When you’re vegan, or even a raw foodie and fruitarian, it can be difficult (or impossible) finding trail food that caters to your diet, is healthy, tastes good and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to buy.
As the majority of long distance trails go through wilderness areas, there aren’t any shops where you can pop in and buy fresh food from. The majority of food on tour is therefore dehydrated.
We were in this position as we planned for our Rondanestien hike. In the end we came up with some pretty tasty solutions for vegan hiking meals. We settled on seven plant-based recipes and we’ve continued making them for most of our tours, depending on availability.
- Lentil Surprise with chilli tomato sauce
- Quinoa Curry with sweet potato and jackfruit
- Millet Smile with broccoli, spinach and mung beans
- Bulghur Couscous with roasted paprika, aubergine, zucchini and mushrooms
- Thai Rice Noodles with tofu and spicy coconut sauce
- Hearty Bean Soup with carrots, pumpkin and corn
- Buckwheat pasta with creamy cauliflower besan sauce
Each meal uses fresh ingredients, some of which are local and biodynamic. They’re cooked and then dehydrated using a raw food dehydrator (no higher than 43 degrees Celsius). Finally, they’re seasoned with dehydrated ginger root, tumeric root, garlic and onion, salt, pepper, a fresh spice mix such as Berbera and dehydrated tomato paste or a creamy sauce made of besan flour.
The above meals can be soaked in boiled water for 5-10 mins. When you’re hiking all day, you really look forward to eating a home-cooked meal. These meals look, smell and taste like real food. Some of the people we met on tour, also looked quite interested in what we were eating. As the meals are dehydrated they also don’t weigh much. For example, a 350 gram meal can easily feed two people (just add water).
In some of our later shorter hikes, we just took fresh veggies and cut them up as required instead of dehydrating them.
Breakfast
We stuck to old favourites:
- Gluten free oats with coconut milk powder
But as this was pretty easy to get sick of, alternatives are:
- Pea noodles wiht miso, seaweed, tofu and veggies
- Nuts and seeds muesli with grated apple, ginger, currants and/or vegan protein powder
Lunch
We decided upon a quick and easy meal which requires only hot water to prepare. This consisted of:
- Mufu (a special blend of Fufu, miso and seaweed or dulse flakes)
But it’s not always possible to buy Mufu and is also easy to get sick of. So options include:
- Seed crackerbread with tahini, avocado, tomatoes, cucumber and sauerkraut
- Coconut flour, psyllium husk and besan flour pancakes with nut butter
Dessert
- Chia seeds with carob, dates, coconut and maple syrup
An alternative is:
- Corn starch, cocoa powder or carob, sweetener, vanilla
You can carry your own sweetener like raw agave syrup or honey in a plastic tube or bottle.
Trail mix
We dehydrated and combined our own:
- Pineapple, apple, apricot, peach, kiwi, banana chips - anything you can get your hands on
- Vegan chocolate is always a treat
- Fruit leathers are also great
Salty licks
After hiking for several hours in hot weather, salty licks are very welcome. These are among our favourite:
- Gluten free pretzels
- Spicy dehydrated fava beans
- Italian Taralli snacks
- Plain lentil chips
Crackerbread
We made our own:
- Sesame, sunflower, linseed, pumpkin and chia seeds with sundried tomato and Kalamata olives
- Emmer or Khorasan flour, olive oil, fresh herbs, sunflower, linseed, sesame seeds
Some really good toppings or spread options are beetroot hummus, babaganoush, avocado, peanut butter, roasted paprika spread, and sprouts.
Energy bars
We dehydrated and combined our own:
- Date, chia seeds, raisins, apricots, figs, hazelnuts, walnuts, cacao, carob, honey, coconut oil