A recap from OAK Nights, March 2020

Each month, The Outdoor Adventure Kind hosts a live event for local members of the community focused on outdoor education and inspiration. March’s OAK Nights was all about Trailside Meals with a focus on freezer bag style cooking basics & benefits. It was great to have my friend Jessica from Discovering Wilderness join me and share her knowledge.

Freezer Bag Cooking Basics & Benefits

With Jessica’s considerable assistance, we went over five key points about trailside meals with a focus on freezer bag cooking:
1. Styles – Other styles include no-cook, ready-to-eat meals, cold soaks, and full-blown recipes cooked in the outdoors.
2. Ease – Freezer bag cooking adds minimal weight to your pack and is super easy to do.
3. Simple – With preparation mostly done in advance, most meals just require adding near-boiling water.
4. Food – Options range from pre-packaged dishes to homemade recipes prepared in advance.
5. Impact – Freezer bag cooking may reduce the amount of waste you carry into and back out of the back country.

We dove a lot deeper into each of these benefits & basics surrounding freezer bag cooking during OAK Nights. Jessica also has an awesome blog you can check out; she gets out the scale and compares weight for fresh versus dehydrated food, and other great examples of why freezer bag cooking is a great style to consider.

After countless trail miles and trying several ways to prepare my own trailside meals, I have to say that freezer bag cooking is one of my favorites. I definitely recommend it if you want to keep your pack weight down, be able to enjoy a hot meal, and don’t enjoy a lot of fuss after a day on the trail. Although I’ll often take along a pre-packaged meal for convenience, I’ve also taken my own ingredients to combine right before I add the water. Adding in some fresher ingredients with a rehydrated meal can make it extra delicious.

Trailside Meals Presentation with Discovering Wilderness

The March OAK Nights was recorded live for members of our community who were not able to join us in person. Catch the full presentation here! I’ll be sharing a PDF with some of this information with the March newsletter, so be sure to sign up and get your copies. (Watching after March? Drop me a note here.) Also, be sure to let me know what else you’d like to see discussed at future OAK Nights!