Vegan Backpacking Food

[MAWalker]

I eat very little meat and don’t buy many premade dehydrated meals - too much salt, and I’m allergic to onion. So I dehydrate tons of vegs to bulk up the few I do buy, and also lots of fruit so no preservatives like a lot of purchased dried fruit. So I mostly eat thick veg soups, nut butters on tortillas, nuts, dried fruits, and homemade bars. I add chia and flax to most things, and also make a lot of bean or sweet potato bark to thicken my soups. I eat really well on trail, but it looks different than a lot of junky stuff many people carry. If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend www.backpackingchef.com!! Glenn has amazing info and recipes for dehydrating.

Moderator Edit: fixed typo.

[bobcat]

I recently switched to plant-based eating, and I am currently trying to dehydrate some new dinners to see if they will work on the trail. Planning a kayaking trip to IsRo in August.

Dinners: lentils and rice, burritos with Mexican rice and beans, chickpea peanut butter stew with tomato’s, and cuoscuos curry with vegetables. 4-day rotation. The lentil and rice and the couscous curry are longtime standards so I know they work.

Breakfast is oatmeal with raisins and a bit of maple sugar granules. Lunch is a continuous progression of snacks including Lara Bars, whole-grain crackers with hummus or peanut butter, dried fruit, trail mix.

Hope this gives you some more ideas!

[Western Midwesterner]

Hiya Bobcat!

Although I am not a vegan, I eat almost exclusively vegan on trail. It's so much lighter and less prone to spoilage. I'm hiking IR this July, West to East and with a 7-day vegan meal plan. Much of my meal planning comes from the book Another Fork in the Trail by Laurie Ann March. I have a few other meals I've come up with on my own that have become staples. Feel free to contact me if you want to swap recipes!

[bobcat]

OK, my meals are packed for a 2-week trip kayaking through the inland canoe routes. I know of that book, mentioned above, and I have a couple favorite sources of my own including Lip-Smacking Vegetarian Backpacking by Tim and ?? Connors, And "The Hungry Hiker's Book of Good Cooking" by Gretchen McHugh. On this trip, I actually had more issues with planning and inventing lunches. I ended up inventing two cold-soak salad recipes that work ok at home and as packed lunches for work, so this trip will be a good test. Normally bagels last for 4-5 days, tortillas last a bit longer depending on the brand and packaging, and then I use crackers......which can be stale and crumbled after two weeks in a pack, even if stored in a plastic box. This cold-soak trial will be a good test, and if it doesn't work out I will be close enough to Rock Harbor store at that point that I can purchase supplemental food! My intended route is about ten days out in the central inland waterways and then four to 5 days in Rock Harbor (the waterway) exploring places on the barrier islands, dayhikes and hopefully an MV Sandy excursion to Passage Island. With a kayak, I can camp at Caribou Island and Tooker's Island as well as the four shoreline campgrounds, so hopefully I will find places to stay despite it being the busiest time of the summer!