I’ve spent the better part of of two years coming up with the perfect backcountry breakfast … I hate oatmeal … like, with a fiery burning passion. I’m pretty sure my Scottish grandmother considered disowning me over this.

 

I’ve watched with envy as fellow hikers have stumbled through their morning routine doing nothing more than boiling water, adding it to both coffee and a packet of oatmeal. And voila – breakfast.

 

No thinking, just caffeine and food. It was a dream.

 

I struggled because I find loading up on pasta makes be feel “boggy” on the trail. I tried a couple of potato based breakfasts, but was never quite satisfied with how they made me feel. I was not convinced they had the nutritional content I needed to get started on a big hiking day.

Last summer … I finally found a winner and the best part is, it’s gluten-free.

 

I hike with a food thermos for rehydrating my meals and I saw a post over on Backpacking Chef about rehydrating fruit in the thermos overnight, for breakfast. He placed cold water and dried fruit in his thermos before hanging his food bag. In the morning, open the thermos, pour the water into a cup and enjoy.

 

The fruit rehydrates really well overnight and is a nice, bright way to start the day.

 

 

This sounded promising. The idea of having a fresh fruit in the morning, with fruit juice to boot … I could get behind that.

 

But just fruit wouldn’t be enough. I needed to find something to go with it.

 

 

 

Unrelated to breakfast (I thought) I also learned that dehydrating hummus and then rehydrating on the trail was super easy and efficient. See process for dehydrating hummus below.

 

Tada! We had a winner.

 

The combination of fresh fruit in the morning with the protein of hummus on crackers or flat bread is a really satisfying mix. I can eat relatively quickly while drinking my coffee.

 

Or, go without coffee (gasp) and there’s no need to boil water at all.

 

 

How To

Dehydrating hummus is easy peasy, with just a couple of changes to a traditional hummus recipe.

In a food processor I blend together chic peas, roasted garlic, lemon … and water. Leave out the olive oil. I have heard from others that they have dehydrated store-bought hummus and it’s been fine.

I make up a bigger batch, in this case I used two cans of chic peas which made three trays. I’m thinking about three to four portions per tray.

 

Into the dehydrator it goes. I put it on at 115° for 24 hours. That’s overkill, but I want it to be completely dry. It will be brittle and chunky.

I bust it into a powder in a Magic Bullet (a blender or food processor would work just fine).

 

 

On the trail I add oil and water, mush it together in the bag, cut off a corner and squeeze it onto a cracker.