Crackers and Stuff
A no-cook plate built on sturdy crackers and whatever shelf-stable topping you packed.
- calories
- 650
- weight
- 4.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 144
- protein
- 16 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 3 min
- cook
- 0 min
- total time
- 3 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Lunch
- Snack
- No cook
- Backpacking
- Thru-hike
- Day hike
- Bikepacking
- Canoe / raft
- Eat in the bag
- Grab and go
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Sturdy crackers | 100 g | knäckebröd, hardtack, or a dense seeded cracker; thin butter crackers shatter |
|---|---|---|
| Shelf-stable cream cheese or spreadable cheese | 2 oz | the foil-wedge or squeeze-tube kind that ships unrefrigerated |
| Hard cheese | 1.5 oz | aged gouda or a dry cheddar keeps for days out |
| Cured sausage or salami | 2 oz | |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | in a dropper bottle, for the crackers that end up plain |
| Salt and cracked pepper | to taste |
Method
- Sit down somewhere the wind is not going to take your crackers.
- Lay out four or five crackers on the lid of your pot or on the cracker sleeve itself.
- Spread the soft cheese with the back of your spork. Go thicker than feels reasonable; the cracker is the vehicle, not the meal.
- Slice the hard cheese and sausage with a knife and lay it over the top.
- Hit the plain ones with a few drops of oil, salt, and pepper.
- Crumble the broken pieces at the bottom of the bag into your next soup or stew instead of throwing them out.
This is lunch when you do not want to stop long enough for a stove. Crackers, something fatty on top, eat, walk. The whole thing lives or dies on which cracker you buy: knäckebröd and hardtack survive a week of being sat on, and thin butter crackers turn to dust by day two.
The soft cheese matters more than it looks. It glues the toppings down, adds fat the crackers do not have, and keeps the whole thing from being dry crumbs and salt. Shelf-stable spreadable cheese and cured sausage both hold at ambient temperature, which is the only reason this works without a cooler. What breaks in the bag is not waste — cracker dust thickens a thin soup better than most things you would carry on purpose.
Packing
Crackers ride in a rigid container or wedged upright against the pack frame, never loose at the bottom. Cheese and sausage go in their own bag so the oil does not soak the crackers into cardboard.
Variations
- Swap the sausage for a foil pouch of tuna or sardines.
- Peanut butter and honey packets instead of cheese turns it into breakfast.
- Rice or chickpea crackers keep it gluten-free, though they break easier.
https://www.hikeforpurpose.com/trail-meal-crackers-and-stuff