No-Cook Breakfast Ideas: Trail Smoothie
A smoothie is an excellent option for a quick morning meal or a snack on the trail. You can make it in minutes before leaving the campsite and sip it on the go.
What is a smoothie?
A smoothie is a thick shake type drink made from blended fruit or vegetables and other nutrient-dense ingredients such as juices, dairy products or nut butter.
Why is smoothie good for the trail?
- It’s quick and easy to make. Making a smoothie from powdered/dehydrated ingredients doesn’t take as long as preparing a full breakfast meal, giving you more time to enjoy your adventure.
- Improves digestion.
Blending fruits and vegetables together breaks down the cells of plants and unlocks the nutrients to maximize their delivery to your body. - Fuels you up for a great day on the trail.
Since a smoothie is consumed in the most optimum way for digestion and the absorption of nutrients, you’ll have more energy to get things done and enjoy your day. - Helps build muscles and improves athletic performance.
Smoothies provide your body with the nutrients it needs to excel during a long day hike and helps you to recover after physical activity. - Helps meet your body’s daily nutritional needs.
Consuming the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables while you are on a backpacking trip can be a challenge. Having a smoothie is a convenient and great-tasting way to get your daily allowance of fruits and vegetables.
Smoothie Recipes:
Peach Cobbler Smoothie
Raspberry Peach Breakfast Smoothie
Blueberry Chocolate Smoothie
Hi – any chance you can re-post the recipes? I didn’t write them down before they left. Understand the prep, just need the ingredients and amounts.
Thank you.
In order to see smoothie recipes, click on the links in the post or go to all recipes >> breakfasts
Good morning. It’s been a hot minute since you last commented so I hope you are still watching this. I have been looking for how to do this for a while when I stumbled on your article. My goal is to prepare about a year’s worth of smoothies. I would like to use this to get some of my veggies in as well so I was wondering f if it would still work to add spinach and kale and celery and items like that? Also are there reusable single serving containers you would suggest for this? And how do you tell when its gone bad.
Is it safe to dehydrate fatty foods like coconut milk and peanut/almond butter? My understanding was no..
Fabulous recipes!! They rehydrate well, taste great, and pack weight is ideal. Wonderful for getting out on the trail early in the morning. Not finding berry/fruit powders but using freeze-dried fruits and pulverizing them in a coffee grinder (better than a blender). Thanks for the great ideas.
How long does the smoothie last once you make it? Was wondering if I could ship it to a resupply point for my thru-hike!
Hi Karen! How long smoothie will last depends on many factors. if it was properly dried, packed and stored, it can last years. There are several tips to ensure safe storage and to maximize the shelf life of your dried foods:
– make sure your smoothie is completely dried;
– pack it in an airtight containers ( better vaccum-sealed)
– protect your dehydrated foods from heat, light, moisture and oxygen.
Hi there, I’ve made your mango, berry and choc smoothies and was wondering if you had any suggestions to making them sligthly sweeter? I know that doesn’t make themas healthy or nutrious, I just have a sweet tooth and get sick of oats constantly for breakfast and was hoping you could help.
To make it sweeter, you can add to the dry mixture stevia powder or you can also add a bit honey to the the rehydrated smoothie.
Oooh, I want to try these. On my last PCT thru-hike attempt, I ended up drinking a carnation shake every morning with Nido and coffee powder. I’d love to shake it up with these 😀
Thank you! I found that smoothies I’ve made from ready fruit powders rehydrate better and have silky texture. Homemade dehydrated are a bit gritty, but edible anyway 🙂
Hey Tanya,
Any chance getting these into the app? I don’t always have internet on the trail.
Hi Jerry! You can add an info about all your favorite no-cook foods into Trail Chef app >> http://www.trail-chef.com
The mango smoothie recipe is listed as weighing approx 40g and containing Carbs: 42.4g, Fat: 46.9g, Protein: 5.8g, There’s definitely a math error in there. Do you know the actual weight?
Hi,Rick! There no math errors. The nutritional info was calculated on fresh, non-dehydrated smoothie and it’s correct because it stays same as after dehydration. Weight shown in the recipe is for the dried, packed and ready-for-the trail meal.
That’s still not possible. Even with all the water removed, something that weighs 40g can not contain over 90g of carbs, fat, and protein!
I’ll be making some of these today / tonight and see if I can come up with my own nutritional info.
Hi, Rick! As I mentioned before, the nutritional info was calculated on fresh or rehydrated smoothie which weights around 300g/10.50oz. You’ll not consume it dry, right? You can use Calorie Count Program to analyze recipe and check nutritional value: https://www.caloriecount.com/cc/account/index.php
It doesn’t matter if it’s dry or fresh. The only thing lost in the dehydration process should be water. Leaving all the nutrients behind. Those nutrients dry should weigh the same as listed in there nutritional info because that’s how science works. Ricks right, your nutritional info is off
Hi Joel! Absolutely agree that nutrition, weight stays more or less same after dehydration. But we spoke about product weight after dehydration. For hikers is quite important to know how many grams/ounces food will weight in their backpacks. After adding water to smoothie powder, youļl get a whole cup of food with nutrient weight exactly as shown in the recipe. Hope it’s clear now.
Indeed that doesn’t make any sense!
Is there a reason why you dehydrate it on such a low temperature? What happened if I dry it one level higher?
Just getting started with my dehydrator…
Hi Stefanie! The reason I’ve used such a low temperature is my attempt to preserve vital nutrients as enzymes and vitamins. You can dry smoothie at 135F/57C.
Neat idea. I did not, however, have any luck with these rehydrating properly. They created more of a gritty juice, no matter how well I powdered the smoothie “bark”.