7 High-Protein Vegan Backpacking Meals (Ultralight & Easy)

My name is Ellie. I'm a long-distance hiker and backpacker. Enjoying a cup of coffee with you is my absolute happy place. And this is Otto, an adopted stray dog, crisps lover and the best hiking companion. Come join us as we explore the great outdoors, one trail at a time. Hi everyone and welcome to a new video. This one has been long awaited. I get asked about that all the time under my videos and today's finally the day I want to share my top seven backpacking meals that are lightweight, that I prepare myself, that can be easily done at home without any fancy supplies, fancy special stuff. It's mainly going to be things that I'm having for lunch and dinner, mainly because I don't have a lot of variation in my breakfast. So I'm only going to share my one favorite breakfast that I'm having all the time and the others are going to be savory meals that I'm either having for lunch or dinner. All the meals I'm going to share with you today are vegan. They're packed with protein. They only require boiling water to rehydrate, to cook basically or simmer for a couple of minutes and they're all fairly easy with things that are easily available in most stores. Bigger stores are easy to prepare. Before I'm going to show you my specific recipes that I'm preparing all the time, that I'm having all the time, I first want to share a couple of my stable ingredients that are very versatile, that are inexpensive. I buy these in bulk. They are mostly easy to get and I use them in a lot of my meals. They're just basically my favorite basic ingredients that I think are really useful for different reasons. Number one in the stable for my breakfast are oats. They're inexpensive, high in fiber and available every day. Number two are instant noodles. They are quick cooking and inexpensive. I try whenever possible to get the whole grain version for a bit more fiber and a bit more protein. Number three is couscous, but if possible not the regular wheat couscous, but couscous made from chickpeas. It's much higher in protein, has complex carbs and is more nutrient dense. Number four, bread lentils. They are quick cooking, easy to find almost everywhere and they are high in protein and fiber and are also rich in iron, folate and magnesium. Number five is probably a bit less known, but it's my favorite protein source, textured pea protein. It's very, very high in protein, rich in iron and has a great texture for all sorts of meals. Number six and the stable in all of my meals are dehydrated vegetables. Most of the time I'm dehydrating them myself as it's quick and inexpensive. They provide fiber, vitamins and minerals. My favorites to dehydrate are kale, broccoli, bell pepper and carrots. You can even dehydrate them from frozen. They all vary a bit when it comes to how long it takes and at what temperature you dehydrate them. So it's best to Google the specific settings for different veggies. Number seven is organic tomato soup powder. It's a great base for pasta or couscous and gives flavor without having too many additives. Number eight is peanut butter powder. It's high in protein, provides at least some healthy fats and makes a meal more creamy. And last but not least, number nine is nutritional yeast. It's very high in B vitamins, protein and fiber. It adds a great cheesy, umami, savory flavor without containing a lot of sodium. Before I go into the actual recipes, just a few remarks. For most of the recipes that I'm going to show you today and most of the time, I don't dehydrate my entire meals from scratch. I mainly use quick cooking ingredients like instant noodles, couscous, things like that. And I'm going to pair with other ingredients to make it more nutrient dense. Most of the time, apart from one specific recipe, I don't dehydrate an entire meal, mainly because it just takes a very long time to rehydrate it, to make bigger batches, especially if you only have a regular household dehydrator. It just takes a while. And I feel like it's not, for the recipes, it's not really necessary because there are options, quick cooking options available that aren't too expensive, that have great quality. But obviously that is an option. If you have your favorite meal or stew or something like that, that you really want to dehydrate, that's obviously also possible. And I'm going to show you how I do that with one of the recipes where I do that myself too. Just a couple of quick little tips. If you're going to dehydrate an entire meal, definitely make sure to add enough spice because of the dehydration process, things can taste a bit less intense. So if you have a chili that you want to have a bit spicy or even salt, just add a bit more than you would normally add. My tip number two, fat and oil doesn't dehydrate very well. And it just doesn't work very well because obviously there's not a lot of water in it that can evaporate through the dehydration process. And as a consequence of that, it can spoil pretty quickly. Don't dehydrate really fatty, oily things. But instead what I do if I dehydrate an entire meal, I use very little to no oil when cooking. And then instead, obviously you need healthy fats for your diet on trail as well. But I'm adding that later when I'm rehydrating. That's what I do with all my meals. Just add the oil that you would normally need, obviously to make it more calorie dense. Just add it later when rehydrating. And tip number three, if you're dehydrating an entire meal, weigh it before you're putting it into the dehydrator and then weigh it again afterwards, just so that you have a bit of an estimate how much water is gone that you can add back into rehydrate your meal. And similar to that, if you dehydrate an entire meal, remember how much portions there are in this big batch so that you can in the end, after you weigh everything, after it's dehydrated, that you can basically divide the dehydrated portion into the smaller portions that you want to have. When it comes to the recipes and the meals that I'm going to show you in a second here, I'm always trying to have a meal as balanced as possible. That means I want to have something that has carbs, that has protein, which is of course very important, that has healthy fats, and obviously also veggies for fiber, vitamins. So I make sure to add all those four main parts, if possible, into every meal. As I said, fat doesn't dehydrate very well. It's not as shelf-stable. So what I'm doing is that I take a little nalgene bottle with oil with me that I'm adding to each meal. I most of the time use cold-pressed rapeseed oil because it's high in omega-3 acids. It has a good omega-3 to omega-6 ratio and it's rich in vitamin E, but obviously that's a personal preference. Other oils and cold-pressed oils, if possible, work the same, obviously. And then last but not least, the portion sizes I'm going to show you in my recipes are what I typically have. You can, of course, just adjust the portion size. I'm trying to give the nutritional details as accurate, as detailed as possible. So you have a bit of an overview of how many calories a meal has, how much protein, etc. Let's jump into my favorite lightweight, easy, inexpensive vegan breakfast meals. Okay, let's start with breakfast. My go-to is porridge that's quick, warm, and keeps me full for a while. For my recipe, I'm taking 50 grams of quick-cooking oats, 15 grams of vegan protein. You can use plain or whatever you like. I like something vanilla-flavored most of the time. Then one teaspoon of hemp seeds and one teaspoon of flax seeds. Both are high in protein and fiber and have healthy fats like omega-3 and omega-6. Then 10 grams of dehydrated apple slices or blueberries for some vitamins. And half teaspoon of cinnamon. If you want it more creamy and add more calories, you can add two tablespoons of coconut milk powder or two tablespoons of peanut butter powder if you want a bit more of a nutty flavor. To prepare it, I bring 250 milliliters of water to a boil, add everything, and let it simmer for a minute while stirring. The first savory recipe that I want to show you is my version of a lentil dal. I'm using 80 grams of red lentils that are quick- 50 grams of powdered coconut milk, 20 grams of dehydrated vegetables. For this recipe, I like to use carrots, leek, parsnip, and kale. Two teaspoons of veggie stock, two teaspoons of tomato soup powder, and one teaspoon of an Indian five-spice mix. To prepare it, I bring 320 milliliters of water to a boil and put everything. Lentils take a bit longer to cook compared to, for example, couscous, so I let them simmer for five minutes on low heat until the lentils are soft. The next recipe involves pasta but is a peanut ramen inspired version. I use 100 grams of instant noodles, whole grain if possible, and I crunch them up a little bit so that they take up less space. Then I'm adding 30 grams of textured pea protein, 30 grams of peanut butter powder, 20 grams of dehydrated veggies. For this recipe, I love carrots and kale. Four teaspoons of dehydrated miso paste or powdered miso, and a bit of ginger and chili. To prepare it, I bring 400 milliliters of water to a boil, add everything, and let it simmer for two to three minutes. You can also turn off the heat right away and just let it sit for a few minutes as the noodles cook really quickly. My next recipe and probably the easiest meal that I'm showing you today is my Mediterranean inspired couscous. I'm using 90 grams of couscous. If available, I prefer couscous that's made from chickpeas as it's much higher in protein. To that, I'm adding 25 grams of textured pea protein, then 50 grams of organic tomato soup powder, 20 grams of dehydrated vegetables. For this recipe, I like broccoli, tomato, and bell pepper. Then two teaspoons of nutritional yeast, and one teaspoon of oregano, and one teaspoon of basil, and a little bit of chili. For cooking, you know the drill. I bring 400 milliliters of water to a boil, add my couscous, and let it sit for a few minutes. You can turn off the heat right away as couscous rehydrates very quickly. Next up is my favorite pasta meal, pasta bolognese. I use 100 grams of instant whole grain noodles and crush them up a little bit. To that, I'm adding 30 grams of textured pea protein, 60 grams of tomato soup powder, 20 grams of dehydrated veggies. For this recipe, I like broccoli, tomatoes, and bell pepper. Two tablespoons of nutritional yeast, one teaspoon of basil, and one teaspoon of oregano, and a little bit of chili. To cook my pasta, I bring 600 milliliters of water to a boil, put everything in, and let it simmer for two to three minutes. You can also turn off the heat right away. The pasta doesn't take long to rehydrate. The next recipe is my version of a trail food classic, instant mashed potatoes. It's a great comfort food for cold days. I use 60 grams of instant potato mash, 30 grams of textured pea protein, 50 grams of vegan gravy, and 20 grams of dehydrated vegetables. For this recipe, I like to use spring onion, leek, carrots, and bell pepper. To prepare the meal, you just bring 550 milliliters of water to a boil, put everything in, let it sit for a couple of minutes, and stir it well. The last meal that I want to show you is my vegan chili. It's the only meal that I cook and then dehydrate as a whole. It takes a bit longer, but the ingredients like rice and beans are hard to find in a dehydrated form in shops. Cooked and dehydrated beans, for example, are not the same as dried beans that take hours to cook from scratch. So you need to cook and dehydrate them afterwards. For my chili, I'm preparing a bigger batch here, but for one portion I use 65 grams of whole grain rice that I cook separately. I then brown some onion, add some bell peppers, 25 grams per portion of my textured pea protein that has been soaked in hot water for five minutes. Then I'm adding salt and chili flakes, smoked paprika, one to two tablespoons of tomato paste per portion, about 150 milliliters of tomato puree per portion, and 170 grams of cooked and thickened beans. Then I let everything cook on low for 10 minutes and I'm adding my cooked rice to that as well. Definitely make sure that there's not too much liquid, as it takes longer to dehydrate. Then I spread it onto my dehydrator trays and let it dehydrate. This can take up to 12 hours or even longer, but definitely wait until you can't see any wet parts anymore and everything is really dry and crispy. You can then vacuum seal or just use Ziploc bags like I did for the other recipes. And if you have weighed your meal before and after dehydrating, you just bring the amount of water that has gone to a boil, add your chili and let it simmer for three to five minutes. This is it for this video. I really hope you've enjoyed it. I really hope it could help you a little bit, inspire you a bit. Let me know in the comments your favorite lightweight backpacking meal or if you've tried one of the ones that I've shown you, how you like them, and let me know what you think. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you so much for following along. I'll see you soon. Bye!