Trail meals are easy meals you can prepare and cook within a quarter of an hour. These are excellent to take with you hiking.

This article will explain the basics of a go to recipe of mine, feel free to add in any ingredients you like. For the basis of this recipe you will need to stock and prepare the following ingredients.

Noodles, take your favorite kind.

Dried Cauliflower

Dried onions

Dried peas

Smoked sausage of any kind

Your favorite spices or the spice packet in the noodles.

The cooking gear you need for this recipe out an the trail are as follows:

Mess kit – I carry my Esbit cook kit for this.

Tea towel for cleanup

Spork

Pocket knife to cut the sausage.

Gas stove or alcohol stove

Preparations at home for out on the trail

If you do not have a food dehydrator I highly suggest you pick one up whenever you find one out on a flea market or second hand. They are often an impulse buy and you can find them pretty cheap. If you cant wait for that have a look on Amazon for the right fit for you.

The vegetable part of this meal you need to prepare at home for out on the trial. This is best to do in a big batch because dried vegetables last forever and you only need to do it once in a while that way.

Preparing the veg

Cut up the Cauliflower in small florets and slice them length wise in a couple millimeters slices. Lay them out on the dehydrator trays with some space between them.

Grab a couple of onions, I like to mix and match yellow onions and red onions. Mostly for some colour in the soup. Dice them very fine so they dry quickly.

The peas I always get canned, if you are feeling fancy you can boil the frozen ones or fresh ones beforehand. Drain the Peas from the can to get as much moisture out of them as possible and put them on a tray.

Turn on the dehydrator and check on them every hour or so, the Cauliflower will take the longest.

The sausage you can get while in town and store outside of the refrigerator.

Trail Meal Preparation out on trail

Put about 600 milliliters of water in your pot and add the dried vegetables in the cold water. This will help with the re hydration of the vegetables. Put the kettle on your burner and wait for it to boil. Then add the noodles and the spice packet that comes with it. After one or two minutes of boiling you can take it of the burner and set it to the side for a few minutes.

If you have a pot cozy now is the time to use it. This will keep it hotter for you to eat while everything is re hydrating. Just before eating you can cut in some sausage if you like. And maybe add a bit more pepper and salt. You can be quite liberal with the salt since hiking is a sweaty business.

Cleanup after dinner

Take your tea towel and clean the pot out as good as possible. The next morning you do not want your coffee to taste the same as your dinner of course. If you need to use some extra water to clean it up you can do that.

And that’s it! hope you enjoy the meal out on trail and happy hiking!