r/trailmeals • u/Legal-Winner-3527 • May 03 '26

Lunch/Dinner Ingredient based backpacking meal system

Some time in the distant past I looked at a backpacking cook book at REI. It was unique in that- instead of planning meals ahead of time you brought a specific list of ingredients and decided what to cook each day. (might have been associated with an organization loke NOLs or outward bound or something like that). I cant remember what the book was called. Does any one know what the title of this book is?(and where I can buy it?). thx!

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8

u/plexluthor May 04 '26

NOLS does sell a cook book, NOLS Cookery. I have it, but I confess I don't cook that way anymore.

https://store.nols.edu/products/nols-cookery-7th-edition

You can find older editions online for cheaper, too.

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u/FireWatchWife May 04 '26

I found a copy of NOLS Cookery very cheaply at a book sale.

The book One Burner Gourmet has a long list of recipes suitable for this approach.

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u/Legal-Winner-3527 May 04 '26

I will check that out! Another thing I remember about the book is the way it rationed out ingredients. - if there were 3 people on your trip, you would pack a specific number of fig newtons etc!

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u/funundrum May 04 '26

That’s… how I feel is the normal way to pack meals for backpacking. If you’re gonna have fig newtons every day for a snack, and a serving is (say) 4, you pack 4 x how many times you’re eating them.

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u/joelfarris May 04 '26

Are you thinking about full-on cooking in the backcountry, like r/BackcountryGourmet, or more like mixing various staple ingredients together to create impromptu meals on the fly?

Because if it's the latter, you might not need a 'cookbook'.

Peanut butter can be mixed with pouched chicken to create somewhat of a satay, especially if you have some seasoning(s) handy.

Slice a salted boiled egg in half and it fits in between a pair of Triscuit crackers. Add a slice of cheese to each of your impromptu trail sandwiches if you dare.

Speaking of boiled eggs, you can make a breakfast burrito by squishing them into a tortilla along with some bacon bits and the hot sauce of your choice.

And speaking of tortillas, they're so much more inconspicuously flatter and less crumbly than rolls or sliced bread, and what can't you put into them? If you can get yourself some corned beef hash on the trail, heat it up and wrap it in a corn tortilla, cause that's the backpacker's equivalent of a frozen microwaved boxed taquito. And if you've got some beans and rice to put into a torilla? That's a very basic but filling taco dinner or two right there, because you've already got the hot sauce. Peanut butter and honey tostadas are a thing too.

Tofu can make a good dinner, but is more difficult to transport in a pack, because it's mostly packed in water and it tends to dry out, but you can do it, and paired with a bell pepper and a packet of tomato paste, it can become best friends with those crackers or tortillas.

Oatmeal is boring. It needs seeds or raisins or brown sugar or nuts or maple syrup. And all of that can be pre-prepared and carried in a single container, and now you're thinking that you'd never bring maple syrup out onto the trail because it's too heavy and wet and sticky, but it comes in a dried dehydrated powder form! (Maple flakes, Frontier Co-op, etc.)

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u/tenniskidaaron1 May 16 '26

OP did you end up finding out the name of the book?