What Is the Best Dehydrated and Freeze Dried Food for Hiking, Camping, and Backpacking? (Part 2)

Wild Zora Mountain Beef Stew

Into the Paleo Diet? You’d love this meal from Wild Zora.

While expensive at almost $13 per pouch, Wild Zora’s Mountain Beef Stew is arguably the best-tasting backpacking food in the bunch and one of the easiest to prepare. 

Wild Zora is a family-owned dehydrated and freeze dried food brand based in Colorado.

Known for their healthy camp food choices and non-GMO ingredients, this brand is a favorite among backpackers and hikers who want to eat good food without the added preservatives, sugars, or chemicals. The company also prides itself on only using meat from pasture-raised, grass-fed animals.

Their Paleo Meals To Go feature a selection of food pouches that are high in protein from said meat, plus lots of vegetables. They’re also dairy and gluten-free, which is great for lactose-intolerant and gluten-sensitive folks out there.

For this review, we tested out their Mountain Beef Stew variant.

Now, refreshing isn’t a word you’d often use to describe freeze dried food, but Wild Zora’s Mountain Beef Stew is just that. At first glance, you might think it’s just another boring meal catered to people with sensitive guts, but the opposite is actually true. Wild Zora’s Mountain Beef Stew is filling, well-seasoned, and smells really good. While one pack contains only one serving, it does make up for a huge percentage of protein and energy, which is perfect after a full day outdoors.

We love that the meal reconstitutes well in such a relatively short amount of time. It doesn’t take that much water, either. It’s got a generous amount of beef bits plus huge chunks of mushrooms. The addition of sweet potatoes and carrots also helps improve the overall taste and texture of the meal.

Each component is served in equal proportions, so you get a good portion in each spoonful, too. If you find the meal a tad bit drier than expected, just add some hot water before you chow down.

Whether you’re a paleo enthusiast or not, this backpacking food makes for an excellent time outdoors. We’d recommend it to anyone who loves to eat a filling meal without the empty calories. The packaging is lightweight, so you won't have a problem stuffing it in a camping backpack. 

Good To Go Thai Spicy Yellow Coconut Curry With Veggies And Jasmine Rice

Who needs a fancy personal chef when you can buy some gourmet backpacking meals from Good To Go?

Good To Go, founded by big-shot New York chef Jennifer Scism, believes in creating healthy and delicious food choices for the trail. We’re guessing she had one too many bad beef jerky and started to take matters into her own hands. Today, Good To Go is home to a roster of foods free from gluten and preservatives. They also have options for vegans, vegetarians, and pescatarians.

We tested one of their pescatarian meals, the best-selling Thai Curry With Veggies And Jasmine Rice.

Perhaps the only thing you have to carefully consider about this meal is its cooking time.

Because it’s dehydrated and not freeze-dried, Good To Go’s meals can take around 20 minutes to cook at sea level. This backpacking food, in particular, is packed with a lot of rice, so you’ll also need a significant amount of water (about two and a half cups) to cook it.

Don’t worry about it being too soupy at the beginning—the rice actually absorbs the moisture well.

The string beans are a bit soggy after reconstitution, but the rest of the meal is quite good. In fact, we’ll go so far as to say that this dehydrated food closely resembles a home-cooked meal. The curry flavor isn’t too overpowering and the rice rehydrates properly, too.

The coconut milk, which is packed in a separate pouch, ties everything together nicely. We know this ingredient is notorious for turning tummies haywire, but thankfully, no stomachs were upset during testing.

If you want a filling meal and have the resources to spare, Good To Go’s Thai Curry is a good choice.

You'll enjoy this meal if you love a good kick of spice in your lunch or dinner. It’s filled with fragrant jasmine rice, veggies, and a rich helping of creamy coconut milk. A single pouch comes with two generous servings at 380 calories each, so this is an excellent go-to meal if your tank’s running empty after a long day on the trail.

Backpacker’s Pantry Jamaican Style Jerk Rice And Beans With Chicken

If you’ve been hiking or camping for some time now, you’ve probably heard of Backpacker’s Pantry. This Colorado-based freeze dried food company has a wide selection of tasty flavors and varieties, including best-sellers like the Fettucini Alfredo with Chicken and Dark Chocolate Cheesecake. Their vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free options are quite varied, too.

The thing is, this tasty reputation didn’t seem to translate to their Jamaican Style Jerk Rice meal, as you'll find out shortly.

At 310 calories per serving, Backpacker Pantry's Jamaican Style Jerk Rice meal packs on a lot of energy. The beans and chicken also provide as much as 19 grams of protein. On top of that, this backpacking food also has one of the longest shelf lives at 7-10 years per pouch.

Unfortunately, the taste just isn’t there. Many reviews say this doesn’t taste like Jamaican Jerk at all, and we agree. It’s just a bland mix of sweet and sour flavors thinly spread all throughout each spoonful, and it didn't taste as good as we expected. The rice rehydrates well if you give it enough time, but it’s got a peculiar after-taste that reminds you it’s been in a pouch for months.

The upside is that the beans had a better consistency and texture compared to the rice. The veggies also had a nice crunch to them, which is a good consolation. Even if the chicken bits were small, they tasted fine nonetheless.

This entree is a good choice if you don’t mind the bland taste much. It’s got a good amount of calories and protein, plus you can keep it for a long time. You’ll just have to pack some salt, pepper, and other spices to improve its taste somewhat.

Mary Jane’s Farm Lentils, Rice, and Indian Spice

Mary Jane’s Farm is one of the pioneers in the outdoor and farm living arena. For years, they’ve built an empire on homesteading tips, household items, books, magazines, and of course, organic food.

They have a wide array of options when it comes to backpacking food. For this review, we tested out their Lentils, Rice, and Indian Spice. Unfortunately, this meal failed to meet our expectations.

While made from organic ingredients and certified vegan, Mary Jane’s Lentils, Rice, and Indian Spice was just plain bland.

Sure, you can taste the lentils and a bit of the rice—which both had an unappetizing texture, by the way—but there was zero Indian Spice. The currants also made for an odd sweet-sour taste that didn’t sit well with the seasoning.

Our advice on how to improve this meal?

Pack some hot sauce or extra salt and pepper. It’s the only way to make up for its taste…or, in this case, the lack thereof.

The upside is that the meal packs a good caloric punch at 290 calories per serving. If you’re really starving out on the trail and don’t mind the taste, this can fill your stomach just fine. It also makes for a fast meal—it only takes around 5 minutes to prepare.

If you’re big on using biodegradable materials and reducing waste, you’ll love this product’s packaging. While you can’t zip it up top, it’s made from non-plastic and non-aluminum materials. You can burn it in your campfire or bury it without harming the environment.

Mary Jane’s Farm may have had good intentions when they developed this backpacking food. It’s made of organic ingredients, packed with good calories, plus it’s gluten-free and friendly to vegans. It’s just too bad that it doesn’t taste good at all.

Trail Fork Pizza Casserole

Trail Fork is another brand committed to saving Mother Earth from the dangers of plastic packaging. All of their vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free backpacking food come in a plastic-free, biodegradable pouch. You can bury it on the ground, turn it into kindling, or add it to your compost pit, which is pretty cool.

The downside is that you can’t cook and eat in the bag itself. When preparing your meals, you’ll have to empty the contents into a separate bowl or pot and cook it there.

As for what we think about the actual food, you'll have to keep reading!

Trail Fork's Pizza Casserole meal consists of orzo pasta, tomato sauce, and a good helping of cheese. 650 calories a pop isn’t bad at all, plus pizza on the trail sounds like a really good idea, so we went ahead and added this to our list of freeze dried and dehydrated food to review.

To our disappointment, this ended up being the worst in the bunch. While the seasonings smelled great and the soup didn’t have that been-in-the-bag-for-a-couple-of-years aftertaste, the orzo pasta did not reconstitute at all.

Letting it sit beyond the fifteen-minute mark yielded the same results. That was when we found out the hard way that undercooked, crunchy pasta didn’t make for good dinner. Which is really too bad, because the rest of the meal seemed promising.

We don’t doubt Trail Fork’s commitment to producing healthy backpacking food and sustainable products. The concept behind their Pizza Casserole dish is great, and it would’ve made a hearty backpacking or camping meal, had the pasta reconstituted properly. Maybe we’ll have better luck trying their other bestsellers in the future.