Outdoorsman’s Delight: Freeze Dried Food
Who doesn’t love a good campout? Sleeping under the stars, enjoying the sounds of the great outdoors, exploring Mother Nature’s playground; there’s nothing better. Whether you are a hiker, backpacker, or a family that enjoys quality time without technology, camping trips are always the answer.
Our family marks our camping trips on the calendar and we look forward to the simple time spent away from work, distractions, and other obligations. But just because life is easier when you’re roasting marshmallows by the fire, doesn’t mean the prep work to get there was all that easy.
The biggest headache for me when it comes to camping trips is the meal prep. It feels like I bring more and more of my kitchen pantry with me every time we go camping! Which also means I have more and more to cleanup when we get home.
I am always searching for simpler and easier meal ideas to keep our campouts simple and enjoyable yet still awesome! I’ve seen the freeze-dried food pouches where you just add water but I was always so skeptical because how could it be that easy and still taste good? However, my curiosity finally got the best of me as I decided to give them a try and I don’t think I’ve ever been proven so wrong in my life.
Mountain House
The first freeze-dried food pouch that I tried was the Mountain House Breakfast Skillet. It is hashbrowns and scrambled eggs mixed with pork sausage, peppers and onions. All you have to do is add boiling water to the pouch, mix it up, zip it closed, and let it sit for 10 minutes. These meal pouches are lightweight, easy to store, and even easier to clean up!
I was amazed at the results. Not only was it crazy easy to make but it was so tasty! The pouch keeps the food warm and is pretty easy to eat out of. I wish the pouch wasn’t so tall so that it would be a little easier to eat out of, but that is such a minor detail compared to the quality of the food.
This meal is so good that it can be breakfast, lunch, dinner, or even a snack. I can’t even give Mountain House enough thumbs up!
Backpacker’s Pantry
I also tried the Backpacker’s Pantry Pad Thai. I’m not usually a huge fan of Thai food but I figured I was trying something new anyways so I might as well go all in. This meal contained rice noodles with a sweet and spicy garlic sauce, vegetables, and peanuts. Just like other freeze dried meal pouches, you add boiling water, zip the pouch closed, wait a few minutes and ta-da!
This meal did take a little more work as it required more water, more time to sit in the bag, and had spices and other ingredients to be mixed in after it cooked, but it was so worth it! The amount of flavor that you can find in a freeze dried meal still amazes me to this day. It was almost too spicy for me, but I didn’t even care that my mouth was on fire because it was so good and all I had to do was boil water.
Again, this was a small, lightweight, easy to store pouch that was easy to make and easy to clean up. Win, win, win.
Mountain House and Backpacker’s Pantry have both won me over to the freeze dried food team when it comes to meal prep for camping trips. The best part is that they both make so many other meals that I can’t wait to try! I might even add an extra camping trip to our calendar for that reason alone.
It’s time to stop loading up your camping trailers or backpacks with junk food and start loading them up with healthy and delicious meals. It can’t get any easier and it definitely can’t get any more delicious than freeze-dried meal pouches!
Mountain House
Price – 5 stars
Storage and Clean Up – 5 stars
Taste – 5 stars
Backpacker’s Pantry
Price – 5 stars
Storage and Clean Up – 5 stars
Taste – 5 stars
