In my book, a good trail meal needs to taste great and pack in needed calories and nutrition, without being overly complex or time consuming to make on the trail. With dinner frequently being fit in just as the light begins to fade and with tired legs, I often want to jump in the sleeping bag sooner rather than later, but still want a great meal. This one takes a little prep at home and just a little specialty shopping before the hike, but is still ready in minutes on your trip and tastes great.

This one takes a little time to prepare at home, but is fast to make out on the trail.

Ingredients (Feeds 2 or One Large Appetite)

• 4 oz. thin rice noodles (the Thai Kitchen brand for example)
• 2 small packets soy sauce
• 3 tsp sugar
• 1 to 1.5 tsp garlic powder
• ¼ to ½ tsp black pepper
• 2 tsp corn starch
• ½ cup freeze dried broccoli
• dash cayenne
• 1 package of Mountain House Chicken & Mashed Potatoes Dinner
• 1 tbsp olive oil or olive oil packets

At Home

Combine all dry ingredients in a Ziploc bag. Pack soy sauce packets, olive oil, and the Mountain House dinner separately. Pack a spare quart Ziploc

In Camp

Open Mountain House dinner. Inside you will find the cubed chicken and a separate, sealed plastic bag containing the mashed potato mix. Set the sealed plastic bag of mashed potatoes aside to use with another meal on another night (either as a side dish or to thicken up another meal that’s compatible with herbed mashed potatoes). You can put the mashed potatoes bag (which will have some chicken dust on the outside) into the spare Ziploc. Add dry ingredients to the Mountain House pouch that now only contains cubed chicken. Add olive oil and 2 packets of soy sauce. Boil 1.75 cups of water and add to the pouch. Stir, seal the pouch, and let sit for 5 minutes. Stir again, seal pouch, and allow to sit for another 5 minutes. Stir again after 10 total minutes and eat.

This meal is a bit of a non-fried take on a Thai pad see ew with thin noodles, just without the frying to keep things simple. The result is a meal that is simple, savory, and sweet with the freeze dried broccoli adding in a fresh-like element after a day of hiking. Overall, while there’s a bit more prep here than just adding water to an off-the-shelf freeze dried meal, and this is one of my favorite meals when I’m out on the trail.

Editor's Note: This recipe originally appeared in Issue 52 of TrailGroove Magazine. You can read the original article here.