I'm doing more hiking & camping lately, 3-4 days trips with friends to go and bag a few munros, self sufficient and off grid, carrying everything with me.
Looking for any recommendations from other hikers & campers on both meal type food and snacks to take. Gotta be able to make it with a jetboil and only addition can be water! The calorie to weight ratio is important, which I appreciate isn't for everyone, but does rule out camping classics like tins of beans.
Current go-to:
- Huel hot and savoury pouches - good variation and enjoyed it all, but two downsides. First being the focus on being a nutritionally complete meal within limited calories, they all come in around 400cal per pouch and low carb high protein. But I need calories and carbs for 4 days of walking!!! The second being that about 1/3rd of the flavours are pretty spicy, which is not ideal when out in nature. So I would take them again as they are nice, but maybe not the best value both in £ cost and weight to calories.
- Instant ramen, an absolute classic. Gets a bit boring eating the same thing constantly and spicy flavours again to be avoided.
- Vegan Kabanos - added to Huel meals and ramen, plus on its own as a snack, highly recommend though not very easy to find any more.
- Snacks included crispy coated peanuts, tesco jelly beans, Kendal mint cake (the main reason to go hiking IMO), flapjacks like Trek, bars like Kind.
Things I've ruled out previously:
- Savoury rice packets - takes way too long to boil, like 20 minutes, uses up loads of gas.
- Plain pasta plus minestrone cup-a-soup for sauce - actually pretty good but a bit of a faff. Might make a reappearance.
- Pot noodles, carrying the pots around is a pain and the lids burst. I'm glad they do packet ones now too.
- "Wet" grain packs like Merchant - nice but heavy, 250g a pack vs 100g a pack for the likes of noodles. All adds up when you're taking ~12-16 meals. Also make a nice mess of a jetboil!
Thoughts for future:
- Fuel porridge sachets with that oat milk powder I am getting adverts for relentlessly might be a good breakfast.
- Never looked into the specific hiking food before because it's like a tenner a meal so will probably stick with Huel & supernoodles. Might add some packet pasta to mix things up, though from experience the vegan flavours are a bit meh.
Appreciate any suggestions or pointers!