Wherever your outdoor pursuits take you, it pays to keep your backpack as light as possible to ensure you have all of the essentials with you without being weighed down. By planning your meals to be ultralight, you can carry all of the sustenance you need with you to fuel your adventures while keeping the weight of your belongings down to a minimum.
To help you out for your next expedition, our guide below on the best lightweight camping food covers the best foods that keep energy to a maximum and weight to a minimum.
What to Look Out for When Ultralight Backpacking
It goes without saying that cooking traditionally while outdoors requires a lot of ingredients and utensils that aren’t convenient to carry around. As a result, it’s important to strike a balance between food that provides you with all of the energy you need and tastes good, while also being lightweight enough to carry with you at all times. You should opt for lightweight food that:
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Has a low water content – Water adds weight to meals, so food that minimises this is ideal when you have to carry water.
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Has a high calorie-to-weight ratio – Good backpacking food should provide more calories per gram. A rough guide is to aim for high-calorie backpacking food with 120–150 calories per ounce (28g) or more.
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Has minimal cooking or no-cooking requirements – You may have limited or no cooking equipment with you, so easily prepared food is a must.
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Is shelf-stable – You should only take with you food that doesn’t require refrigeration and will remain edible throughout your journey.
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Is easy to portion – Food that is easily portioned ensures your ultralight meal planning, whether for three days, fewer, or more, is simple to keep track of throughout your trip.
How Much Food Should I Pack When Ultralight Backpacking?
When planning your daily meals, you should aim to take enough food with you for 2,500 to 4,500 calories per day. However, the specific amount that you will need will depend on several factors, such as your height, weight, age, the distance you’re covering in your expedition, and its intensity.
The Best Lightweight Camping Food
There are a number of foods that lend themselves to lightweight backpacking as a result of having all of the qualities described above. In particular, we recommend the following high-calorie backpacking food to ensure that you have enough sustenance while keeping your backpack weight to a minimum. These include:
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Dehydrated and freeze-dried meals
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Energy snacks
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Dried protein products
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Nuts, nut butters, and seeds
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Cheese and cured foods
Dehydrated and Freeze-Dried Meals
Our first and foremost recommendation for the best lightweight camping food is dehydrated and freeze-dried meals. These meals are designed specifically for campers, providing plenty of energy while keeping weight to a minimum. They’re designed to be easily prepared while outdoors, with many only needing a little water to turn into a ready-to-eat meal. Many of these can be eaten cold if you’re looking to minimise on equipment, or can be heated using a lightweight camping stove or flameless heater pack to be enjoyed hot.
Though many of these meals are lightweight, there are several brands in particular that offer especially lightweight meals. These include Summit to Eat, Real Turmat, Expedition Foods, and Adventure Menu. You can further reduce the weight and space of some of these meals by taking them out of their packets, transferring them to zip-lock bags, and vacuum packing them. However, Real Turmat and Adventure Menu meals are already vacuum-packed.
Energy Snacks
While not forming the main bulk of your food, energy snacks are a very convenient and practical way to keep yourself powering through your expedition. Including energy gels, energy bars, and energy sweets, these items are designed to be filled with energy while remaining as lightweight as possible. Perfect for keeping your energy up between meals, these snacks contain a variety of nutrients to ensure your best performance, with some being equally good sources of proteins, vitamins, and minerals as they are energy.
Dried Protein Products
As mentioned above, water can significantly increase food weight, so taking dried products with you is a good way to carry the sustenance you need without making your supplies too heavy. In particular, proteins can help with recovery after long days of exercise, so taking lightweight protein products such as the ones below are useful options:
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Beef jerky or biltong
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Dehydrated lentils or beans
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Protein powder, to add to oats or shakes
Nuts, Nut Butters, and Seeds
Fatty foods, such as nuts, nut butters, and seeds, are incredibly convenient when it comes to high-calorie backpacking food. This is because they have a very high calorie density, but they don’t require any preparation and are easy to snack on while hiking. As a result, we recommend taking some of the following lightweight foods with you for high-energy, quickly eaten options:
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Almonds, peanuts, or cashews
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Peanut butter or almond butter sachets
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Fruit, seed, and nut mixes
Cheese and Cured Foods
As enjoyable foods to take with you as a treat, hard cheeses and cured meats are great for providing plenty of energy and fat in an instant. However, they tend to be heavier than dehydrated foods, so they should be packed sparingly in comparison to the foods mentioned above. Specifically, you could pack hard cheeses such as cheddar or parmesan, or cured meats such as salami or cured sausage. As well as energy, these can give you that extra morale boost to keep you going throughout your journey.
High-Calorie Backpacking Food at Base Camp Food
By sticking to the above lightweight foods, you can easily pack all the food you need for your trip, making it convenient to carry and saving storage space for the rest of your camping equipment.
At Base Camp Food, we have a fantastic variety of lightweight foods that are perfect for all kinds of outdoor pursuits. Including our freeze-dried meals, energy snacks, and many other choices, you can find many lightweight camping foods that are calorie-dense and require little to no preparation.
Want to know more about the camping food and equipment we offer? Get in touch with us today, and we’ll be more than happy to discuss our best options with you.