Backpacking meals can make or break a trip. I’ve been making my own dehydrated meals, honing recipes over the years. The goal is nutritious, calorie laden meals that don’t weigh a lot or take up much space. All of my meals require a cup of boiling water to re-hydrate. Before I made this simple insulated pouch, this crucial step used to be hit or miss. Now, I always end up with a perfectly re-hydrated, steaming hot meal.
Make your Pouch
It is incredibly easy to make, light weight, and pretty cheap. All you need is some form of insulated material. You can get reflectix, as the gold standard, but I used an old car windshield sunscreen. All I did was cut it into a strip about a half inch larger than a plastic freezer bag, fold it over and sew the edges. I left a flap long enough to fold it back into the pouch to close it.
Unbelievably easy! I have a sewing machine, but I’m sure you could hand sew. Maybe even just glue the edges?
We did very ‘scientific’ side by side tests, re-hydrating meals in the insulated pouch, vs no pouch. The pouched meals never had crunchy bits and was much hotter. The pouch kept it hot for the entire time we were eating. Almost too hot, sometimes! After a long day’s hike, you’re starving and want to inhale your meal, you might even end up taking it out of the pouch.
It weighs almost nothing, and fits in my backpack flat against the back, taking up almost no room. Its easy to just rinse or wipe off any spillage. Huge upgrade to backpacking life!
Have you made something similar? Better? Inspired to make one for your next backpacking trip? Comment below and tell me about it.
Bon appetite, Blue!
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