shephard’s pie
Spicy peanut soup
General Tsoy’s mountain rice
Gado Gado noodles

Visit RightOnTrek here

4. Nomad Nutrition

Best For: Supporting a small vegan-only brand

Based out of Canada, this locally-run small company makes plant-based backpacking meals. They use real ingredients and have some more interesting options (like the borscht). There is only about 350 calories per pouch, so the meals do end up being pretty pricy. They are also low protein, so you might want to supplement them with some of your own protein sources.

Vegan meal options (dehydrated):

Kathamandu curry
Indian red lentil stew
Irish shepherd’s pie
Ukranian borscht
Caribbean curry
Spanish paella

Buy Here at Garage Grown Gear and Here at REI

5. Poe and Co Folk Food

Best for: Healthy, natural, and small company

This is a very small brand that currently only have a few meal options, but all of them are vegan. They are somewhat cheaper than other independent brands, too.

Quinoa Sweet Potato Skillet
Coconut Chickpea Stew
Black Garlic Ramen Bowl

Buy at Garage Grown Gear

*Let me know if I missed any vegan freeze-dried meals so I can add them to the list!

Tips for Improving Vegan Backpacking Meals

In order to feel full and satiated (especially after a long day of hiking), a meal needs to have:

Protein and
Fat

Unfortunately, many vegan freeze-dried meals are lacking both protein and fat. When there is protein, it is usually beans. So, those vegan meals can get boring really quickly!

Some solutions to improve vegan backpacking meals:

Pack protein to add to the meal. Textured vegetable protein or textured soy protein are great to add to meals because they are shelf stable and rehydrate very quickly. You can add them to pretty much any pasta or rice meal for added protein. Just add a bit more water. I also like to add nuts and seeds to some meals.
Carry a bottle of olive oil: This is what many hikers do in order to get more calories. Olive oil has a very high amount of calories per ounce. Squirt a bunch of oil on each meal and it will instantly taste MUCH better.
Bring LOTS of spices: At high elevations our sense of taste changes (which is one reason airline food tastes so crappy). Compensate for this by bringing a container of salt, herbs, and spices. I find that hot sauce makes any bland meal palatable.

Make Your Own Vegan Freeze-Dried Trail Meals Instead

Freeze-dried backpacking meals are super convenient, but they are also really expensive. I don’t want to spend $5-$13 for a single meal – especially when it is just rice, beans, and a few veggies!.

It’s actually pretty easy to make your own freeze-dried backpacking meals. You basically just:

Choose a quick-cooking carb as your base
Add freeze-dried fruits, veggies and proteins.
Add a spices and flavors
Put it all in a bag together.
To make, pour ingredients into your pot and cook.

Brands like Natierra and Mother Earth sell freeze-dried fruits and veggies. Emergency preparedness brands like Valley Food Storage, Augason Farms and The Ready Store also have lots of good deals on freeze-dried foods.

For more detailed instructions, read this guide on how to make freeze-dried trail meals.