Base Camp Oatmeal
Oats, milk powder, and salt in one bag. The breakfast you build everything else on.
- calories
- 290
- weight
- 2.3 oz
- cal / oz
- 126
- protein
- 11 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 3 min
- total time
- 5 min
- water
- 200 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Breakfast
- Canister stove
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Backpacking
- Thru-hike
- Bikepacking
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Fine cut oats | 40 g | quick oats, not steel cut |
|---|---|---|
| Whole milk powder | 25 g | whole, not skim, for the fat |
| Salt | 2 g | |
| Sugar | 5 g | optional, salt alone is enough for most people |
Method
- Bring 200 ml of water to a boil.
- Dump the bag in and stir. Let it come back to a boil, maybe thirty seconds.
- Off the heat, lid on, and wait 5 to 10 minutes. A cozy or a jacket wrapped around the pot helps.
- Stir once more before eating. It thickens as it sits.
This is a base, not a finished dish. Forty grams of oats, milk powder, and salt runs about 290 calories, which is thin for a hiking breakfast on its own. The point is that it packs down to almost nothing and takes whatever you add to it at resupply.
Whole milk powder is doing two jobs: it makes the oats creamy instead of watery, and it carries the fat that the oats do not have. Skim powder saves a few grams and costs you most of the calories. The salt matters more than it sounds like it should. Without it the whole bowl tastes like wet paper.
Packing
Mix five days into one one-liter bag rather than five small ones. Four to five heaping spork-loads is close enough to a portion, and you carry one bag instead of a handful of them.
Variations
- Cold soak it overnight with the same water instead of boiling. Fine cut oats soften without heat.
- Add the boiling water straight to a freezer bag and eat from the bag. No pot to clean, more trash to carry.
- Dried fruit, chocolate chips, or a spoon of honey pushes it past 400 calories.
https://www.hikeforpurpose.com/trail-meal-oatmeal