This backpacking friendly blueberry coconut oatmeal is a great way to bring some nutritional diversity to your morning oats.

While it’s commonly asserted that oatmeal “sticks to your ribs”, we find it does quite the opposite when we’re out backpacking.

Instant oatmeal packets are definitely one of the easiest hot backpacking breakfasts you can make out on the trail (no question about that!) but all the major store-bought brands are made up of relatively simple carbs: pulverized processed oats and a lot of sugar.

Even if we stuff ourselves with these instant oatmeal packets at breakfast, we find that we burn through them entirely by mid-morning. So at 7am when we hit the trail, we’re totally full but by 9:30 we’re starving again.

So what to be done about this? The answer is to diversify the nutritional profile of your oatmeal.

This DIY backpacking recipe starts with a base of oatmeal and then adds layers of nutrition (and flavor!) on top of it. It includes coconut milk and flakes for long-lasting calories from fat, almonds and hemp seeds to add protein and dehydrated blueberries for a little extra fiber.

True, you will lose out on the “instant” cook time of instant oatmeal, but the more diverse nutritional profile means you should feel full all the way until lunch. Or at least eleven.

So if you’ve been dissatisfied with your backpacking breakfast of choice, consider adding this DIY option to your repertoire!

Ingredients

½ cup quick-cooking rolled oats
¼ cup coconut milk powder
¼ cup freeze dried blueberries
¼ cup chopped almonds
¼ cup coconut flakes, unsweetened
2 tablespoons hulled hemp seeds
2 tablespoons sugar
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of salt

Instructions

At home, pack all ingredients into a bag.
In camp, bring 1/2 cups water and the contents of the bag to a simmer. Cook, stirring often, until the oats are soft, about 10 minutes.