Easy DIY Vegan Backpacking Meal Ideas & Tips (with Recipes!)

Looking for some easy DIY vegan backpacking meals? You’ve come to the right place!

There are a lot of ways to eat these days: keto, plant-based, lacto-ovo, paleo… just to name a few. But is it possible to follow your dietary preferences when you hit the trails? As an outdoor chef, I’m here to tell you that yes, you can. You can cook up tasty meals and stick with your diet, whatever it may be, out in the wild.

I’m Chef Corso, head chef and founder of Outdoor Eats and I’m on a mission to elevate the outdoor food experience through fast, easy, and tasty recipes, meal plans, and pocket-sized cookbooks. However you’re eating, I want you to be able to stick to your food ideals and keep your belly happy as you head into the outdoors.

I love hiking and backpacking and noticed that most folks are just boiling water and adding it to a bag come mealtime. To me, this is a missed opportunity to have a tasty, filling, and exciting meal that compliments your trip, rather than just shoveling down calories that don’t refuel in the best way. 

In this post, I am going to cover the basics for easy DIY vegan backpacking meals including balanced meal planning strategies, how to shop for ingredients, my favorite vegan backpacking recipes, and more.

All photos courtesy of Chef Corso

This post may contain affiliate links.

Considerations When Planning DIY Backpacking Meals

Before you head off to the store to buy ingredients, it’s important to think through your trip so that you’re well-prepared. You don’t want to overpack food and carry more than you need or worse, underpack and risk going hungry.

Here are a few considerations to think about before a backcountry trip:

How Many People Are You Planning For?

Every trip and meal plan starts with one question: “How many people are going?”

Planning a solo trip requires very different meal planning than a trip with 6 hungry hikers. Once you know the number in your crew, you can work to create a great meal plan that will be satisfying for everyone.

While I often see folks planning their meals solo even on group trips, planning as a group for main meals is a fun way to share tasty memories together and it isn’t as hard as you think.

DIY vegan backpacking meal prep doesn’t have to be a burden. Meal plan together and share the load!

How Big of a Pot Do You Need?

Once you know your group size, you can start to think about cooking equipment. You can choose a camp stove and pot/pan combination from the same company or you can mix and match.

Here are cooking pot capacity ranges to target based on your group size:

• Solo trip: 300-500 ml pot
• 2-person trip: 500 ml -1.2 L pot
• 2-4 person trip: 1.2 L – 2.5 L pot
• 4+ people: 2.5 L – 4 L pot

How Much Food Should You Bring?

Figuring out how much food to bring can be one of the biggest challenges of planning a backpacking trip.

Everyone has different appetites and each day on the trail can require varying energy needs. For example, one day of the trip may involve a hard 10-mile hike to the top of a 14er in Colorado while the next day could simply be “hammock and chill” by an alpine lake.

I tend to not focus on a calorie number and rather focus on tasty, filling meals at each meal time. All the recipes on the Outdoor Eats website are meant to provide hearty servings for most hikers.

Each recipe also notes how many portions it makes and is easy to scale up or down based on your trip.

If you are concerned about quantity, pack a little bit more of your pantry items (see below) or a few more snacks.

If you do want to plan your meals based on calories, a general rule of thumb is 2,500 – 4,000 calories of food per person per day.

At a minimum, you’ll want to plan breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks for each day on the trail.

Not every backpacking meal on your trip needs to be DIY of course, but I’ve included a few of my favorite easy DIY vegan backpacking recipes at the end of this post to get you started.

Tips for Planning DIY Vegan Backpacking Meals

Now that you know how many people you need to pack food for, let’s get into some meal-planning tips.

Start in the Pantry

For any DIY backpacking meal plan, I always start in the pantry. Check the cupboard for what plant-based staples you might already have on hand like:

All of these options are lightweight, packable, filling, and versatile based on what you want to make in the backcountry.

Pick Your Protein

Protein is an important macronutrient to target for a complete meal but it can be challenging to find plant-based options that last for days away from refrigeration.

Here are a few vegan protein options to check out:

Add Flavor Through Spice Mixes

Spices and spice mixes are THE BEST way to add flavor without carrying heavy sauces and condiments.

Some of my favorites are:

Watch Chef Corso choose which spices to pack for backpacking

Add Texture & Freshness

Finally, add something fresh to round out your meal. Texture and freshness are key components to completing a flavorful dish at home and they’re just as important outside on the trail.

These key attributes are missing from packaged meals and I think they are important to target when creating backpacking meals.

Here are some options for veggies that last for multiple days on the trail without getting bruised, slimy, or soggy.

I tend to focus on fresh for the first days of my meal plan then move to drier, more stable options as the trip progresses.

Tips for Packing DIY Backpacking Meals

If you are not bringing along pre-packaged meals, you’ll need to pack up the ingredients for your DIY vegan backpacking meals and keep everything organized.

I like using compostable Ziplock bags (remember to pack them out), reusable Stasher Bags, and stuff sacks to keep things organized. Typically I’ll pack each meal into one Ziplock bag and then pack each day’s meals into one stuff sack. That way, I don’t have to go rummaging through my entire pack to find that day’s dinner.

For liquids like oil, vinegar, and soy sauce, I like reusing old soda or juice shot containers. They can vary in size from 1 oz – 16 oz and are a perfect way to reuse something you were just going to throw away. These 2 oz bottles are perfect for shorter trips.

For spices, I reuse washed-out lotion tins or rehydration tab bottles. You could also these Humangear Interlocking Containers (medium size) for pastes and other flavor ingredients.

DIY Vegan Backpacking Recipes

Now for the fun part, let’s dive into the recipes!

Below are a few of my favorite plant-based recipe ideas for DIY backpacking breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.

DIY Vegan Backpacking Breakfasts

DIY Vegan Backpacking Lunches

DIY Vegan Backpacking Dinners

DIY Vegan Backpacking Desserts

Thanks for coming along! If you’re searching for more easy DIY trail recipe ideas, hit up outdooreats.com or check out my YouTube page Chef Corso for more tasty options.

Get out there!

What are your favorite DIY vegan backpacking meals or tips? What questions do you have about meal planning for a backpacking trip? Leave a comment below!