Meal Planning Tips and Recipes for Backpackers, Hikers, and Campers

Are you looking for recipes for one pot meals, info on how to make food plans for camping trips, or tips on trail cooking? At Harmony House, we are proud to be one of the top suppliers that backpackers and campers turn to for dried vegetables and fruits for their meals and snacks on the trail. Over the years, we’ve built relationships with many experts on the subject of trail food. We thought it might be helpful to provide a few of these online resources to our outdoor adventurer customers, to help you plan delicious trail meals, whether you are camping for a weekend or six months. Here they are, in no particular order. 

Our Backpacking Kit has won raves from hikers and campers, as well as national recognition from Backpacker Magazine. They awarded our Backpacking Kit their Editor's Choice Award, for overall excellence. A recent Backpacker Magazine blog, 11 Awesome Backpacking Foods Worth Planning Ahead For raves about our “versatile” Backpacking Soup and Chili Kit, saying they can be used to, “create endless options for your end-of-the-day meal.”

Andrew Skurka is a renowned adventure athlete, known for solo long-distance backpacking trips, including the 7,775-mile Sea-to-Sea Route. In total, he has backpacked, skied, and packrafted the equivalent of traveling 1.2 times around Earth’s equator! Skurka has been named “Adventurer of the Year” by both Outside and National Geographic Adventure. His website is a great source for meal planning info, recipes, and so much more. 

The folks at TrailCooking.com offer all sorts of tasty, simple, and convenient recipes for backpackers and campers, including special recipes for hikers who only eat gluten free, dairy free, or vegetarian foods. They test out each one of their delicious recipes on the trail. All of their recipes are designed to be made only with a stove, a tea kettle or small pot, a freezer bag, and a spoon. 

Writer Laura Lancaster, who thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in 2014 and the Wonderland Trail in 2015, recently wrote a very helpful blog for MSR that explains the nuts and bolts of trail nutrition and suggests ingredients you can use to custom make your own backcountry food, Homemade Backpacking Meals, Just Add Water.

Chef Glenn developed his backpacking recipes and trail cooking methods for a trip on the Appalachian Trail. Now he publishes his recipes for “healthy hearty” backpacking meals, along with meal planning tips, sample menus and great tips for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks on his website BackpackingChef.com.

We go the extra mile to find out what the needs and cravings of backpackers and campers are. Pun intended! We mean “the extra mile,” quite literally. The offices of Harmony House are located very close to the Appalachian Trail. We have gone out to the AT to talk to some of the long-distance backpackers, while they are making that incredible journey from Georgia to Maine. We’ve asked them about their food challenges on the trail. We’ve considered their answers when thinking about ways we can offer even better delicious and nutritious solutions. Our customers have noticed the fruits (ok that pun was not intended) of our research in the high quality and ease-of-use of our products. We also share the information we gather through our company website. Here are a few other articles from our blog that can help hikers as you plan trips to the backcountry:

We would love to hear from you. If you have any suggestions or tips for other backpackers or hikers we would love to hear them. We invite you to share your recipes and tips with us through the Harmony House Facebook Page. Happy hiking!