Food for Vegan Hiking

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

There’s something about hiking, that always makes me feel good. I guess it is that way for most of us, but somehow, I get the feeling I like hiking just a bit more. Perhaps my childhood memories from all the hikes we used to walk, as my dad was a hiking guide when he was younger and had always put a lot of planning and efforts to make our hikes exciting, challenging and interesting. Perhaps the fact that my day to day life is full of many hours in front of a computer screen, makes me get more excited about going out, or perhaps it is simply the sense of accomplishment after a long, challenging route, where I had to find my way around and carry a heavy bag on my back.

Now as the spring began, it is a great time for hiking, so I figured I should gather recommendations for food you can take and cook in hikes/treks, and share it here for your convenience. Obviously every hike is different, and the weight of food you can carry varies with it, so just take what fits your needs from the ideas given here.

I focused the recommendations here around ingredients that are somewhat easy to carry (sometimes you just need a small amount of an ingredient), and can be easily used for outdoors cooking. All the below ingredients should be good for use for a few days (and some of them for much longer than that). A basic assumption of this post is that you are carrying a portable stove and a pot/pan and that you don’t have a way to keep ingredients cool. So.. save for you next hike!

To help inject some outdoors atmosphere here, I am adding some pictures from one of the weeks I had the most fun ever, when my husband and I trekked the Trek Mont-Blanc a few years ago (apologize in advance for the picture’s quality, a decent camera was definitely not in the weight allowance..).

So here it goes:

Meals:

• Soy milk, flour and baking powder will yield a basic pancake (you can make it either sweet or savory).
• Oatmeal and water with yield a nutritious and filling (you can make it either sweet or savory).
• Peppers, tomatoes and tomato paste will make a hot delicious Shakshuka.
• Chickpea flour (and optionally red lentils flour, apple sauce, nutritional yeast, and spices) will serve you for a quick chickpea omelette.
• Rice and dried mushrooms can make a tasty simple rice dish.
• Pasta, scallions and tomato paste will yield a hearty energizing pasta dish. Have you heard about one pot pasta?
• Soba noodles (made from buckwheat) with some soy sauce will create a quick tasty protein source (requires only 5 minutes of cooking).
• Tortillas are a great base for any meal, for example with some roasted peppers and tahini spread, or with a sweet spread of almond butter and maple/date syrup.
• Silken tofu and some spices will make a scumbled tofu omelette.
• Miso paste, dried mushrooms, and scallions will yield a quick hot Miso soup.
• Red lentils, onion and coconut cream can be used to make a hearty delicious dahl dish. Generally, red lentils cook real quickly.
• Sprouted lentils and beans don’t weight too much, and are filling, nutritious, and can be used for various dishes (with rice, in a salad, on its own, etc.).
• Quinoa cooks pretty quickly and will be tasty with just some lemon juice, olive oil and salt.

Snacks:

• nuts and seeds.
• Granola.
• Fruit and vegetables.
• Energy bars.
• Dates, raisins, dried cranberries, dried apricots, and generally dried fruit.

Must Have:

• Tahini, tahini, and tahini again. In the morning over bread or cracker with a tea spoon of maple/date paste, as dressing for salad, or simply tahini dip.
• Tea/Coffee.

Whatever you do, don’t forget sugar and salt.

You should also get familiar with the Happy Cow application, that will tell you all about near by vegan restaurants and health stores.

Enjoy!

P.S.