Recipe: Mac ‘n Cheese “Thru-Hiker Style”
Macaroni and Cheese is a staple dinner for long distance backpackers. It’s cheap, lightweight, easy to prepare and available virtually everywhere. It’s also pretty bland tasting. Try this recipe next time to add some flavor (and a ton of extra calories) to your “Trail Mac”:
I have to give credit to my friends Sam and Chris for helping create this variation. On the last day of our Colorado Trail thru-hike we were running a bit ahead of schedule and had a bunch of extra food. We decided to throw it all in the pot together, and this is what we ended up with.
Digestion Tip: Because it is so high in fat this meal is best eaten at the end of the day after you are done hiking (as opposed to during the day when you’ll want to consume mostly carbohydrates for energy). It gives new meaning to the phrase: “Sticks to your ribs!”
Ingredients:
1 box Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (Thick ‘n Creamy)
1/2 packet Knorr Alfredo Sauce Mix (0.8 ounces)
1 mozzarella string cheese stick (cubed)
3 oz summer sausage (cubed)
1 tbsp olive oil
Italian seasoning
Lightweight Packing Tip: Remove mac n cheese from box and pack in a quart sized ziplock baggy. Small storage bottles from REI are excellent for packing condiments and spices.
Cooking Instructions:
1. Fry summer sausage in 1 tsp of olive oil in bottom of cookpot. Remove and set aside.
2. Bring 2 1/4 cups water to a rolling boil.
3. Add macaroni noodles (without cheese packet) to boiling water. Boil for 2 minutes.
4. Remove from flame, cover with lid and transfer to a pot cozy. Let sit for 15 minutes.
5. Go set up your tent and do other camp chores. A watched pot cozy never cooks 
6. When noodles have absorbed most of the water, stir in remaining olive oil, alfredo sauce, powdered cheese packet and cheese cubes. (If there is not enough water left to reconstitute the sauce mix and cheese powder you can add a bit more)
7. Cover again for 1-2 minutes to allow cheese to melt.
8. Add summer sausage and season to taste. Enjoy!
Weight and Nutrition Information:
Serves: 1 hungry thru-hiker (or 2 day-hikers)
Dry Weight: 12.5 ounces
Calories: 1,325
Carbohydrates: 164 grams
Protein: 59 grams
Fat: 52 grams
Cost: $4.50
Calorie to Weight Ratio: 106 calories per ounce
Calorie to Cost Ratio: 295 calories per $1.00
What are some of your favorite quick ‘n easy trail recipes? Post ‘em in the comments below…
Why on earth would you take perfectly good macaroni and cheese and put dead animal parts in it?
@linda: Because it’s so much easier than stuffing the macaroni and cheese into the dead animals
@Erik – Great reply.
Great site & videos. Keep up the good work.
LOL That gave me a good laugh
LOL
I have been putting those single serving slices of SPAM in my mac & cheese and love it. I have also tried to spice it up with hot sauce but there is always a problem when mixing hot peppers with milky things in that it carries the heat through to the other end. Know what I mean? Nudge, nudge, wink,wink.
Try some dry salsa mix from the grocery store with some whole grain instant rice. It’s really filling and tastes wonderful. Happy Trails! =-)
Classic response to Linda . . . beautiful!:-D I am excited to play with a vegan version of your recipe . . . I’ve been dabbling, so far, with some delicious success. But yours sounds soooo yum, that now I’m really going for it! Thanks for the inspiration, Erik!
You forgot to list the sodium! I would have to walk with my hands above my head to keep them from exploding.
@JourneyAbout: I don’t know exactly how much sodium there is, but I’m sure it’s a lot!
Here are some other things you can add to Mac n’ Cheese:
- Foil pack tuna or chicken
- Spam
- Pepperoni or Salami
- Beef jerkey
- Dehydrated ground beef
- Dehydrated veggies
- Powdered milk
- Real cheese
- Hot sauce (beware Donald’s warning though
2 stupid questions:
1) how long can you actually keep string cheese out of the fridge without contracting food poisoning?
2) olive oil usually comes in glass bottles, which has obvious drawbacks, so whats the solution? transfer to plastic? I’m not a chemist but will the oil break down some polymers?
@nichole: String cheese will last 5-7 days. I rarely go longer than that without resupplying, so I’m not sure when it starts to go bad. The fact that they are individually wrapped seems to help them last quite a long time. I carry olive oil in a small 4 ounce bottle such as this one from REI. It weighs just 1 ounce and is made from polyethylene. I don’t know if that material has any sort of reaction with the oil, but they seem to work fine.
I used this on my trip to Chattooga last week and it was amazing. Instead of summer sausage, I used this herb crusted salami I had collecting dust in my cupboard so I didn’t need to add the spices. It was our third night out and it definitely was a welcome treat.
Try this website for individual packets of olive oil and other food stuffs. It saves the hassle of having to repack into smaller containers that you will have to carry around empty saving you some space.
http://www.minimus.biz/default.aspx
That mac n cheese looks good, and inexpensive. My question is, how do you clean your pot afterwards? Mac n cheese leaves a thick sticky mess in the pot. What’s the proper leave-no-trace way to do it?
@Cory: I clean my pot with water and a small piece of brillo pad. If you do it immediately after dinner before it dries it is easy to clean.
Erik,
Thanks so much for your efforts. We tried the ThruMac tonight. My son and I agree that 1 complete menu portion for 1 person is TOO MUCH for a home test, but we finished! I substituted chicken and my son used Spam. I think this will make it into most of our overnight hikes.
We’ll be doing this for the Scout troop in a few meetings and see if we can instill some menu creativity into our campouts and hikes.
Thanks again Erik! Read you later!
Doug
Hi Erik, RE “piece of brillo pad” – do you use aluminium pots? I asked Primus about doing that to their hardened alu pots and pans and it was advised against
- they are going to come out with some sort of glazed surface for next season, have not seen any adverts yet
Do keep these recipes coming, I’ve just modified the mac with beef jerky and mash with air-dried reindeer chopped in (fine). Biltong being so light, the mac in that disguise gave a respectable calories to grams ratio of 314 “%”.
For us readers in Europe: what is summer sausage exactly?
@Pete: I have always used titanium cookpots for their light weight and durability. I’m not sure if they are pure titanium or a mix or titanium or aluminum, but they are very hard and the dish scrubbers that I use do not mar the surface at all.