People often ask me about what we eat in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. If you travel with me, you eat quite well! I like fresh food 😉 Now, I know we could do this much lighter and more extreme, but hey I like it this way. If we were going longer and further I would make some changes. So, if you are setting out on a longer trip, or are looking to for extremely light packing this probably isn’t the blog for you. Perhaps you’ll find something you like anyways though! This is the details of what we ate during our three night trip.  We carried it in two bear barrels. Almost everything was purchased at Walmart.  I will call out where items purchased elsewhere can be found.

Packing Tips:

•   Remove as much garbage as you can before you start. Remember you will be packing everything out that you bring in. Take everything out of boxes.
• Be bear aware. I recommend buying a bear barrel or two.
• Your first days food can be packed separate and out of the barrels to save space if needed.
• We use a dry bag for our trash. First using small plastic bags (used to store fresh food) to compact it as much as we can. Hang trash away from bears and rodents as well.

Breakfast

Daily – Bars, fruit strips, coffee. For coffee we use the tea like packets, SUPER EASY! Just boil water and drop the packet in! This also saves us from packing a coffee making device. We found the coffee packets on amazon.

Lunch –

Day 1 – Bacon Lettuce Tomato Sandwiches.

• Whole wheat sandwich flats from Aldi are the perfect bread to pack, they save a lot of space and it doesn’t matter if they get squished a bit.
• Pre cooked bacon so that is did not need to be refrigerated. We just heat it up in our pan.
• Single serving packets of Mayo
• Tomato
• Lettuce, kept in small plastic bag wrapped in damp paper towel.

Day 2 -Peanut butter pickle sandwiches, cheese & crackers, olives, summer sausage

• Whole wheat sandwich flats from Aldi
• Small squeezable peanut butter
• Individual pickle packets
• Summer sausage (technically this should be refrigerated after opening, we chanced it for our three day trip and it was fine)
• Laughing cow cheese (also should technically be refrigerated but we were fine)
• Olive packets, so good!!!!

Day 3 – Leftover snacks

Day three we actually had planned shells and cheese but instead decided just to eat the snacks we still had packed.

• Turkey sticks
• Olives
• Crackers
• Laughing cow cheese
• Trail Mix
• Pistachios

Dinner-

Day 1 – Lemon pepper chicken, quinoa & brown rice, mushrooms and green beans

• Pre-cooked and seasoned chicken in packet
• Pre-cooked quinoa and brown rice
• Small can mushrooms
• Pre cleaned green beans
• Small tub of garlic herb butter to cook beans

Day 2 – Wild rice, green beans, asparagus

• Wild Rice, Precooked and seasoned at home
• Leftover green beans from day 1
• Asparagus
• Garlic herb tub butter for cooking

Day 3 – Fish tacos with guacamole, tomato and cilantro lime rice

• Fresh northern pike
• Shore Lunch
• Olive Oil (small bottle)
• Single serving guacamole
• Tomato
• Lettuce (kept in small plastic bag with damp paper towel)
• Taco Bell hot sauce
• Lemon
• Tortillas
• Pre-cooked cilantro lime rice

Snacks

• Trail mix
• Turkey sticks
• Summer sausage
• Crackers
• Laughing cow cheese
• Olives
• Wine (Boxed wine, removed from the box to save space)
  *some of these items were also used in the above meals

As you can see we did not go hungry! Almost all the food was super simple, just heat and serve or grab and go. I hope you found something in this blog that will help you when planning your adventure! I look forward to continuing to learn and grow in my backpacking skill set. Our next plan is to start learning to dehydrate meals so we can someday do a more extreme type of trip! For beginner tips please check out my blog “A Beginners Guide to Camping in the Boundary Waters.” 😉

Much love & Happy Travels,

Lacey

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