Dehydrating food has been a practical preservation strategy since ancient times. Today, dehydrated foods pop up everywhere from your favorite snack aisle to your local sporting goods store.

My backpacking trips tend to involve two markedly different approaches to eating. If I’m backpacking alone, I favor dehydrated camping meals (usually Firepot Mac n’ Greens) that I can whip up quickly ...

It’s the nature of backpacking food, really—a freeze-dried or dehydrated meal that you rehydrate with water is bound to have a few lingering crunchy bits. It’s when the whole meal is off (bland, ...

Adam Roy is the executive editor of Backpacker. He lives in Colorado’s Front Range, where he spends his free time hiking, climbing, and running his home mountains. I’m a former professional chef and ...

Stowaway Gourmet is pulling out all the stops in 2026, with sausage-packed Jambalaya and a hot take on pasta carbonara.

Master Food Preservers of San Mateo and San Francisco Counties sponsor a series of free classes every year, online and in person. Taught by students who went through their multi-week training program, ...

Five meals are for sale online and in 35 brick and mortar stores The Durango-based company that makes dehydrated backpacking meals recently landed a contract with REI. Five of its meals – its green ...

Dehydrating food is considered one of our oldest—if not oldest—method for preserving food. For as long as our species has been gathering, foraging, and throwing spears at wild beasts, we have been ...

In early January, Oregon Freeze Dry, which owns backpacking food maker Mountain House, noticed online sales starting to pick up. Employees weren’t that surprised; they’d seen sales increase during the ...