I wanted to keep things easy and simple on my last backpacking trip, so I decided to bite the bullet and just buy a bunch of prepackaged keto backpacking meals from Next Mile Meals… only to find out, almost all of their meals were sold out. Womp, womp!
Apparently, that is common with Next Mile Meals and you have to be inside their circle and willing to just stock up on their meals as they become available. I was not in the know on this, so decided to attempt my own copycat version of their Coconut Chicken Curry in my dehydrator. This ultralight backpacking meal turned out pretty wonderfully if I do say so myself!
Keto Coconut Chicken Curry Ingredients
I tried to keep this chicken curry recipe as simple and as clean as possible. One of the huge advantages of creating and dehydrating your own backpacking meals is that you can adjust the recipe or ingredients however you want. So, I’ll share what I did here, which I thought turned out very well, but feel free to make any variations and let us know how it turns out!
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For reference, this made 4 servings or 4 backpacking meals for me.
Curry sauce & seasoning
- 1/2 can unsweetened coconut milk
- 2 tsp tomato paste
- 1 TBSP curry powder
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- salt to taste
Chicken curry
- 2 cans of chicken, dehydrated
- 1 yellow bell pepper
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 bag frozen cauliflower rice
- dried onions, to taste
Equipment and Supplies
Dehydrating:
- Presto Dehydro Food Dehydrator
- Fruit leather trays or parchment paper
Rehydrating:
Making the Coconut Curry
I already had several servings of plain, dehydrated chicken stashed away in the freezer from a previous dehydrating extravaganza, so I cooked up the vegetables listed above with the curry sauce and seasonings to dehydrate and then add to the chicken.
- Dice the bell peppers into small, uniform pieces.
- Saute the peppers and cauliflower rice in a non-stick pan, without any butter or oil.
- As they start to soften, add the coconut milk and tomato paste and stir well.
- Add the curry and other spices and stir well.
- Keep sauteing the curry on medium/medium-high heat until the vegetables are thoroughly cooked/soft and most of the liquid is evaporated. It shouldn’t be runny, as this will only prolong the dehydration process.
- Once the vegetables are cooked, stir in dried onions to taste (about 1 TBSP) and remove from heat to let it cool just a little bit before spreading it on the dehydrator trays.
Dehydrating the Coconut Curry
Pro tip: Since I know this is going to make 4 servings, I spread out and separate the curry into fourths in the frying pan, by eye, and then spread each pile onto its own dehydrator tray. This way, it’s super easy to just scrape each tray into its own meal baggie after it’s done dehydrating. I don’t know how other people do it, but it’s really hard for me to tell how much ‘a serving’ is of anything after it’s all shriveled and dried.
- Spread the coconut curry out as evenly and as much as possible on fruit leather trays or parchment paper on dehydrator trays.
- Dehydrate at 140 degrees for about 8 hours or until completely dried.
- Let the curry cool completely on the trays.
- After it’s cooled to room temperature, bag up the curry in 4 quart size ziploc bags, adding a serving of dried chicken to each bag as well.
Then your Coconut Chicken Curry backpacking meals are ready to either pack up or can be stored in the freezer for a couple of months. If you’re hoping to store your meals for much longer than a season, you might want to look into investing in a vacuum sealer and/or using moisture-absorbing packets.
Rehydrating the Coconut Chicken Curry
After having some very hit-or-miss backpacking meals over the years, I was impressed with how this rehydrated on the trail. I’m still too nervous to cook my meals in the bag, pouring boiling water into plastic just freaks me out at this point but you do you if that works. Here’s my typical cooking process on the trail:
- Empty out my homemade meal into my cook pot.
- Add 1-2 TBSP avocado or olive oil to it (I bring oil in a small travel bottle.)
- Cover with about a cup of treated water.
- Bring to a boil.
- Turn off my stove and let my pot sit in my pot cozy for about 10 minutes.
- Stir and enjoy!
If you try this ultralight Coconut Chicken Curry recipe, let us know how it went in the comments below. I also love to hear other people’s variations or things they did differently, so we can all add a little bit more variety into our backpacking meals.
For more keto backpacking meal recipes and ideas, check out:
- Keto Chili For Backpackers
- Keto Granola Bars For Hiking and Camping
- 3 Yummy Keto Beef Jerky Recipes
About the author, Mallory:
After studying Recreation, Park & Tourism Management, Mallory spent several years teaching environmental education, guiding hikes, and leading backcountry trips. Her life-changing trek from Georgia to New York on the Appalachian Trail is what sparked the creation of Your Adventure Coach, to share backpacking tips and resources with as many new hikers as possible.
