Cucumber Cracker Sandwiches
Herbed cheese spread on crackers with cucumber, built at the trailhead cooler.
- calories
- 320
- weight
- 4.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 71
- protein
- 7 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 0 min
- total time
- 15 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
- Cooler only
- Car camping
- Day hike
- Canoe / raft
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- Eat in the bag
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Cream cheese | 8 oz | softened in the cooler, not frozen |
|---|---|---|
| Shelf-stable heavy cream or evaporated milk | 2 tbsp | just enough to loosen the spread |
| Dried dill | 3/4 tsp | |
| Worcestershire sauce | 1 tsp | |
| Garlic powder | 1/4 tsp | |
| Lemon pepper | 1/2 tsp | |
| Coarse salt | 1/4 tsp | |
| Sturdy crackers or a dense rye loaf | 24 crackers | |
| English cucumber | 1 | no peeling, small seeds |
Method
- Let the cream cheese sit out of the cooler for ten minutes so it takes a spoon.
- Stir the cream cheese, cream, dill, Worcestershire, garlic powder, lemon pepper, and salt in a bowl or a zip bag until it is smooth and spreadable.
- Slice the cucumber thin. A pocket knife is fine.
- Spread cheese on each cracker and lay two cucumber slices on top.
- Build them as you eat. Assembled early, they go limp inside an hour.
This started as a bread-and-butter tea sandwich and does not survive a pack. Soft bread turns to paste against a cucumber slice within an hour, so the base here is a cracker or a dense rye that takes moisture slowly. Everything else about it travels fine.
Cream cheese and cucumber both need cold, so this is a cooler recipe and a day-one-or-two recipe. Dried dill replaces fresh at about half the volume. The Worcestershire is not there for a flavor you can name; it keeps the spread from tasting flat, which plain cream cheese does once it warms up.
Packing
Mix the spread at home and carry it in a squeeze bottle or a doubled zip bag on ice. Crackers ride in a hard container or they arrive as crumbs.
Variations
- Swap the crackers for a sliced baguette on day one.
- A few drops of hot sauce in the spread instead of the Worcestershire.
- Sliced radish holds its crunch longer than cucumber in a warm cooler.
https://www.tasteandtellblog.com/cookbook-of-the-month-recipe-herbed-goat-cheese-sandwiches