camp meals

Trail Granola with Powdered Milk

Cereal in a bag. Pour water, wait one minute, walk.

calories
620
weight
4.4 oz
cal / oz
141
protein
16 g
serves
1, scales
prep
2 min
cook
0 min
total time
2 min
water
200 ml cold
cost
$

Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.

  • Breakfast
  • Snack
  • No cook
  • Cold soak
  • Backpacking
  • Thru-hike
  • Bikepacking
  • Day hike
  • Vegetarian
  • Eat in the bag
  • Pre-mix at home
  • Shelf stable
  • Dump and stir

Ingredients

Granola 1 cup the dense clustered kind, not the flaky kind
Full fat powdered milk 1/4 cup
Dried blueberries 3 tbsp
Chopped almonds 2 tbsp
Salt a pinch

Method

  1. Premix everything into a single freezer bag at home, milk powder included.
  2. In the morning pour in 200 ml of cold water and shake once.
  3. Wait one minute for the milk powder to dissolve. It will clump if you eat it immediately.
  4. Eat out of the bag. There is nothing to wash.

The fastest possible camp breakfast that is still a breakfast. Milk powder mixed into the granola at home is the entire trick: it means one bag, one pour, and no separate step in the cold.

Full fat milk powder is worth seeking out. Nonfat is common, cheap, and takes a third of the calories out of this for no benefit.

Packing

Quart freezer bags, one per morning, labeled with the day. Pre-portioning stops the granola bag from becoming the snack bag by day three.

Variations

  • Freeze dried strawberries and white chocolate, which is a genuinely good combination.
  • Instant coffee in the same bag if you have made peace with coffee-flavored cereal.