Camping in the wilderness often leaves you without a convenient way to grab a bite to eat.
You can’t just head over to a fast food restaurant or crack open the fridge; you’ll need to plan accordingly.
And since you’ll likely be more active in the great outdoors you’ll want to pack some extra hearty meals and a few more snacks than you normally would eat at home.
With all of this food, how do you make sure it doesn’t spoil?
Check out this handy guide filled with questions and answers on how to preserve food while camping.
Do you pack a cooler for camping?
Yes, I personally pack a cooler for camping.
And if I have room I pack a second cooler.
Why?
One for snacks and drinks, and one for perishable foods.
That way the second cooler can keep the good stuff as cold as possible for as long as possible.
Those ‘ice stays frozen for up to X days’ coolers only keep ice frozen that long if you keep the cooler lid shut!
Funny enough, I wrote an entire article on how to keep a cooler cold as long as possible, so check it out if you want some more tips.
Preserving food outside of a cooler
If you don’t have a basecamp to come back to, camping with a cooler doesn’t make sense.
You don’t want to be lugging around a cooler while on your hiking or backpacking trip.
When it comes to food outside of a cooler, keeping things edible is a bit tougher, but not impossible.
However, it’s important to note that all food has a shelf-life: a period of time that it stays good to eat.
After that shelf-life is up, the food starts to go bad.
That is the same in your kitchen as it is out on the trail (however, heat will speed things up greatly).
Let’s talk about preserving food before it hits that expiration date.
Quick note about calories
The important thing to remember on the trail is that you will be burning a ton of calories.
Some easy hikes will burn 2,000 calories while a decent thru-hike (20+ miles) can help you burn up to 6,000 calories.
While you don’t want to be supplying your body with a ton of unhealthy foods, there are some foods that have high calories but low weight.
When it comes down to it, shooting for AT LEAST 100 calories per ounce of food is ideal
Balancing calories, freshness, and weight will help keep your pack light and your stomach full.
Dehydrating food helps keep it from going bad
The process of dehydrating food removes all moisture.
This, in turn, keeps your food from going bad by preventing the growth of microorganisms.
There are some foods that you won’t want to dehydrate, however (source):
- Fatty meats: this can cause them to go rancid, ruining the taste.
- Milk: dehydrating milk removes the nutrients and can cause it to go bad as well.
- Nuts: removing the fat content from nuts removes the whole point of nuts in the first place.
- Cheese: removing dairy from cheese will cause it to go rancid. Instead, bring cheese that can be left out (more on that later).
If you are going to dehydrate food for the trail, keep it to foods that are okay to be dehydrated.
While there are certainly others, here are a few to keep in your menu:
- Lean cut meats such as turkey and chicken breast.
- Most fruits are great candidates for dehydrating.
- Vegetables such as cabbage, tomatoes, squash, and onions.
- Fat-free sour cream (has to be fat-free or it will go rancid).
When you’ve finished dehydrating your food you can put it in vacuum sealed bags to keep them fresh.
If you aren’t going on your trip immediately after dehydrating your food, store in the freezer until you’re ready to go.
And there are plenty of ways to make a meal out of dehydrated food when you’re ready to eat, including making a soup or stroganoff.
Bring foods that don’t need to be preserved
If you don’t want to be fighting an uphill battle with trying to preserve foods on your trip, skip those foods altogether!
There are plenty of foods that are high in calories that don’t need to be preserved, such as granola, peanut butter, and ramen.
There are some fresh vegetables, such as carrots, that will last a day or two without being preserved that make for a nice snack in the beginning of your trip.
And bringing fresh fruit can do the same, but both of these foods have low amounts of calories.
But after that day or two, those foods will start to go bad.
Some foods that won’t go bad and don’t need to be preserved include:
- Bagels and tortillas
- Pop-tarts
- Granola bars
- Peanut butter
- Cereal
- Ramen
- Stuffing
- Oatmeal
These foods should last you until the end of your trip without going bad.
Certain cheeses will last you a while
Despite most cheeses being sold in the refrigerated section of stores, there are some kinds of cheese that can be left out for a good period of time before going bad.
When you’re out in the heat on longer trips (up to two weeks), hard cheeses are your best option.
If you’ll only be staying out a day or two in cooler weather, soft cheeses can work too.
The best cheeses to bring with you on the trail are (source):
- Cheddar
- Parmesan
- Mozzarella
Just be sure to buy the bricks of cheese as they will last longer than slices or shredded.
When you package the cheese, be sure to wrap them in wax paper then a loose plastic wrap (not a ziploc bag).
And of course, things like canned or powdered cheese will last quite a while as well.
Speaking of powdered.
Powdered foods are your best friend
Powdered foods are great on the trail.
They stay preserved really well and all they need is some water to be back to regular food.
Things like powdered eggs, milk, sauces, etc. will be light in your pack and make great meals once rehydrated.
You can also take some powdered cheese and add to meals to give them a different flavor and add some calories.
And instant mashed potatoes also fit in this category.
On the topic of ‘powdered’ foods, I’m throwing spices in here as well.
Even though some aren’t necessarily powdered, spices will help differentiate the taste of your food on the trail, so they deserve to be on this list.
Because eating the same exact thing for a week straight can be mind-numbing, especially when you don’t have a full kitchen of food to switch the flavor up.
Leave the canned food at home
Canned food is preserved really well, so it should be a great candidate for a backpacking meal, right?
Not exactly.
Canned food often has a ton of excess liquid in it, making it heavy.
And the can itself is also heavy.
Not only is it inconvenient to carry out before you eat it, unless there is a trash can nearby you’ll have to carry the empty can in your pack until you can properly dispose of it.
I’d leave the canned food at home.
It’s too heavy and inconvenient to be worth bringing.
Pro tip: bring pasta and rice sides
I put these in their own section because I really like them as a pre-preserved meal option.
And they’re pretty inexpensive.
They also make for easy meals.
The pasta sides need to boil for 8 minutes and the rice sides simmer for 7 minutes.
After they’re done you have a great side dish, and each pack is about 400-500 calories.
Amazon sells them in packs of 8 or individually for a dollar (as of the time of writing this) each.
Bringing hiking-ready foods
I saved this one for last because I wanted to share some ways to get around it, and this probably wasn’t what you were looking for when you found this article.
But still, purchasing hiking-ready foods from the store is also a good option.
These foods come in convenient packages and are already freeze dried for your convenience.
They are also labeled as ‘trail-ready’, and can usually be found in the camping section of big stores like Walmart and Academy.
You can also purchase them online (here’s a Mountain House breakfast skillet meal I found on Amazon).
The great thing about these is they are already packaged.
You just load them up in your pack and you’re good to go.
The bad thing?
They’re pretty expensive when it comes down to it.
Still, ordering a few meals online is way easier than having to dehydrate your food or go buy specific foods altogether.
It’s a trade off between time and money, and it’s totally your choice!
Did we leave anything off the list?
Preserving food is an art that really helps you bring some great meals with you on your trip.
Dehydrating food will keep things fresh and lighten your pack, as will having pre-preserved options such as powdered or trail-ready freeze dried foods.
Need a little switch up in flavor on your trip?
Pack some spices or individual sauce packets (powdered cheese works well too).
Was there any methods of preserving food or actual foods in particular that should be on this list?
Let me know in the comments below!