Cheesy Bacon Grits
Instant grits, dry milk, and cheese in a freezer bag. Savory breakfast, or polenta at dinner.
- calories
- 700
- weight
- 5.8 oz
- cal / oz
- 121
- protein
- 26 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 5 min
- total time
- 7 min
- water
- 240 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
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Alcohol / Esbit
- Backpacking
- Thru-hike
- Bikepacking
- Winter / snow
- Canoe / raft
- Gluten free
- Nut free
- Eat in the bag
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Instant grits | 2 packets | instant, not quick-cooking or 1-minute |
|---|---|---|
| Powdered whole milk | 2 tbsp | whole fat carries more calories than nonfat |
| Bacon bits or shelf-stable chopped bacon | 2 tbsp | |
| Onion powder | 1 tsp | |
| Dried or freeze-dried diced garlic | 1 tsp | |
| Shelf-stable cheddar | 2 oz | or 2 tbsp freeze-dried cheddar |
Method
- Dice the cheese while your water heats. Freeze-dried cheese goes in as is.
- Bring 240 ml of water to a boil. Shut the stove off.
- Pour the water into the freezer bag over the dry mix and the cheese, stirring as you pour.
- Seal the bag, put it in a cozy or a jacket, and wait five minutes.
- Stir once more and eat out of the bag.
Grits get overlooked on trail, which is odd, because instant grits hydrate faster than instant rice and about as fast as potato flakes. Five minutes in a bag and they are done. The starch is fine enough that it thickens on residual heat alone, so you boil once and shut the stove off.
Dry milk and cheese are doing the work here. Grits alone are wet starch; the milk powder gives them body and the cheese gives them fat, which is what turns a hot carb into a meal. Use whole-fat milk powder rather than nonfat if you can find it. Freeze-dried cheddar is lighter and keeps indefinitely, but diced shelf-stable cheddar tastes better and melts into the bag properly on trips under a week.
Packing
Everything dry goes in a pint freezer bag with the cheese tucked in. Write 'add 1 cup water' on the bag. If the meal sits in storage for months, keep the bacon in its own bag and add it at camp.
Variations
- Cook it in the pot instead: boil, kill the heat, dump everything in, cover five minutes.
- Skip the bacon and it is a vegetarian side dish. Call it polenta and serve it under a foil packet of anything.
- A spoonful of hot sauce powder or chipotle keeps it from tasting flat on day six.
https://trailcooking.com/breakfast/cheesy-bacon-grits