Effective meal planning is, without a doubt, one of the most important keys to success on any backpacking trip. Food is fuel, so you need to have enough calories and nutrition to keep you going. But food is also for enjoyment, so you need to make sure you bring foods that you love and won’t get sick of after a couple of days eating them.
For both of these reasons, food planning for backpacking trips is always a very personal process. Everyone is different; some like snickers for lunch and freeze-dried food for dinner, and others like nuts and fruits and DIY dehydrated meals. There’s no right or wrong way to do any of it.
Still, food planning can be daunting for a beginner (or anyone, really). So in this post, I’ve outlined some of my main strategies for meal planning, a few tips and tricks to make it easier, and an entire 7-day sample meal plan to give you plenty of ideas.
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How Much Food Should You Pack?
The first step in meal planning is determining just how much food you need. I went into detail on this in my post on backpacking nutrition, but for the purposes of this post, it’s pretty simple. In general, you will need either;
- 2500 to 3500 calories per day
Or - 1.5 to 2.5 lbs of food per day
This, of course, depends on how long you’ll be hiking and how hard that hiking will be. It also depends hugely on how long you’ve already been hiking—a hiker on their 10th straight 15-mile day (e.g. a thru-hiker) will need to consume a lot more calories than a hiker on their first 15-mile day. Over multiple days of hiking, your body naturally ramps up metabolism to compensate for increased energy use.
If you’re not planning a thru-hike, then you can roughly estimate based on intensity. For less intense trips where time at camp is a priority (like short overnighters), stick to the lower end of the spectrum, around 2500–3000 calories. If you’re planning a long, strenuous hike where covering miles is a priority, then ramp that up to the 3000–3500 range.
I think it’s pretty rare for anyone to eat more than 3500 calories per day on anything less than a long thru-hike. Even on the last days of our John Muir Trail hike, where we averaged about 14 miles per day in pretty rugged country, we were barely hitting 3500 calories per day. I usually recommend leaning on the low end, unless it would be exceedingly risky for you or your trip.
What To Eat When Backpacking
This is another area that stumps people. The food you eat while backpacking won’t be the same food you eat at home due to bulk, weight, or time-consuming preparation. The best foods for backpacking usually have these three things in common:
- Lightweight (high caloric density, or calories per ounce)
- Not overly bulky
- Easy to eat
Not everything you take will have all those qualities, but most of it should. High caloric density means you’ll get more bang for your buck, weight-wise. Aim for at least 100 calories per ounce to keep weight low, with 120 calories per ounce average being awesome. Limiting bulk is essential to making sure you have enough pack space, so skip the bagged potato chips. And easy to eat means minimal preparation; you don’t want to mess around with chopping veggies while backpacking.
In addition to the three main requirements, here are some additional tips:
1. Bring Foods You Already Like
Trail mix is the quintessential backpacking food, right? But if you don’t like trail mix at home, you won’t like it on trail either. The most important thing, for the sake of food enjoyment, is to only pack stuff you know you like to begin with. Backpacking is a great excuse to eat some of those comfort foods that are a little too sinful for the weekly dinner table (or have a couple more sweet snacks than usual).
2. Bring pre-packaged stuff
Taking time to prepare a nice lunch or dinner is enjoyable at home, but in the backcountry, it’s a pain. That’s why you should make sure most of your food is pre-packaged; it’ll make for an easier eating experience (and cleanup) on trail. Bring store-bought packaged stuff (like Pro Bars or Mountain House), or take the time to pre-bag snacks like MnM’s or pretzels at home.
3. Bring some whole food
This might seem counter to the previous tip (and it kind of is), but a huge key to enjoying your trail food is to make sure at least some of it is real food—not just protein bars. My favorite (and in my opinion most satisfying) real food option is cheese and salami (more on backpacking with cheese here), but you could also pack some apple slices, a banana, or tortillas and peanut butter.
4. Mix It Up
My last tip is to make sure you pack a nice variety of foods. It's unlikely you’ll want even your favorite food after 4 or 5 days of eating it, let alone something like a lowly protein bar. You can certainly eat the same thing on multiple days, but bring enough variety of snacks and meals that you have some options for each day.
How To Create A Backpacking Meal Plan
I’ve created a 7-day sample plan below to help you get some ideas and fill out your own, but I also want to walk through my process for creating a meal plan. Once you have a reliable strategy for getting your food dialed in, it becomes a lot easier in the future.
Pro-Tip: Do this planning in a spreadsheet, or if you prefer pen and paper, in a written table. It’ll make it a lot easier to make sure you have the right amounts of everything. Alternatively (if you already have a lot of your food at hand), you can just lay out your food on the floor or table and organize it by day.
Step 1: Plan “Core Meals”
Core meals are usually breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I say “core meals” though, because some people don’t eat a sit-down breakfast, and some don’t eat a sit-down lunch (just about everyone eats dinner). So if you’re not the breakfast type, don’t plan for one—you can fill in those calories with breakfast-y snacks and quick eats later.
Once you’ve decided which core meals you plan on eating, figure out those first. I usually start with dinners, because they’re usually the most appetizing, and often you’ll just be choosing between dehydrated or freeze-dried meals (though dehydrating your own meals ahead of time is even more rewarding). I’ll write down what I’m going to have for dinner for each night I’m on trail (I rarely plan a trail dinner for an exit day), and then move on.
Work through your breakfasts and lunches in the same way, if eating (read this post for some of my favorite trail-lunch ideas). That will be the core of your meal plan.
Step 2: Decide on Drinks and Dessert
I put these together because they’re pretty easy and vary some from trip to trip. The first part is deciding whether you want them at all, and the second is deciding what kinds to bring.
Drinks are an easily overlooked, but important part of the backpacking experience. I almost always have instant coffee or tea in the morning, and there’s nothing better than a hot apple cider after dinner. You can also include any electrolyte drink mixes or energy mixes that you’ll mix into cold water during the day—I think that getting a few hundred calories from energy mixes like Tailwind can be super helpful in maintaining energy when you have a suppressed appetite (as is often the case at altitude). I’ll add morning drinks to the breakfast category, evening drinks to the dinner category, and any electrolyte drinks to the snack category.
I add dessert to the dinner category because I know it’s something I’ll want after dinner. It can be as simple as a snickers bar or as big as a Backpackers Pantry Creme Brulee, but I make sure to add it in specifically so it doesn’t get lost in the snacks.
Step 3: Subtract These From Total Calories
Step three is as simple as adding up the combined calories of your core meals plus drinks and desserts, then subtracting that from your daily goal.
For example, I often plan to eat packaged meals for breakfast and dinner and make a fairly specific lunch. I’ll have instant coffee with creamer in the morning and hot cider and something light for dessert in the evening. If I want to consume about 3500 calories per day, I check the labels for all of those items, add up the total calories, and subtract that from 3500. Often that calorie total comes out to about 2000, so I’m left with 1500 more calories to plan for.
Step 3: Fill In The Gaps
Now that you know how many calories you have left to plan, you can fill in that gap with snacks. Snacks are all about personal preference, but there are a couple of things you should keep in mind. I like to think of them in terms of “flavor variety” and “nutritional variety”.
For snacks, you should mix up flavors to keep things interesting. Some of my snacks are crackers and cheese, protein bars, dried fruits, and snickers. I rarely use the same snack plan twice, but there are some snacks (like peanut MnM’s) that I always come back to.
In your snacks, you should also make sure there is some nutritional variety as well. While your core meals are usually already a good mix of carbs, protein, and fat, snacks are often mostly one of each. Don’t just load up on different kinds of chocolates—you should deliberately take various types of snack foods also. This will leave you feeling more satisfied, will help you maintain energy levels, and aid muscle recovery.
Finish out your plan by writing in enough snacks to fill in your calorie gap. As you do this more you’ll find that often specific snacks go well with one of your core meals, and you’ll find yourself regularly eating them together (dried fruits with breakfast, etc.). If it’s easier for you to lump those snacks with the meal that they go with, go for it. I personally leave them in the “snack” category and keep it ambiguous, but that’s totally up to you.
7-Day Sample Meal Plan
Now that you have my basic strategy, here’s what a 7-day meal plan looks like for me. I’ve set the calorie goal at 3500 and really varied my meals to give you a broad range of food ideas.
I would like to note that I would normally repeat some of these backpacking meals and snacks a little more often than I’ve listed in this plan. Usually, it’s easier and cheaper to buy things like Peanut MnM’s and Babybel cheese in bulk packs, so I might eat them every day depending on the trip length. All the items on this list are things I regularly eat and enjoy, though, so just do whatever ultimately makes the most sense for you.
Also, I've listed a couple of meals that are personal recipes. They can be found in my easy no-cook lunches post and my gourmet ramen recipes post. Both posts have other recipes not listed here, so check them out for extra ideas!
| Breakfast | No breakfast for Day 1 (eat at home) | |
| Lunch | 2 oz Salami | 200 |
| 12 triscuit crackers | 240 | |
| 2 Tillamook Cheddar Cheese Snacks | 180 | |
| Dinner | Good-To-Go Thai Curry | 770 |
| Alpine Spiced Apple Cider | 80 | |
| Dessert | Backpacker's Pantry Creme Brulee | 310 |
| Snacks | Tailwind Endurance Fuel | 200 |
| 2 Oreos | 100 | |
| Bob's Red Mill Peanut Butter Banana Oat Bar | 210 | |
| 1 bag EPIC Bison Bacon Bites | 300 | |
| 1/2 Cup Organic Dried Mango (Costco) | 110 | |
| 2 oz Trail Mix | 300 | |
| Total Calories | 3000 |
| Breakfast | 2 Quaker Instant Oatmeal packets | 300 |
| Breakfast Essentials Drink Mix, chocolate | 220 | |
| Cusa Tea Instant Green Tea | ||
| Lunch | 2 EPIC Meat bars (calories vary w/ flavor)) | 300 |
| 2 Babybel Cheese snacks | 140 | |
| 1 Goldfish Snack Pack | 90 | |
| Dinner | Mountain House Chicken and Dumplings | 600 |
| Laird Superfood Hot Chocolate | 150 | |
| Dessert | 4 Chocolate Marshmallow Oreos | 280 |
| Snacks | Tailwind Endurance Fuel | 200 |
| 1 serving Parmesan Cheese Whisps | 150 | |
| 1/4 cup Peanut MnM's | 220 | |
| EPIC Beef Jalapeno Bar | 120 | |
| ProBar Superberry and Greens | 370 | |
| Goldifsh Snack Pack | 90 | |
| Kirkland Peanut Butter Pretzels | 140 | |
| Total Calories | 3370 |
| Breakfast | Heather's Choice Banana Nutmeg Breakfast | 530 |
| Starbucks Via | 0 | |
| Lunch | 2 "soft taco" flour tortillas | 280 |
| 1 Starkist Select E.V.O.O tuna pouch | 180 | |
| 2 mayo packets | 180 | |
| 1 tbsp Tapatio hot sauce | 0 | |
| Dinner | Andrew Skurka's Peanut Noodles (recipe here) | 800 |
| Alpine Spiced Apple Cider | 80 | |
| Dessert | Milky Way Bar | 240 |
| Snacks | Tailwind Endurance Fuel | 200 |
| 2 Oreos | 100 | |
| Bob's Red Mill PBnJ Bar | 180 | |
| EPIC Venison Bar | 150 | |
| 1/2 Cup Organic Dried Mango (Costco) | 110 | |
| 2 oz Trail Mix | 300 | |
| Kirkland Peanut Butter Pretzels | 140 | |
| Total Calories | 3470 |
| Breakfast | Kodiak Cakes Flapjack in a cup | 270 |
| Breakfast Essentials Drink Mix, chocolate | 220 | |
| Cusa Tea Instant Green Tea | 0 | |
| Lunch | 1/2 cup banana chips | 300 |
| 1 pouch Justin's Honey Almond Butter | 200 | |
| Dinner | Mountain House Spaghetti w/ Meat Sauce | 470 |
| Laird Superfood Hot Chocolate | 150 | |
| Dessert | Backpacker's Pantry Chocolate Cheesecake | 300 |
| Snacks | Tailwind Endurance Fuel | 200 |
| 1 serving Parmesan Cheese Whisps | 150 | |
| 1/4 Cup Peanut MnM's | 220 | |
| EPIC Maple Glazed Salmon Bites | 250 | |
| ProBar Superberry and Greens | 370 | |
| Goldfish Snack Pack | 90 | |
| Natures Bakery Fig Bar | 200 | |
| Total Calories | 3390 |
| Breakfast | Bob's Red Mill Muesli (2 servings) | 260 |
| 2 tbsp Coconut milk powder | 80 | |
| 2 tbsp chia seeds | 100 | |
| Starbucks Via Latte (mocha) | 150 | |
| Lunch | 1 cup Minute Instant Rice (cold soak) | 340 |
| Chicken Of The Sea Smoked Salmon | 100 | |
| 1 package nori seaweed snack | ||
| Soy sauce packet | 10 | |
| Dinner | My curry ramen recipe | 800 |
| Alpine Spiced Apple Cider | 80 | |
| Dessert | 4 Chocolate Marshmallow Oreos | 280 |
| Snacks | Tailwind Endurance Fuel | 200 |
| 2 Oreos | 100 | |
| Bob's Red Mill Peanut Butter Banana Bar | 210 | |
| Epic Beef Jalapeno Bar | 120 | |
| ProBar Superberry and Greens | 370 | |
| Goldfish Snack Pack | 90 | |
| Kirkland Peanut Butter Pretzels | 140 | |
| Total Calories | 3430 |
| Breakfast | 2 Quaker Instant Oatmeal packets | 300 |
| Laird Instafuel Latte | 150 | |
| Bobo's Apple Pie Oat Bite | 140 | |
| Lunch | 1 bag EPIC Bison Bacon Bites | 300 |
| 12 Triscuit Crackers | 240 | |
| 1 Tillamook cheddar cheese snack | 90 | |
| Dinner | Heather's Choice Salmon Chowder | 490 |
| 10 Saltine Crackers | 140 | |
| Alpine Spiced Apple Cider | 80 | |
| Dessert | 2 Ghirardelli Chocolate Caramel squares | 150 |
| Snacks | Tailwind Endurance Fuel | 200 |
| 2 serving Parmesan Cheese Whisps | 300 | |
| 1/4 Cup Peanut MnM's | 220 | |
| EPIC Venison Bar | 150 | |
| 1/2 Cup Organic Dried Mango (Costco) | 110 | |
| Goldfish Snack Pack | 90 | |
| Natures Bakery Fig Bar | 200 | |
| Total Calories | 3350 |
| Breakfast | Mountain House Granola w/ Milk and Blueberries | 520 |
| Starbucks VIA | 0 | |
| Lunch | 2 "soft taco" flour tortillas | 280 |
| 1 Starkist Select E.V.O.O tuna pouch | 180 | |
| 2 mayo packets | 180 | |
| 1 tbsp Tapatio hot sauce | ||
| Dinner | No dinner, exit day | |
| Snacks | Tailwind Endurance Fuel | 200 |
| 1 serving Parmesan Cheese Whisps | 150 | |
| 1/4 Cup Peanut MnM's | 220 | |
| EPIC Maple Glazed Salmon Bites | 250 | |
| 1/2 Cup Organic Dried Mango (Costco) | 110 | |
| 2 oz Trail Mix | 300 | |
| Natures Bakery Fig Bar | 200 | |
| Total Calories | 2590 |
