The Best Backpacking Meals of 2026

Boasting the best calorie-to-weight ratio of anything on this list and without skimping on taste or nutrition, the Peak Refuel Chicken Pesto ($13) is hands down our favorite backpacking meal for taxing ultralight missions that require maximum energy.

Thumbing through the freeze-dried selections at an REI during a resupply on his thru-hike of the Continental Divide Trail, one of our authors had to do a double-take when he glanced at the specs of this meal. 920 calories in a 5.7-ounce package?! What wizardry Peak Refuel employs, we know not — but most other companies don’t have it.

Not only did it fill him to the brim, but it was one of the better-tasting meals he’d had on trail to date. Peak Refuel has since become our go-to brand for featherlight backpacking trips that are calorically demanding. These aren’t just empty calories, either. Packed with 43 grams of protein, with plenty of carbs and fats for long-term energy, this meal is a powerhouse for endurance activities.

And it doesn’t stop there. While many other meals with this high of a calorie count require well over 2 cups of water, they have somehow been able to rehydrate their entire meal with a scant 2/3 cup. This is a godsend for dry camps or when you’re running low on fuel to boil large amounts of water.

It’s difficult to ding this delicious dinner. But if we had to point out some cons, the relatively high price tag and the difficulty in getting all the ingredients to rehydrate in the recommended 10 minutes aren’t ideal. These are small prices to pay for such a stalwart meal. True, this meal won’t be for everyone as it loads in chicken and cheese. For another of our favorite options that is vegan, scope the Backpacker’s Pantry Pad Thai.

For an even heartier option, check out the brand’s Beef Pasta Marinara, which is loaded with 1,040 calories and 49 g of protein. We tend to favor the taste of the Chicken Pesto, but this is another hardworking option.

Rising from roots in emergency preparedness, Readywise has burst onto the backpacking scene with a whole slew of delicious dishes for each meal of the day. We’ve tested just about every one of them, as they quickly became our meal-of-choice for thru-hikes of the CDT and AT in 2021. Their approachable price point, solid ingredients, and respectable calorie-to-weight ratio made them shoo-ins for a financially strapped aspiring thru-hiker.

Hands down, our favorite concoction from the brand is the Still Lake Lasagna with Sausage ($8). One of the more hearty options in its lineup, the lasagna has an incredible taste that fills in all the corners of a starving backpacker’s belly after a brutal day. We’ve sampled several different “lasagnas” from other brands, and this one strikes pretty darn close to that traditional bake-at-home flavor we’ve all grown to love. Pro-tip: Chuck a handful of croutons on top for more of a crunchy, “baked” texture.

While this is an efficient meal to bring along, it does take a good amount of water (2 cups) to make, which isn’t awesome at dry camps. We also found it harder to rehydrate all ingredients in the meal when compared to other options (common with pasta meals). Make sure to give this meal the full 15 minutes to rehydrate and accommodate for elevation.

Aside from that, you really can’t go wrong with these high-energy backpacking picks. They deliver adequate, long-lasting energy, cook up fast, and are downright tasty to boot. And when you consider you can buy two for the price of a single Peak Refuel Chicken Pesto, you’re stretching your dollar pretty far on trail.

Hoooboy, do we love the taste of Pad Thai on trail! We don’t even care that it’s on the heavy side, as it’s quickly become our all-time favorite flavor for any adventure. Backpacker’s Pantry Pad Thai ($10) not only tastes amazing, but also has you add several ingredients throughout the cooking process, making it feel like much more of a home-cooked meal than just pulling an oxygen absorber from the pouch and dumping water in.

Boil 2 cups of water (yeah … a bit much) and pour it in, squeeze a pouch of peanut butter into the noodles and let them sit, and then sprinkle actual peanuts and flavorful sriracha lime powder over the final product. We’ve got Chef Boyardee over here! Trust us — after months of mixing nothing but hot water with your meals on a thru-hike, this feels like cooking for royalty.

We’ll often bring some extra sauces and spices to spruce up our freeze-dried meals, but this one needs no additions, making it our choice to doctor up ourselves. The sriracha lime bursts with flavor and the crunchy peanuts seem to bring it all together. The texture is close to something you’d order at a restaurant.

Our quibbles with this meal lie in the sheer amount of single-use packaging it employs, and the fact that it requires a good deal of water. Aside from that, it packs a calorically dense punch, and is by far one of the best flavors we’ve ever sampled in the wild. If you’re after a bit more protein, consider the Pad Thai with Chicken — an added $3 but almost doubling the protein.

Crawfish in a backpacking meal? Yup, tasting is believing, and if you’re after a splurge meal that’s craft-made in small batches, the Bowl & Kettle Crawfish Étouffée ($16) is where it’s at. 

We brought this meal along recently as the carrot on the stick to get through four rugged days across Patagonia, and it was 100% worth it. This étouffée (French for ‘smothered’) is a mix of jasmine rice, white mushrooms, bell peppers, green onion, and Louisiana crawfish in a luxe, unctuous roux that really stuck to our ribs. The Creole spice mix was perfect, and we practically licked the bag clean.

Like the Backpacker’s Pantry Pad Thai, this meal also tucks in some separate spice so you can dial it in to your taste, and inside the pack is the real deal: Louisiana Hot Sauce. We doused the entire meal, but some can elect to just dabble. We’re big fans of meals that send along the fixings to make your meal yours, even if it edges the price up a bit.

The brand Bowl & Kettle is as cottage-industry as it gets. It currently only offers three different meals (we’ve yet to try the other two: Chicken Tikka Masala and Mexican Street Corn Grits), but this specialization bears out in some seriously home-cooked vibes from this meal. The downside is that availability can sometimes be a bit hit or miss, and you may have to wait until the next batch is brewed up.

Obviously, those with shellfish allergies will need to steer clear (pivot to the Pinnacle Foods Thai Peanut Curry for another splurge-worthy backpacking meal), but we think that this Crawfish Étouffée is well worth the price. Snag one and make it your summit-day meal to get you through the rough stuff.

You didn’t think we’d leave the thru-hikers out, did you? Multiple thousand-mile treks are built on cheap staples like instant ramen noodles, and just about the best we’ve tasted so far is the NongShim Shin Black Noodle Soup ($4). A spicy enough flavor is balanced with an unctuous bone broth packet, and at less than $5 a pop, you can load up on them.

Unlike most options in our line-up, you’ll need to cook up these noodles in your own cook pot, which can mean a bit more clean-up but also less packaging to pack out — a win when you’re headed out for long trips. These noodles have a great tooth to them and hold together better than your average college fare, and between the three packets (soup base, dehydrated vegetables, and bone broth), there’s plenty of dial to tune in your favorite mix.

Here’s the real down low for maxing out your calories from the hiker trash among us: make a ‘ramen bomb’ by adding Idahoan Instant Mashed Potatoes to the broth in your ramen. The result is a thick, stick-to-your-ribs mix that will keep you warm long into the night. You can also experiment with making your own version of budae-jjigae — a Korean ‘kitchen sink’ soup that piles in anything from American cheese to hot dogs to enrich the flavor.

We also like Sapporo Ichiban ramen, which is a good bit cheaper at around $1.50 per, but still considerably better than your bottom-barrel options. Given the choice, however, we’re snagging the Shin Black every time.

Expand your horizons from the freeze-dried stuff, and your backcountry diet will thank you. Tinned food hasn’t gone anywhere, and we think there’s good reason it should find its way back into your pack, especially the Patagonia Provisions Tinned Seafood ($8) options.

To be sure, there’s a whole charcuterie of unique seafood conservas out there (along with a robust subculture that may make you wonder ‘what are we even doing here?’). But Patagonia Provisions is certainly one of the most widely available, and thankfully, they’re doing it right. From wild-caught Spanish mackerel and sardines to salmon responsibly harvested from Washington State’s Puget Sound, these tins are all about eating from the bottom of the food chain up. 

Most recently, we’ve been leaning on tins of the brand’s Smoked Wild Pink Salmon (specifically in the unique pastrami spice flavor) to juice up our trailside lunches, and took a stash with us to the actual Patagonia to fuel us through a few multiday treks. The brand pivoted from foil pouches to a more sustainable aluminum can for its salmon, and we found them easy to open and recycle when we were done.

If you want to get creative, grab a sampling from across the range and assemble a backcountry paella, or go simple and top some crusty bread with a few mackerel filets for a solid lunch. It’s all fair game, and more enjoyable than the bars you’d typically pack. 

Keep in mind that there’s a good bit of savory juice to manage, and lest you raise the attention of the local bear population, you should probably just slurp this down. Packing out tins is also not the most ideal on long backpacking trips, but we’ll often just pack one as a treat. Give it a whirl, you may just surprise yourself.

Watch out, astronaut ice cream, there’s a new dessert sheriff in town. After a near-unanimous mmm score from our backpackers and hikers, the Backpacker’s Pantry Dark Chocolate Cheesecake Mix ($8) is the backcountry dessert option we could agree on bringing almost every time.

Before thinking you’re getting the genuine article here, know that this dessert is more of a pudding, and we think the name on the bag is better suited: “Dark Chocolate Cheesecake Mix.” Anyone who is a fan of licking the spoon clean while baking, however, will rejoice. The chocolate has a wonderful, genuine taste, and the vanilla cookie crumble wins texturally: BYO gummy worms.

Vegetarians will be stoked to know that this is all good on that front, but there is dairy if you’re not down with that. The serving size is 100% able to be eaten by a single hungry hiker, but we found there was enough to split the two portions the pouch claims it contains. 

Our top tip for the Dark Chocolate Cheesecake dessert? Make it with the coldest water you can find, or even chill it in the river as it sets up. It’ll give your mix an excellent texture and be much more enjoyable that way. 

Backcountry dessert is always a luxury, so we typically don’t carry more than one or two, so if you have to be discerning, we think this Dark Chocolate Cheesecake is a winner. Other desserts that have scored high among our taste testers include Creme Brulee (also from Backpacker’s Pantry), as well as the Peak Refuel Peach Cobbler — truly tasty!

We hate to say that Mountain House has the eggy breakfast side of camping cornered, but we’re personally obsessed with every egg-based breakfast in its arsenal. The Scrambled Eggs are super light, just the right size for breakfast, and an eggcellent (sorry) base for building out a large breakfast for big groups.

But our favorite — and another fan favorite — is the Mountain House Breakfast Skillet ($12). Peppers, onions, hashbrowns, pork sausage, and eggs! No need to bulk this one out, as its already got the full measure packed in. It’s so good, and we always have enough left over for lunch. Win-win.

This is our top suggestion for hikers and backpackers who want something that’ll stick to their ribs a bit more than hot cereal bowls like the Apple Pie Buckwheat Breakfast or Backpacker’s Pantry Blueberry Walnut Oats. It’s good to know that the rehydrated eggs are a bit controversial for some, and we found that you’re either a fan or could leave them behind. Try them out before going all in on them.

At 520 calories, the Breakfast Skillet offers plenty of calories to confidently charge into a long day on the trail. Plus, it boasts a solid calorie-to-weight ratio.

Perhaps one of the best lunches we’ve had from a bag, the Pinnacle Foods Herb Roasted Chicken and White Cheddar Dumplings ($17) tops our list with its savory flavors and hunks of cheddar biscuit. You’ll pay for the quality, but as a goal to get you up the next hill for lunch, we’re hard-pressed to come up with a better enticement.

With one of the better calorie-to-weight ratios out there and packed with healthy energy, this is a top pick for the ultralight cult — if the price isn’t too much of a deterrent. For reference, the Backpacker’s Pantry Pad Thai packs in more calories for $5 less, but the rich flavors are the draw here.

We’d eat this every day without a problem. It’s comfort in a bowl. A mix of marinated chicken, delicious dumplings, green beans, carrots, and parsley in a fabulous sauce, and you pretty much forget you’re eating a backpacking meal. We’ve noticed that anything with a dumpling takes a little longer to fully rehydrate, so be sure to give this lunch the full 12 minutes to cook up.

As an added bonus, this meal is available in both an ‘omnidegradable’ (read: easily broken down in landfills) and classic retort packaging. The omnidegradable packaging is a bit narrow at the top and has a slightly shorter shelf life, but we still snag them whenever we can.

Read Review: Good To-Go Stove-Free Meals Review: A Day Hiker’s Snack, Ultralighter’s Hack

Good To-Go has been an absolute staple of our backpacking loadout for thousands of miles — the brand just doesn’t miss. The lightweight, smaller packages disappear more easily in your pack, and the taste is consistently satisfying.

The Good To-Go Thai Curry ($11) is simply a standout. It looks terrible after it’s absorbed water, but don’t be dismayed. This is one of the few meals we don’t add anything to once it’s hot and ready for action. It’s a hunting camp go-to after a long day on the mountain.

This meal in particular does take more water than we generally like, and you have to sit for 20 minutes while you wait in agonizing hunger — just about the longest we’ve seen. Not a deal-breaker, but worth noting, and the reason it finds itself lower in our suggestions.

For the calorically indulgent and dietarily unrestricted, the Mountain House Biscuits & Gravy ($10) is one of the most popular backpacking meals of all time.

This was one of our author’s staples on several of his thru-hikes, and he has to confess that he ate this meal at all times of the day — not just for breakfast. It makes a great “corner-filler” after a lighter dinner meal or even a celebratory snack after reaching the top of a climb. It has a solid calorie-to-weight ratio, making it a no-brainer for the weight-conscious ultralight crowd.

It’s without a doubt delicious and moral-boosting if you’ve been trotting around in the backcountry for any number of days, but isn’t great for those with dietary restrictions. If you need a quick pick-me-up that will fuel you on particularly grueling days, this is one of our favorite breakfasts for the job.

It should also be noted that, like the Pinnacle Foods Chicken and Dumplings meal, the biscuits in this breakfast generally take the whole prep time (or even a few minutes longer) to fully rehydrate. Be sure to wake up a little earlier to ensure you don’t have unexpected crunchies in your bowl.

The first time we ate the AlpineAire Spicy Sausage Bolognese ($12) was fireside, and we hadn’t even hiked yet. We made our camping partner try it because we were so blown away by how good it was. Our new favorite backpacking dinner is creamy, sausagey, delicious, cheesy goodness.

Spiral pasta generally rehydrates pretty well, given you get the meal well mixed, so be sure you really stir this one before setting it aside to rehydrate. The red sauce is well-balanced and well padded out with chunks of pork sausage (note: this meal also incorporates powdered cooked beef), and the added parmesan cheese rounds it out well. The only thing we missed was a piece of garlic bread!

With flavors similar to the Readywise Still Lake Lasagna, we do find ourselves reaching for the budget option a bit more often, which packs in some more calories and food overall. It’s the spice level that actually has us reaching for the AlpineAire from time to time, which was better flavor-wise compared to the Readywise meal.

It’s not the best for folks with dietary restrictions, and it takes a while to hydrate. Still, it has a passable calorie-to-weight ratio and doesn’t require a ton of water. Diet be darned — this meal can be worth the full indulgent leap into dairy, gluten, and meaty excellence.

We’ve given Pinnacle Foods some love in this roundup already, but we felt it important to mention another one of our favorite recipes. The Thai Peanut Curry with Roasted Vegetables and Rice Noodles ($16) slaps you in the face with flavor — in the best possible way.

We took this meal on a recent demanding backpacking trip along the Cumberland Trail, and it was a welcome treat at the end of a brutally hot day. This packs an absurd amount of ingredients into a small batch. Roasted bell peppers, onions, broccoli, zucchini, sweet potatoes, edamame, and garlic join forces with rice noodles and a rich coconut-curry peanut sauce. It’s topped off with cilantro, lime, and scallions to give it even more of a flair. Is your mouth watering yet?

The loud, exotic flavor was a pleasant shock to our taste buds after consuming the other relatively dull freeze-dried meals we schlepped along. If this brand weren’t quite so expensive, these would probably be staples in our backpacking loadout. $16 a pouch gets pricey, and if you tack on shipping and tax from its website, it’s comparable to a steak dinner out on the town.

There were almost no cons that surfaced, but we did find it a bit difficult to fully stir our meal after pouring the water into the omnidegradable package. The tall profile also makes it difficult to scrape every morsel of food out of the corners. Like the Roasted Chicken and Dumplings meal, however, you still have the option of the retort packaging, which is wider.

Qualms aside, this is (aside from Backpacker’s Pantry Pad Thai) perhaps one of the best flavors we’ve run across in our sampling of backpacking meals. It’s enough to make you want to pack up and move to Thailand simply for the cuisine.