Best Freeze Dried Backpacking Meals

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Ok, before we get ahead of ourselves, it's probably important to set your expectations. This is not your grandma's home-cooked dinner; it's a backcountry meal. Chances are, even if the flavors aren't quite what you were expecting, you're going to be hungry enough to wolf it down with a smile. Everything tastes better in the wilderness. That being said, we always bring a small container of hot sauce, olive oil, and some salt and pepper packets for when we need kick a meal up a notch.




Energy-to-Weight Ratio

Many backpackers choose freeze dried meals because they're a lightweight dinner option. The process of freeze drying a meal removes 80% of it's water weight, while retaining a high level of calorically-dense nutrition. Most meal pouches range between 500-900 calories and weigh around 5-7 ounces. This puts them in the 100-130 calorie-per-ounce ratio, which isn't spectacular, but is still quite good. 

Are they nutritious?

The process of freeze drying can retain up to 90% of the nutrients, but the product will only be 20% of its original weight. That said, most freeze dried meals are packed with sodium and unrecognizable ingredients. Scientifically speaking, we’d put them into the “sorta nutritious” camp. Freeze dried meals will still do a better job providing a balanced meal when compared to most hiker dinner options, like ramen or instant potatoes. Certain brands, such as Mary Janes Organic and Good To-Go, use all recognizable ingredients or "real food," which is a step in the right direction in our opinion. 


Freeze dried meals are not cheap and there are inexpensive alternatives (mashers, pasta sides, ramen, etc). If you’re spending months on the trail thru-hiking, meals like these will probably be too expensive to be sustainable. But for the casual backpacker, meals like this can add a lot of value, convenience, and enjoyment.

PRO TIP: When you buy 8 or more backpacking meals from REI, you save 10%. We usually stock up for the hiking season. You can also save money by purchasing bulk meal kits.


Whenever we go backpacking, we take some of our tried-and-true favorite freeze dried meals. Each trip we also take some new flavors to test out. First established by our dear friend David Branson while hiking the Zion Traverse, the very “scientific” CleverHiker Squirrel Rating System was born. We’ll call it the SRS for now.

While consuming new freeze dried meals, we deliberate about how it tastes and ultimately decide on a squirrel rating. Every meal we eat earns a squirrel rating score between 1 and 5 based on flavor, texture, and overall deliciousness. There are only whole squirrel ratings, because half a squirrel would be gross. We update this list every time we put on our snobby food critic pants and stuff our faces in the backcountry.

Five Squirrel Meals

Did my grandma make this?! Our go-to favorite freeze dried meals for happy trail bellies.

Four Squirrel Meals

Pretty darn tasty! However, some flavors and textures made us knock it down a squirrel. 

Three Squirrel Meals

Quite good still, but nothing to write home about. We might buy them again, but we weren't amazed.    

Two Squirrel Meals

Meh. Edible, but pretty underwhelming. This is when the hot sauce and spices come into play. But it's not like we had any leftovers or anything.

One Squirrel Meals

Whoa boy, that was a disappointment. Considering how hungry we were, backcountry meals should probably be more foolproof than this.


When we head out on backcountry trips, these are the items usually found in our packs. For more information on our favorite gear, check out the CleverHiker Backpacking Gear Guide and our Stove Buyers Guide.


We hope this guide helps you upgrade your backpacking food game! For more information on backpacking meal planning, check out our Lightweight Backpacking Food Guide. Please share it with your friends and click the little heart button below to give us a digital high five! 

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