The first time I went backpacking, I discovered that I hated oatmeal. But it’s probably the most common breakfast on the trail so for a while I suffered through. But over the years I’ve come up with lots of alternative backpacking breakfast ideas that are just as easy as oatmeal.
I’ve been on hundreds of backpacking trips over the years (I’m a hiking guidebook author) and I’ve tried tons of different breakfasts in the backcountry. In general, I prefer backpacking breakfasts that:
- are fast and easy to prepare
- are lightweight and compact in my pack
- use little or no fuel
- require minimal clean-up
- I can shop for at the grocery store (check out my tips for grocery store backpacking meals)
In this post I’ve got 16 ideas for both hot and cold backpacking breakfasts. Most of them meet the above criteria, but I’ve got a few on the list that take a little longer for those days when you can linger in the mornings.
Hey there: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, which means I earn a small commission at no cost to you. Thanks for your support. -Taryn
Table of Contents
Hot Backpacking Breakfast Ideas
Oatmeal
Also known as porridge, instant oatmeal is a no-brainer for backpacking breakfast. It’s fast and easy to make with just boiling water. It’s filling. You can get instant oatmeal in tons of flavors. And it comes pre-portioned in little packets, so it’s ready for the trail.
Instant oatmeal is really easy to customize: You can add nuts, dried fruit, coconut, milk powder… the list goes on and on. But you won’t get any backpacking oatmeal recipes from me! I hate the stuff.
Instant Noodles
Instant noodles, Cup Noodles or ramen aren’t a typical breakfast food, but who says you have to eat typical food! They are lightweight, tasty, and fast to cook.
At the store look for noodles that you can just add boiling water to instead of ones that require simmering on the stove – that way you’ll save fuel too. The quickest cooking instant noodles are ones sold in a cup or rice noodles.
I repackage the noodles and seasoning packet a single ziplock bag at home so I don’t have to bring the bulky cup into the backcountry. At camp, I pour boiling water over the noodles in my bowl or mug, wait a few minutes, then eat.
Since they are often fairly low calorie, I bulk them up by adding pieces of jerky, shelf-stable bacon bits, or dehydrated veggies. You can also stir in a couple tablespoons of nut buttter. This is by far my favourite trail breakfast
Mashed Potatoes
Mashed potatoes are another savoury option for a hot backpacking breakfast. I buy powdered mashed potatoes at the supermarket and then package it in a ziplock with some add-ins like bacon bits or Parmesan cheese.
The Idahoan brand is my favourite. They have lots of good flavours like garlic or cheddar cheese. You can also combine them with a just-add-water gravy mix packet.
Cream of Wheat
If you don’t like oatmeal, you might not like cream of wheat either as they have a similar texture. It’s basically a wheat porridge.
You can find it near the oatmeal in your grocery store. The original flavour is the most common, but it’s also possible to find it in sweet flavours like bananas and cream and Cinnabon. (No, I haven’t tried them.)
You can add the same sort of things to your cream of wheat as you would to your granola: dried fruit, nuts, powdered milk, cinnamon, sugar, etc.
Grits
In same family as oatmeal and cream of wheat you’ll find grits: it’s basically corn porridge. In America it’s easy to find instant grits in most grocery stores, but they are far less common in Canada. Be sure to get the “instant” or “quick-cooking” kind. Otherwise they take a long time to simmer.
But unlike oatmeal and cream of wheat, grits are usually served as a savoury dish. Package your grits with bacon bits, butter powder, and salt and pepper. And of course you can always add cheese.
Quinoa Porridge
Quinoa has a delicious nutty flavour. Plus it has a bit more protein and calories than oatmeal. You can whip up an easy quinoa porridge with quinoa flakes because they cook quickly. Don’t get regular quinoa – it takes about 15 minutes to cook, which wastes fuel and time.
You can add the same types of things to quinoa porridge as you would to oatmeal: dried fruit, nuts, cinnamon, coconut milk powder, etc.
Dehydrated and Freeze-Dried Eggs
Lots of backpacking food companies dehydrated and freeze-dried eggs that you can buy at your local outdoor store. And some of them are TERRIBLE. I know. I’ve eaten them.
But there are a few gems out there. In particular, I recommend the freeze-dried egg meals from Mountain House as they actually look, feel, and taste like eggs… provided you don’t add too much water when you rehydrate them. The breakfast skillet and bacon and eggs meals are the best ones. But they’re not cheap!
If you want to save a little money, you can buy Ova Easy egg powder at grocery stores and outdoor stores. You mix it with water, then scramble it in a pan on the stove.
If you want to get fancy, you can bring some fresh or dehydrated veggies to mix into your eggs. Or bring tortillas and some hot sauce to make breakfast burritos with your eggs.
Pancakes
This is a good special occasion backpacking breakfast (maybe for a birthday?) or for days when you have time in camp and room in your pack. Making pancakes in the backcountry is doable, but it takes a bit more time.
Bring a ziploc bag of boxed pancake mix. You’ll also need a little bit of oil or butter to keep them from sticking to the pan. And speaking of a pan, you’ll probably need a lightweight frying pan (I have this GSI frying pan) – it’s really hard to make pancakes in a backpacking pot!
Don’t forget to bring a tiny container of maple syrup or jam to serve on top. Or mix chocolate chips into the pancake mix.
Bannock
Also known as fry bread, Indigenous groups all across North America make bannock. My husband wowed me by making bannock on one of our first backpacking trips together.
It’s really simple to make the dough – it’s just a mix of flour and sugar with a little bit of baking soda and salt. (There are lots of recipes online.) We package the dry mix in a ziploc, then add water in camp and knead it inside the bag.
Then you fry the dough in a little bit of oil, then serve with jam. You can also add dried fruit (my husband uses currants) into the dough.
No-Cook Backpacking Breakfast Ideas
Bars
Energy bars, granola bars, and protein bars are some of the easiest things you can eat for breakfast when backpacking. They require no cooking or prep (besides unwrapping) and they are generally fairly filling. The only downside – they’re a little boring.
Granola or Cereal
Granola or cereal with milk is an easy backpacking breakfast. Just bring a ziploc bag of your favourite granola or breakfast cereal and some powdered milk.
If you do dairy, bring powdered whole milk – powdered skim is disgusting. If you’re dairy-free, powdered coconut milk is the easiest to find, but you can also get powdered oat milk and soy milk.
At camp, mix the powdered milk with water before adding to the granola – otherwise it can be a gritty. On cold days, I use warm water to make my milk.
Freeze Dried Yogurt
I recently found out that you can buy freeze dried yogurt at the grocery store. It turns out it’s hiding in the baby food aisle! Look for Gerber yogurt melts – they come in lots of flavors.
If you grind up the yogurt melts into a powder at home in your food processor, you can rehydrate it with cold water on the trail. Mix in dried fruit, nuts, or granola to make it a full meal.
PB&J
Classic peanut butter and jelly tastes great on the trail – plus it’s packed with protein. Or mix it up and go with almond butter, tahini, or even nutella.
Instead of regular sandwich bread, bring bread that won’t get squished. Bagels are great. Or use tortillas if you want to save space. Or skip the bread altogether and just eat peanut butter off a spoon.
Smoothies and Shakes
Why bother with chewing when you can drink your breakfast? Powdered smoothie and shake mixes (like Carnation Breakfast Essentials) come in all kinds of flavours. Or you can make your own with protein powder, powdered milk, freeze-dried fruit powders and more. There are lots of recipes online.
Pop Tarts
My friends’ kids love going backpacking because their parents let them eat all kinds of things they don’t normally get at home. And some mornings in camp, that means Pop Tarts for breakfast. Of course there are no toasters in the backcountry, so they just eat them cold. But they don’t seem to mind.
Pop Tarts are high calorie, portable, and arguably, pretty tasty – all factors that make them a great backpacking breakfast idea.
Baked Goods
Sometimes I’ll pick up a muffin or a scone at a bakery on my way to the trailhead. I carefully nestle it inside my cooking pot to protect it from getting squished, then savour it for breakfast in camp the next morning.
If you’re looking for something a little more shelf stable but still gourmet, you can buy packaged shelf-stable Belgian Liege-style waffles (not the frozen kind).
Or go cheap and buy Little Debbie or Hostess cakes, twinkie, donuts, etc. They last forever and they’re fairly high calorie. You just have to be careful not to squish them.
So what’s your favourite non-oatmeal backpacking breakfast? (Instant noodles are always my choice.)
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40 responses to “16 Backpacking Breakfast Ideas”
Hot granola for us 🙂 Like you, we pre-mix in the powdered milk so it just has to have hot water poured over.
We did come up with a reasonable formula for oatmeal but the granola is so much more convenient. Freeze-dried breakfasts have never worked for us – even a bit too much water into the egg mixture means a breakfast of eggs and water. Yuck!
Oh yeah, I’ve been there with the too much water in the eggs – terrible! My husband likes the eggs much more than I do so we often bring one package of eggs for him and even more granola for me. I can’t believe it took me over a decade to discover warm granola! 🙂
I haven’t tried a lot of these, some neat suggestions. My goto is dehydrated eggs (make your own, crack and whisk eggs, dehdrate in oven, done and cheap!). Pre-cooked bacon has changed my life (well for camping that is) it’s instant and no mess, A bit pricey bit worth it. I haven’t tried making my own yet. Wrap it all up with some cheese and veggies. It’s incredibly fast but does take a bit longer than just boiling water, but it sure hits the spot 5-6 days into a trip!
I also have a really hard time with oatmeal, except for the Natures Path packets. Those are amazing and have larger portions. My favourite is the hemp one, i’ve had it cold and it was delicious. Though they seem harder and harder to find in the stores.
And then there’s pancakes, premix all the dry ingredients, include some dehydrated (or freshly picked on the trail) blueberries and just add water. This requires a stove that can simmer or constant vigilance, and takes up decent amounts of fuel and time, but there’s no better way to celebrate someone’s birthday on the trail 🙂
I hadn’t thought of dehydrating my own eggs. Interesting idea. I have a dedicated dehydrator so I could try it in there. How do they rehydrate? If they aren’t as good as the freeze-dried mountain house ones I’d rather pay the money and save time 🙂
I also love the pre-cooked bacon (although I agree it’s a bit expensive). I like to add it to instant noodles or mashed potatoes.
I’m not a huge pancake person (or bannock) but I know that others really enjoy it. I don’t usually want to spend a lot of time cooking and cleaning up in the morning unless I am car camping.
Oscar Meyer makes a shelf-stable, cooked bacon that’s pretty great. Just drape over a stick, and hold over an open fire til it sizzles. We prepackaged oatmeal with almonds, chopped dried fruit and spices (also really good).
It doesn’t matter what your prepackage oatmeal with, I still won’t like it 🙂 But yes, adding spices to oatmeal (or in my case granola) is a great idea!
I’ve also tried the shelf stable bacon – it is tasty and so easy. I often backpack in the alpine where you can’t have a fire so I usually just add the precooked bacon to noodles or mashed potatoes so it gets heated up.
Scrambled muffins are my favourite. Basically fry up bran or oatmeal muffin mix, with fruit, nuts, maybe even chocolate 🙂 , just like you would scramble eggs. It’s so good, and warm, without the texture of oatmeal, if you’re not into it.
Also bannock pancakes or cinnamon rolls are delicious but they take a bit more time.
Oh interesting! I’ve never even thought of that. I think it would be a bit more time consuming than I’d want since you’d have to clean up afterwards and if I’m going lightweight I don’t have a frying pan. But definitely something to try on more laid back trips instead of pancakes.
Another good backpacking meal from the dinner side that an be adapted for breakfast is stove top stuffing.
Can’t believe I hadn’t thought of that. I’ve made stove top stuffing for backpacking before as part of a dinner but I had never thought to make it for breakfast. I’ll have to try this!
Taryn, not sure if you also can’t stomach steel cut oats, but I’ve got a way to prepare them without the usual 30 min+ cook time. All you need to do is pour 2/3 of the needed water over the oats the evening before and cover. Then, in the morning add the remaining 1/3 water, cook for 5 min, and let sit for 5 min.
I also add coconut manna and chia seeds for fat and protein. Steel cut oats are much more filling and the texture is vastly better than the mush of instant oats.
I have tried steel cut oats and my husband likes them but I’m still not a fan. Although adding coconut anything to breakfast does help! I’m also usually camping in bear country so I can’t leave oats out over-night before to soak unless I bring a dedicated sealable container to do that in, then put it in my bear bag. But I guess it could be ok in ziplock bags?
On my last section of the AT, I weirdly enough fell in love with the Mountain House biscuits and gravy for breakfast (though super lightweight, you’re right — very expensive!). Personally, I generally crave savory over sweet foods. So sure enough, after many days of eating more sugary snacks than I usually do on the trail (GORP, protein bars, nut butters, chocolate, and the like), starting the day off with a more savory breakfast made me more enthusiastic about the sweet snacks during the day. Plus, I felt like a cowgirl having biscuits and gravy with instant coffee to boot on those early mornings. Love your site! Thanks for the tips!
Thanks Sarah! I also love savory in the morning, which is why there are lots of savory things on my list. Another one that requires a bit more prep work up front is mashed yams – make them at home, dehydrate them, then rehydrate on the trail. I sometimes eat them with pecans for extra protein 🙂
I know this probably won’t do you any good, but my favorite way to make oatmeal on the trail is with whey powder, died fruit and nut butter. It tends to give it a thicker, creamy consistency, more like cream of wheat. Honestly, I love breakfast and will eat just about anything, as long as I can make coffee. 🙂
Interesting idea for oatmeal additions Jeannie! Whey powder doesn’t appeal to me but adding nut butter just might! I sometime carry a small tub of almond butter mixed with nutella on long trips – I just eat it with a spoon for extra calories – but adding it to breakfast cereal is a great idea.
Great ideas, particularly like the idea of warm granola. Also loving all the suggestions in the comments, so many fab ideas 🙂
Do you know about Packet Gourmet? They have some really good meals – a bit pricy, but so it Mountain House. Their Migas del Sol (Mexican Egg scramble) is my favorite breakfast! Second is Mountain House Blueberry Granola – I’ve tried making it at home and can’t replicate, so I keep buying theirs 🙂
I hadn’t heard of them but I just looked them up and their stuff looks good. Thanks for the recommendation. Are they only sold online through their site or can you also buy them at REI or similar?
@Leigh | Campfires & Concierges,
Glad to learn about another company, thanks. At first I thought that was the one stated by a mom and son but it’s another family started business! There are so many great new garage-up type companies making healthier meals – I love it! GoodtoGo is my favorite so far (at REI) with really done veggie and GF meals.
I’m still trying to find a good savory, lightweight,
vegetarian breakfast for my husband. I’ll figure it out some day. ; )
I cannot eat oatmeal…. nasty stuff. I like the breakfast skillet or backpackers pantry huevos rancheros, as long as I bring some tortillas along with a bit of salsa.
Might have to give the home dehydrated eggs a try.
I totally hear you on the oatmeal hate! I do dehydrate some of my own camping food at home but I haven’t tried eggs yet – I’m a bit worried about how they would come out in terms of texture which is why I prefer the freeze-dried ones – they do mostly resemble real eggs… mostly 🙂 If you try home dehydrate eggs let me know how it goes. I’m curious.
Tried most here in the UK. But found them mostly uninspiring . Try powdered milk with regular breakfast cereals may be a little dried fruit or chocolate chips added.Easily stored and very light in zippered bags. Hot milk wheatabix mmm delicious again add fruits or your choice.
Ready made stuff yuk and way too expensive.
Maybe not the most light weight thing, but I like taking some wraps for multiple purposes and I sometimes take along a few avocados. Mashed and smeared on a warmed up wrap with a little salt and pepper is good for breakfast.
You can find rice that’s ready to eat in some grocery stores. I like the brown rice – add some honey or maple syrup, maybe some dry milk and then a little hot water. It’s like oatmeal but without the oatmeal. ?
We are headed into backcountry soon and I am going to try overnight Chia Pudding. I have made it at home before, but never while backpacking. I am a chocoholic so I am going to mix Chia seeds with cocoa, coconut milk powder, honey crystals, and some cinnamon. Just add cold water to the mix the night before and mix well. You can add dried fruit, or whatever you prefer so it makes this very versatile. I hope it works! I am going to do a test run here at home before we go just to be sure.
Oh that sounds really interesting Amanda! Let me know how it goes.
Another instant box food we love is scalloped potatoes. I dehydrate corned beef at home and mix it in. If you have a little extra time in the morning, frying the beef after it is rehydrated adds caramelization to the edges of the beef then add the potatoes and follow package directions with powdered milk and butter.
Amazon carries bulk dried egg powder (I got the 2 pound can from Augason Farms). It’s easy to package into individual bags and add bacon bits and dried vegetables, and it rehydrates and cooks into perfect scrambled eggs! Much more affordable than $7 individual breakfast packs.
We have tried the egg powder – I agree it’s definitely much more affordable. However, I don’t think it’s nearly as tasty as the freeze dried eggs. I guess its up to each person to decide if they want to splurge on backpacking eggs 🙂
Chia hot chocolate is my go to hike breakfast. Chia seed, dried coconut, a bit of hot chocolate mix. Oatmeal and eggs don’t agree with my stomach so my choices are limited. I’m excited to try mashed potato mix.
hot cheesy quesadillas, lots of carb lots of protein, add dehydrated salsa (reconstituted) for a punch; we sometimes add freeze dried eggs for a real treat
Am I the only crazy person who brings actual eggs still in their shells, nestled in the cute little, yellow egg container? Admittedly not practical for long hikes but 6 fresh eggs are good for a week . I scramble them with green peppers, onions and/or mushrooms. Yum yum!
I definitely use those egg containers for car camping and I’ve used them for some short backpacking trips, but in general I find fresh eggs too bulky, heavy, and messy. But they definitely taste good!
Literally my hero!!! I’m planning the menu for my camping trip to Yellowstone and all I could think of was oatmeal 🙃. I will definitely be trying some of these!
Ova Easy egg powder – huge fan. I bring little ziplock bags with spices for all meals, including dehydrated chives and onion flakes. And little boxes of dried hashbrowns are a snap on the trail. My breakfast staple: tortillas rolled with peanut butter and M&Ms inside.. Carnation Breakfast Essentials powder comes in various flavors (I like the chocolate) mixed with powdered milk & water for a great breakfast drink.
My favorite “go-to” for a savory breakfast is a 50/50 mix of instant rice (white or brown) and dehydrated black beans that I cover with boiling water and let sit to rehydrate while I do some packing up. Brown rice will take a bit longer than white rice, and covering your bowl will speed up the process. One can add cheese cubes and dehydrated salsa to the mix too, and I add crushed tortilla chips as a toping. I have also had it in a tortilla, mini burrito style. The dried black beans or black bean soup mix have been harder to find lately so I have mashed canned black beans and dehydrated my own.
Oh that’s an interesting savoury combo I hadn’t considered for breakfast. I haven’t seen dehydrated black beans in grocery stores in ages. Casbah brand used to make them but they don’t anymore. I have home dehydrated cans of refried beans before with good results though.
For our next overnight hike I’m trying granola, adding nuts, dehydrated fruit and powdered whole milk. Thanks for the tip about mixing your milk powder and water first!!
I tried Taryn’s idea of noodles for breakfast and liked it a lot. The hot granola idea seems great as well, maybe I’ll try it on my next overnight.