8-day Paleo Backpacking Meal Plan

The last couple weeks in the field I've used the exact same menu and I haven't gotten sick of it yet. I probably will tweak some things pretty soon, but it makes a great starting point for a week-long meal plan.

This plan is best for moderate weather (30 degrees to 70 degrees), otherwise freezing temperatures make some things inconveniently frozen and hot temperatures may spoil things too quickly. Also, I have a couple disclaimers:

1. We don't do a TON of hiking in the field because we have days spent completely on therapy and other things (and the kids can't hike as much as adults with a trip agenda) so I pack my food bag pretty heavy.
2. I am a smaller woman who doesn't consume as much as a larger man would; you might need to take more food than this.
3. We get a food resupply half-way through the 8-day shift which isn't feasible for all 8-day excursions.
4. KIND bars are not 100% paleo, but they are gluten-free, and the Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt one has only 5g sugar and 16g carbs, compared with LARABARs, which have almost twice as many carbs and three times as much sugar.

Sooooo...this is intended as an outline, and something that works for me, but you'll probably have to add more food in for an intensive activity schedule, or tinker with some things so your food bag isn't gigantic.

Day 1:

Breakfast - Whatever you want, you're probably not on the trail yet
Lunch - Again, whatever you want, preferably packed with little trash (leftovers in a ziploc or something)
Snacks - one carrot, one Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt KIND bar, 2-3 TB Paleo Cookie Butter
Dinner - Bacon with Spinach, Mushrooms, and Onions

Day 2:

Breakfast - 2 hard boiled eggs w/ 1 TB olive oil, sea salt & mustard; 1 paleo muffin
Lunch - Sardine Salad: 1 tin sardines, a large handful of baby spinach or greens, 1/4 chopped red pepper, 1/8 chopped onion; 2-3 TB Paleo Cookie Butter
Snacks - one carrot, one Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt KIND bar, a few pieces grass-fed beef jerky
Dinner - Salami Veggie Saute

Day 3:

Breakfast - 2 hard boiled eggs w/ 1 TB olive oil, sea salt & mustard; 1 paleo muffin
Lunch - 1 tin sardines packed in olive oil topped with a couple TB diced onion and 1 TB mustard, 2-3 TB Paleo Cookie Butter
Snacks - one carrot, one Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt KIND bar, a few pieces grass-fed beef jerky
Dinner - Salami Veggie Saute

Day 4:

Breakfast - 2 hard boiled eggs w/ 1 TB olive oil, sea salt & mustard; 1 paleo muffin
Lunch - Tuna Salad: 1 packet or can of tuna, 1/8 chopped onion, 1/2 chopped apple, 1 TB olive oil, 1 TB mustard, sea salt; 2-3 TB Paleo Cookie Butter
Snacks - one carrot, one Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt KIND bar, a few pieces grass-fed beef jerky
Dinner - Smoked Salmon Coconut Curry

Day 5:

Breakfast - 2 oz. grass-fed summer sausage & 2 oz. raw goat cheese topped with mustard; 1 paleo muffin
Lunch - Apple Onion Tuna Bake (or Tuna Salad again if no access to fire)
Snacks - one carrot, one Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt KIND bar, a few pieces grass-fed beef jerky
Dinner - Sweet Potato, Apple, & Onion Chorizo Bake

Day 6:

Breakfast - 2 oz. grass-fed summer sausage & 2 oz. raw goat cheese topped with mustard; 1 paleo muffin
Lunch - 1 tin oysters packed in olive oil topped with a couple TB diced onion and 1 TB mustard, 2-3 TB Paleo Cookie Butter
Snacks - one carrot, one Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt KIND bar, a few pieces grass-fed beef jerky
Dinner - Sweet Potato, Apple, & Onion Chorizo Bake

Day 7:

Breakfast - 2 oz. grass-fed summer sausage & 2 oz. raw goat cheese topped with mustard; 1 paleo muffin
Lunch - 1 tin sardines packed in olive oil topped with a couple TB diced onion and 1 TB mustard, 2-3 TB Paleo Cookie Butter
Snacks - one carrot, one Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt KIND bar, a few pieces grass-fed beef jerky
Dinner - One pouch Tasty Bites Palak Paneer or Taste of India Palak Paneer; a couple slices of salami

Day 8:

Breakfast - 2 oz. grass-fed summer sausage & 2 oz. raw goat cheese topped with mustard; 1 paleo muffin
Lunch - 1 tin oysters packed in olive oil topped with a couple TB diced onion and 1 TB mustard, 2-3 TB Paleo Cookie Butter
Snacks - one carrot, one Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt KIND bar, a few pieces grass-fed beef jerky
Dinner - Hopefully off trail! :)

Food totals:

6 hard boiled eggs
8 oz. grass-fed summer sausage
8 oz. raw goat cheese
7 paleo muffins

6 oz. olive oil
8 oz. mustard
8 oz. coconut oil
1-2 TB curry paste
1 5-oz. can coconut milk
sea salt

2 cups Paleo Cookie Butter in a locking tupperware
2 tins oysters packed in olive oil
3 tins sardines packed in olive oil
2 packets or cans of tuna

3 large onions
3 red peppers
1 green pepper
1 bag baby spinach
1 sweet potato
1 apple
8 large mushrooms
2 small spears broccoli
8 carrots

8 Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt KIND bars
one pint-sized Ziploc bag of grass-fed beef jerky

3 slices thick-cut pastured bacon
1 log salami
1 log chorizo
1 packet smoked salmon

1 packet Tasty Bites or Taste of India Palak Paneer

Emergency food (this is extra food I bring for the days I'm more hungry than I thought I would be. They aren't planned out for a certain time or day, so I just eat them when I feel like I haven't gotten enough at a meal):
2 extra KIND bars
2 extra paleo muffins
2 extra carrots

Paleo Cookie Butter

Nut butters are an obvious choice for sustained energy because they're densely packed with fat and protein. However, nuts aren't the best food to consume in large quantities because of their phytic acid (see this article for an explanation), and unfortunately it's easy to overdo it when consuming nut butters.

A solution I've found was inspired by Nora Gedgaudas's Nut Ball Snackers. The idea is basically to blend nut butters with pastured cow butter and some other things like shredded, unsweetened coconut and chia seeds to dilute the nuts and add a healthy dose of fat from another source. I store mine in a small snap-lock plastic tupperware and eat spoonfuls of it at a time or dip carrots or apple slices in it. It fills me up and keeps me going for a LOONG time.

I think this recipe (at least when made with sunflower seed butter) tastes a bit like cookie dough, but even more buttery. This recipe has undergone a couple name changes, each of them not that great (originally "Nut Butter Butter" - yes, that's two "butters" - and the equally exciting "Coconut Nut Butter") I have now renamed it to a more fitting description of the delicious sweet butteriness it truly is!

2 cups nut or seed butter (my favorite to use is sunflower seed butter)
1 lb. pastured butter
1 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut
1/2 cup chia seeds or sesame seeds
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. sea salt

Throw it all in a food processor or blender and blend away!

*A note on packing - just like real butter, this cookie butter has no qualms about melting all over your backpack in the heat. So I recommend either packing it in a snap-lock tupperware, or using a Ziplock bag around the tupperware it's in. Or if you just put it in a Ziplock to start, double-bag it. 

Sweet Potato, Apple, & Onion Chorizo Bake

I love the combination of sweet, savory, and smoky in this meal. It's very filling and satisfying. I even cook it at home sometimes it's that good. The key to cooking it quickly on trail is to dice the sweet potato really small (1/4-inch pieces) so they cook more quickly. The onion and apple can be chopped normally, but sweet potatoes take forever, so put in the extra effort to get them really small and your meal will be ready quicker.

2 TB coconut oil
1/2 large apple (I prefer Fuji), chopped
1/2 large onion, chopped
1/2 large sweet potato, diced small
1/4 log chorizo, chopped
sea salt

Heat the coconut oil in a pot until it's liquid. Add the apple, onion, sweet potato, and chorizo. I like to put the apple and onion on the bottom since they have more moisture and won't burn as easily as the sweet potato. Stir to coat with the oil. Add about a half cup of water, then cook with a lid on, stirring often so it doesn't burn. You may have to add a couple more tablespoons of water if it looks like it is getting dry. This meal burns quickly so I usually err on the side of more water. Even if there's leftover water at the end, it's still good. If you can, cook on low heat, or in a bed of coals. It takes about 15-20 minutes for the sweet potatoes to get soft. Once everything is cooked through and a little caramelized, remove from the heat, and season liberally with sea salt.

Salami Veggie Saute

I never get tired of this meal. It's so nice to have a fresh veggie saute with a healthy amount of salami at the end of the day. I go to bed feeling really good and it's very simple and quick to prepare.

2 TB coconut oil
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 small onion, chopped
4-6 mushrooms, chopped
1 small spear broccoli, chopped
large handful baby spinach leaves
1/4 log salami, chopped
sea salt

Heat the coconut oil in a pot. Add all the chopped veggies (excluding the spinach), as well as the salami and saute until the veggies are soft. Stir frequently so it doesn't burn. If you're cooking over a high, unadjustable heat like a Whisperlite, or a really hot fire, add a couple tablespoons of water half way through to make sure it doesn't burn. In the last few minutes of sautéing, take the pot off the heat, add the spinach leaves, and return to the heat for another minute or so. Remove from heat and stir in the spinach leaves, which will have steamed by this point. Season liberally with sea salt.

The Meat & Muffin Combo

My favorite breakfast on the trail lately has been what I'll call the "Meat-and-Muffin Combo." Essentially, it is just that: meat and some muffin. I've been having hot dogs for breakfast instead of dinner the last couple weeks, and they're really good roasted over the fire in the morning. I'll eat 2 Applegate Farms Grass-Fed Hot Dogs, and half of a Wild Blueberry Flax4Life muffin. I know those aren't really paleo, but I've been short on time lately and haven't been able to experiment with making my own paleo muffins. They're pretty high carb, which is why I only eat half at a time. With two hot dogs, I still feel balanced after breakfast and I have plenty of energy through lunch time. 

Enjoying a glorious morning with a Morning Glory muffin, my go-to breakfast. 

In Northeastern Utah, we are quickly leaving the deep-freeze months where I didn't worry about any of my food spoiling (the days never reached above freezing for weeks at a time) and entering what my co-guides have called "food poisoning season." So I'm starting to rethink the hot dogs part of the combo and looking into other forms of meat. Possibilities could be: 

• grass-fed beef jerky
• summer sausage
• smoked salmon (expensive to eat for 8 mornings every other week)
• pepperoni sticks
• pemmican
• salami (already eat this for lunch and dinner a lot...)
• sardines (also eat this for lunch every day...)

As for the muffins, if you're in a time pinch, I would recommend the Flax4Life muffins. The Wild Blueberry ones are the lowest carb at 20g per half muffin. They're not perfect (the third ingredient is evaporated cane juice, and they use oats, safflower oil, soy lecithin, and "natural" blueberry flavoring, but they require no prep and are at least gluten-free). This week I had enough time to make my own, so I made these Coconut Flour Pumpkin Muffins. They turned out really good and have considerably less carbs per muffin (9g per one muffin, versus 20 g per half muffin). I'm going to take them on trail and see how they hold up*. 

Here are some others I tried, with calorie & carb info:

• Morning Glory Muffins - My go-to muffin. It's an involved recipe, but they're a pretty good meal on their own and worth the work. (For 12 muffins per batch: 225 calories, 12.5 carbs)
• Carrot Raisin Everything Muffins - Very dense and SUPER tasty! (For 18 muffins per batch: 198 calories, 17.5 carbs)
• Paleo "Cornbread" Muffins - Also dense, and they do taste slightly reminiscent of cornbread. They turn out pretty small though. (For 6 muffins per batch: 148 calories, 9.3 carbs)
• Lemon Chia Seed Muffins - HOLY COW! These are SO good. They're a similar density to the "cornbread" muffins, and taste like sunshine. Seriously. Try them. 

Here's a list of others I would like to try!

• Bacon Muffins
• Sweet Potato Muffins
• Banana Chia Muffins
• Apple Cider Muffins
• Sugar Detox Carrot Cupcakes
• Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
• Caramelized Banana Muffins
• Coconut Flour Flax Muffins
• Coconut Cocoa Banana Muffins

*Update: I took the Coconut Pumpkin muffins out on one of my 8-day shifts, and kept them in a locking plastic tupperware (not super space-economical, but I was worried about them getting squished in a Ziploc...and I really don't care very much about how much room my food bag takes up because it's worth being able to eat paleo on trail and not have gut-bending G-n-O (granola and oats) for breakfast every morning). The verdict: They started to condensate inside the tupperware on the second day (they're pretty moist muffins) and I was worried about them molding by the 8th morning, but they didn't. As a temperature gauge, we were in the 60's during the day and high 30's at night. I'll probably have to figure something else out once we get up to the 90's but at these temps, the muffins were fine.

Onion Apple Tuna Bake

This is a delicious, simple, 4-ingredient lunch, although it takes a little time to cook so it might be best for rest days or short, leisurely days. And again, it requires fresh ingredients which makes the pack a little heavier. But the sweet and savory taste of this dish makes it worth it for me to tote around heavy food (it only makes you stronger anyways, right?). I think this dish is best slow-cooked in a bed of coals but can easily be done on a stove as well. I'll make this on trail when we have time for in-camp lunches, nestling my pot in our ever-present giant coal-and-ash pit and waiting about 20 minutes until the apples and onions have softened and all the flavors meld. You can use salmon instead of tuna for an equally tasty meal.

Coconut oil
Half an onion, chopped
Half an apple, chopped
One packet or can of tuna (or salmon)
Sea salt

Put lots of coconut oil in a pot (a couple tablespoons - this is where you're getting most of the calories in this meal since none of the other ingredients are particularly calorie-dense) and heat it until it melts.
Add the onion and apple and sauté, stirring for about 5 minutes.
Add the tuna (or salmon), and mix well.
Cover and nestle in a coal pit. Leave for about 15-20 minutes, stirring every once in a while if you can (not necessary). If you're using a stove, turn the heat down (as much as you can) and continue stirring until it is cooked to your liking.
Season with sea salt.

Hot Dogs

Grass-fed hot dogs roasted on a fire in the morning are one of my preferred breakfasts. I'll have two dogs, some flax and almond crackers, and maybe some sliced cucumber (if it's not sub-freezing in the field) and that will hold me for quite a while. If you don't have a fire, you can put a little water in a pot and boil them. I get Applegate Farms hot dogs which are already cooked, so you don't need to worry about cooking them all the way through, which is nice. Also they have never gotten too frozen that I can't stick a sturdy whittled roasting stick through them, so that's a plus when camping in sub-freezing temperatures.