Backpacking meal planner
Enter the trip, say what matters most, and the planner builds a day-by-day menu from 141 recipes filtered by the cooking gear you are actually carrying. It runs in your browser, there is no account, and nothing is stored.
How the planner works
Three steps, and you can go back to any of them at any point. Each one narrows what the next can do, which is why they come in this order.
- Trip details. People, days, calories per person per day, meals per day, and your cooking gear. The six gear toggles resolve to a cooking profile, and the step shows how many of the 141 recipes still match as you change them.
- Preferences. What to optimize for, a maximum food weight, how much of each day comes from snacks, how many dinners should be dehydrated pouches, and whether the menu is vegetarian or leans high protein.
- The plan. A day-by-day menu with trip totals. Every meal opens to show its macro split and ingredients, and every line can be edited, nudged lighter or heavier, or replaced with a compatible recipe.
What the planner optimizes for
The four priorities on the preferences step change how recipes are scored against each other. None of them change the calorie target, which is always met as closely as whole recipes allow.
Weight, cost and protein
Balanced favours variety and real portions. Lightest favours calorie density, and raises the weight target it suggests for you from 110 calories per ounce to 125. Cheapest favours lower-cost ingredients, which in practice means fewer commercial pouches. High protein favours protein inside real meals rather than bolting a shake onto the end of the day, with a floor of 45 grams per person per day.
What it will not do
It will not multiply one recipe until the number works. Recipes scale between three quarters and one and a half times their serving, and only a handful of components that a person would genuinely make bigger are allowed to grow. When a day still comes up short it adds further distinct snack breaks, stops as soon as another round would overshoot, and never puts more than two bars or four of anything else on one person in one day.
Before and after the plan
- Read the backpacking meals guideCalories, food weight and lightweight menu ideas.
- Work out your daily calorie target firstHands its estimate straight to the planner.
- See every food the planner can useAll 195 foods, sortable by calories per ounce.
- Turn the finished plan into a shopping listA checkable grocery list and a day-by-day eating list.
Meal planner questions
Is the backpacking meal planner free?
Yes, and there is no account. Everything runs in your browser. The only thing that leaves your machine is a share link, if you choose to make one, and that link carries trip settings rather than anything about you.
Can I change the meals it picks?
Every meal on the finished plan opens up. You can edit ingredient quantities and watch the calories, weight and cost on that line move as you do, nudge the whole recipe lighter or heavier, or hit Replace to swap it for up to five compatible alternatives, ranked by how close they are to the meal you are replacing.
Does it handle vegetarian meal plans?
Yes. The vegetarian toggle restricts the pool to the 89 recipes with no meat in them, and it filters at the ingredient level too, so a recipe cannot reintroduce a meat component through one of its parts. There is no vegan toggle yet.
Why does my plan say it could not hit the share I asked for?
Because whole recipes do not divide evenly into a percentage, and sometimes the catalog cannot get there at all. Dehydrated pouches occupy the dinner slot, so three meals a day caps their share near a third however high you set it. A cooking setup with no compatible pouch delivers none. A very high snack share runs out of distinct snack recipes, because one trail break is not four servings of the same bar. When the result lands more than ten points from what you asked, the plan says so and names the cause. Smaller drift is normal and stays quiet.