The Greatest Backpacking Meals of 2023

Hunger truly is the best spice — but sometimes that trusty ol’ packet of ramen noodles just won’t cut it at the end of a long day on trail. The best backpacking meals will serve up a “gourmet” dish of flavorful, nutrient-rich energy right in your dirty campground. And — they weigh barely anything.

However, if you’re a backcountry nut like we are, you’ve certainly experienced moments where freeze-dried meals didn’t live up to the surroundings. We still carry around packets of Taco Bell Fire Sauce and vials of salt and pepper on the trail to spruce up our meals.

But with foodies holding higher standards around what should go into their mouths, the trickle-down of what should go into their backpacks follows. Lately, we’ve found ourselves needing our extra spices less and less.

The old faithfuls like Mountain House and Backpacker’s Pantry still reign in some areas. But companies like Good To-Go, Heather’s Choice, and Peak Refuel are catching up, with extremely respectable calorie-to-weight ratios and phenomenal tastes. And that hardly begins to cover some of the more niche companies specializing in paleo, keto, and vegan offerings.

Our team has collectively scraped the last morsels out of thousands of backpacking meals on adventures around the world, and won’t settle for just any freeze-dried meal you find in the grocery store. Author and Senior Editor Chris Carter has significant experience waiting impatiently for backpacking meals to hydrate in the cold evening hours. An alumnus of each of the Triple Crown Trails in the U.S., he’s intimately aware of the importance of well-balanced meals on the trail, not only for a moral boost at the end of a grueling day, but as sustainable nutrition for the long haul.

Chris has sampled just about every brand out there in an effort to find that backcountry feast. He put over 15 different meals to the test in the past year alone, and scoured the interwebs, bugged his thru-hiking buddies, and pored through hiking forums to bring you this streamlined selection of 16 meals you see today.

Below we’ve compiled some fan favorites, and based our selection off our own experiences and user reviews. Here are the top backpacking meals to stock up on for the coming season — or, if you’re a prepper — the coming apocalypse. Whatever way things shake out, these meals are A-OK.

Check out our list of top picks, or hop down to our buyer’s guide, comparison chart, or FAQ for more info on snagging the perfect meal for your needs.

Dietary info key:

GF = gluten-free
DF = dairy-free
V = vegan
Veg = vegetarian

Best Backpacking Meals of 2023

Backpacking Meals Comparison Chart

How We Tested Backpacking Meals

The GearJunkie team is comprised of a multitude of backcountry chefs who have been whipping up meals in the wilderness for about as long as they can remember. They know the importance of a hearty, tasty meal for a boost in moral at the end of the day, and sustained energy on the open trail.

For this guide we racked our brains, trying to remember our favorite meals we’ve sampled over our years of adventuring. We also scoured the interweb, bugged the pros, and tried a plethora of new concoctions to narrow in on the best backpacking meals currently on the market.

Author and Senior Editor Chris Carter has burned more backpacking meals in the woods than he’d like to admit, but in his years of culinary calamities, he’s stumbled upon some pretty spectacular flavors and brands. Chris is an alumnus of each of the Triple Crown Trails in the U.S., the PCT, CDT, and AT, and has cooked his fair share of gnarly hiking meals. Beyond the fabled ramen bombs that sustained him many a night on trail, Chris has sampled most backpacking meal brands, and won’t just bring any ol’ freeze-dried option on his adventures.

Every meal on this list was vetted by our stone-cold pros and had to prove itself on real-world tests in the mountains. Meals had to offer acceptable calorie-to-weight ratios, and provide sustainable energy for the long haul. Rest assured — we would depend on any one of these meals for nourishment on our treks.

Buyer’s Guide: How to Choose the Best Backpacking Meals

When laying out gear for your next backpacking adventure, the prospect of planning your food intake can feel complex and daunting. This is where backpacking-specific food offers some relief and lots of time-saving convenience.

Instead of packing carefully measured volumes of specific ingredients to make a bunch of meals from scratch, backpacking meals come in neat little packages that are easy to lay out and visualize as you plan your trip’s meal schedule.

Be sure to consider how much space you have in your backpacking backpack, or ultralight backpack when shopping for these meals in bulk.

Dietary preferences are very individualized, and everything from taste to ingredients to ideal serving size varies from person to person. When selecting backpacking meals for your upcoming adventure, try to lean heavily on what you already know about your personal food preferences.

While there are plenty of creative and inspired backpacking meals available today, choose the options that align with your lifestyle and sound appealing. Maybe you prefer low-sodium foods, are lactose intolerant, or maybe you just really dislike black beans. Whatever your preferences are, honor them as you begin to purchase meals.

After a long and active day out, you don’t want to find yourself stuck with a meal that isn’t exciting and satisfying for you. Go with what you know.

Caloric Density & Weight

Now here’s where the debate gets heated! Backpackers — particularly in the ultralight cult — love nothing more than to scrutinize the stats of every element in their loadout to narrow in on the best funtionality-to-weight ratio. Different backpackers have different nutritional needs, but in general, you want to strike a healthy balance between calories and dry weight so you don’t end up bringing too much heavy food, or not enough food for the exercise you’re about to do.

Consider how much your meals weigh versus how many calories they offer. While we aren’t going to suggest an exact number of calories you should be consuming during backpacking trips, we do recommend ensuring the meals you purchase offer enough calories to sustain you throughout the strenuous demands of backpacking trips.

We like to follow the “100 calories per ounce” role when backpacking. Optimally, any food that you take, whether it be freeze-dried dinners or protein bars for snack time, should follow this metric. Many of the meals we’ve highlighted above are eaten during dinner-time, which is when you should be consuming the most calories. For that reason, it’s best that they have a much higher ratio than just 100 to one.

Generally, you’ll consume more calories per day while backpacking than you do on an average day at home. Before your trip begins, it may be a good idea to try a few backpacking meals and experience the actual size of the servings and how full they make you feel.

Remember that when you locate the calorie number on the back of your food pouch, that number refers to the calories in a single serving. Many backpacking meals contain multiple servings, so don’t assume one individual pouch is meant to be one meal for one person. In our stats list above, we have listed the total number of calories in each entire package.

Food is always going to make up a major portion of the total weight you’re lugging around in your pack. Ideally, you’re maximizing the amount and quality of the food that you bring while minimizing the weight you’ll have to carry.

As you consider which meals to buy, think about the ratio between weight and calories. There’s a lot of variation in this ratio between different meal options and meal manufacturers. Over a multiday trip, weight adds up fast. Plenty of calories and a manageable total pack weight are your goals.

Cooking Method: Pot or Pouch?

There are a few distinct categories of backpacking meals that are defined by the cooking method. Most backpacking meals are dehydrated or freeze-dried and must be invigorated with hot water before consumption.

While many options can simply be hydrated in their own packaging, others have to be poured into a pot and actively stirred. An obvious difference between these two methods is that the pot-reliant options require you to dirty a dish at mealtime. For those who wish to avoid this, or for the ultralight and cookware-averse crowd, cook-in-pouch meals are the better choice.

A third category of backpacking meal requires no hot water hydration at all. These meals are cooked and ready to eat as is, and all you have to do is simply open the pouch and dig in. However, because these options are not dehydrated before packaging, they tend to be heavy.

Check out our comprehensive guide on backpacking stoves for help in choosing the best backcountry heating method to whip your meals into shape.

Water Availability

For meals that require water in their “cooking” process, plan ahead to ensure you’ll have access to enough water to hydrate your pouches at mealtime. Will you be carrying some or all of your water on this trip? Is there access to water along the way? If you’ll have access to a natural water source, do you have a reliable method of treating your water before using it for meals? If done properly, boiling water can be an effective method of disinfecting water before using it for meals.

If you’ll be carrying your water, which will make it a very cherished commodity, it may be wise to consider meals that don’t require hydration before cooking. That way, you can focus your water allotment on your drinking needs.

Dietary Restrictions

These days, there are ever-improving backpacking meals available for those with dietary restrictions. Heather’s Choice and Patagonia Provisions, among others, make meals that accommodate eaters with all kinds of diets, from dairy-free to paleo to vegan and more.

Nutritional Value and Energy in Backpacking Meals

Just because a meal has a ton of calories, doesn’t mean those calories will necessarily give you the sustainable energy you need to keep pushing day after day on trail. Food made of empty calories doesn’t offer much in the way of clean, nutritionally-dense energy.

Keep your eyes peeled for backpacking meals that strike a balance between healthy fats, substantial carbohydrates, and protein. All of these are essential ingredients for your body to keep lugging your backpack across brutal terrain.

We love meals that incorporate organic ingredients with lots of energy, like Patagonia’s Black Bean Soup. Meals like these make us feel cleaner and healthier as we push ourselves to the limit.

Cost

Finally, refer to your trip’s budget before jumping in and buying all the meals that seem intriguing. Backpacking meals range in price quite a lot, and many backpackers are surprised to discover that some options cost nearly as much as brunch at a sit-down restaurant. Backpacking meals tend to cost between $5 and $15 per pouch.

We don’t think it’s a good idea to buy all of your meals at once for a long multi-month backpacking trip. Chances are, the flavor you desire in the present isn’t what you will crave five weeks into a four-month thru-hike. Sample a few beforehand, and buy different flavors or ship them ahead while you are on trail.

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