How to Plan Food Menus for Back-country Adventures

Preferences being what they are,  it can be a challenge to plan lightweight, nonperishable menus for a group. In our family, I do not eat sweetened foods while my daughter and my husband love candy, granola bars and candy-infused trail mixes. My daughter is very fond of high-carb foods, while my husband likes meats. We've found the prepared freeze-dried backpacking meals that can be purchased to be very salty while containing minimal meat. Now, I purchase mainstream what I can, and dehydrate the rest at home. Presented here is my menu planning strategy and our 2019 3-person 10-day back-country canoe trip.


Step 1: To begin planning, I start by figuring out the cookware I wish to to carry, which dictates what can be cooked. For backpacking, we typically bring only a pot, requiring foods to be eaten cold or as one pot meals. For canoe trips, we can carry a little extra weight. For our 2019 3-person 10-day family canoe trip, we went big. We opted to use a pot, skillet and reflector oven which allowed for maximum variety - one pot meals, skillet-fried foods, and baked items.


Step 2: Once the cookware to pack is determined, identify a basic 3-meals per day menu. For all moving days I plan a cold breakfast and often a cold lunch. For in-camp days I plan hot breakfasts and lunches. Below is a video of the food for our 10-day trip. After the video, the menu and packing list are provided.

Video showing the food for our 10-day 3-person backcountry canoe trip.

The following is our basic menu minus snacks, drinks and treats. On this basic menu you will also see 2 spare meals. These are "emergency" meals in the event we get storm bound on exit day, run into someone needing help, or simply get extra hungry at some point in time. All meats and rices are cooked at home and dehydrated. All pasta except for Knorr and angel hair are also cooked and dehydrated. I have done various videos and blog postings showing how this is done. Please find links to some of these at the end of this post.

Our 2019 10-Day 3-Person Backcountry Menu

	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Day 1	On the road	PB&J Bagel, Cheese, Jerky/Sausage, Trailmix	Spaghetti & Meat Sauce w/Cheesy Garlic Biscuits, Applesauce
Day 2	Patrick Cudahy Ready Cooked Bacon, Pancakes	PB&J Bagel, Cheese, Jerky/Sausage, Trailmix	Beef Stroganoff, Peas, Applesauce
Day 3	Bacon Jerky, Granola Bars, Trail Mix, Oatmeal w/Fruit and Nuts	Knorr Buttery Noodle, Beef, and Brocoli	Spanish Rice, Fritos, Ground Beef, Applesauce
Day 4	Patrick Cudahy Ready Cooked Bacon, Hungry Jack Dehydrated Hashbrowns	Granola bars, Trail Mix, Jerky, Cheese	Baked Beans, Beef, Cornbread, Applesauce
Day 5	Bacon jerky, granola bars, trail mix, oatmeal	Beef Mashed Potatoes, Ground Beef, Veggies	Chicken, Curry Rice, Peas, Minced Onion and Garlic, Blueberry Muffin, Applesauce
Day 6	Bacon jerky, granola bars, trail mix, oatmeal	Granola bars, Trail Mix, Jerky, Cheese	Chili, Fritos, Biscuit, Applesauce
Day 7	Patrick Cudahy Ready Cooked Bacon, Hungry Jack Dehydrated Hashbrowns	Chicken, Knorr Pasta, Brocoli, Applesauce	Loaded Potato Soup, Bacon Bits, Cheesy Biscuits, Applesauce
Day 8	Bacon jerky, granola bars, trail mix, oatmeal	Shepherd's Pie, Beef	Chicken Fried Rice, applesauce
Day 9	Patrick Cudahy Ready Cooked Bacon, Pancakes	Knorr Stroganoff, Beef, Peas	Sweet Sour Chicken, Rice, Applesauce
Day 10	Bacon jerky, granola bars, trail mix, oatmeal	Spare: Butter Chicken, Rice	Spare: Mashed Potatoes, Beef, Veggies

Step 3: Squeeze in drinks, treats and candy where you can until you reach your weight and volume limit. The following is our packing list including snacks, drinks and treats. While we ate most of what we brought, some food went unconsumed. The number of each item packed is listed. In the event something remained uneaten, leftover items after the trip are accounted for in red.

Our 2019 10-Day 3-Person Backcountry Food Packing List

4/1	Bacon	1	Bag of Mini Bagels	2	Bags M&Ms	10/6	Lollipops
2	Pancakes	4/2	Peanut Butter	1	Blueberry Muffin	1	Crushed Red Peppers
1	Cooking Oil	4/4	Nutella	1	Chili	5	Hot Sauce
2	Chocolate Chips	2	Plain Rice	2	Fritos		Salt & Pepper
1	Syrup	5/2	Chicken	1	Loaded Potato Soup	2/1	Mashed Potatoes
2/1	Hashbrowns	3	Knorr (Buttery, Stroganoff, Chicken)	1/0.5	Bacon Bits	1	Sweet Sour Rice
4	Bacon Jerky	1	Bag of dehydrated Peas	1	Biscuits	1	Soy/Oil
6/1	Ketchup	1/1	Baked Beans	1	Starburst	6	Fun Sized Snickers
14	Plain oatmeal	1	Cornbread	15/4	Applesauce	4	Marshmallows
1	Dehydrated Fruit	7/3	Ground Beef/Taco Meat	2	Strawberries Dehydrated	1	Curry Seasoning
1	Chopped Pecans	1	Spanish Rice	1	Nuts	1	Tub Butter
10/1	Trail Mix - Mom	1	Beef Stronganoff	1	Country Trail Mix	2	Lemonade
15	Sweet and Salty Peanut Bars	1	Butter Chicken	1	Tropical Fruit Trail Mix
7+6/1	G-bars / Clif	1	Spag Sauce	1	Shepherd's pie
9/6	Maple Oatmeal	1	Angel Hair	2/1.5	Nuun
'20	Cheese	1	Cheesy Garlic Biscuit	5	Gatorade
7	Beef Jerky (4), Sausage (2), Slim Jim	1/1	Curry Rice	4/4 2	Cr. Chick Soup / Cocoa

Based on the unconsumed items and the comments during the trip, next year I could leave some of the maple oatmeal for my husband and daughter home. We also talked about single portaging, which means we should leave the reflector oven home, and in place of the 4 baked goods we could consume the three unconsumed meals we had planned and add a fourth. We could leave some of the applesauce home as well, and skip the marshmallows. We should bring additional Gatorade and lemonade drink mixes, as my husband and daughter wanted more after these ran out. Also, I should pack one curry instead of 2 (some of the family felt that butter chicken and chicken curry were too much curry for one trip). The fun-sized snickers were a hit, and more of those would have been appreciated. My husband would like a full pound of M&Ms for himself next time.

To cut back on having to carry a skillet, we could leave the cooked bacon, pancakes and hashbrowns home. To make up for the hashbrowns, we could bring more home cooked dehydrated potato dishes instead. We could displace ready cook bacon with bacon jerky. This will cut back on overall pack weight by leaving the skillet and cooking oil home. My daughter loves her pancakes, and I will have to think very hard to come up with a satisfactory replacement if we go to all cold foods and one pot meals.

Overall, our packing gets better each and every year. Next year our goal is to lighten the pack weight so that we can single portage our way through the BWCA rather than double portaging. I am excited to take on the challenge!

Links to my video series and blog post about how to dehydrate foods for your outdoor adventures:

Part 1 - Meats

Part 2 - Veggies and Sauces

Part 3 - Sauces, Pasta and Rices

Blog Post - Dehydrating Meats, Veggies and Easy Entrees for Outdoor Adventures


That's all for now, let's get outdoors and keep our wild places wild!