Elevate Your Trail Meals: Creative Cold Soak Ramen Recipes for the Backcountry

Take your backcountry ramen meals to the next level with these easy, delicious cold soak recipes featuring flavors like pad thai, carbonara, chow mein and more.

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Josh Koop

I live with my wife and daughter in Katy, Texas and my local trail is the Lone Star Hiking Trail which is an amazing way to experience the Sam Houston National Park!

ramen in a cup being eaten with chopsticks
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Many people are growing to love and enjoy cold soaking foods on the trail. Ramen is maybe the most common option many choose to bring but using their flavor salt bomb can get old over time.

When looking to pre-pack your meals when leaving or when you hit the grocery or Dollar General in the town you can look to upgrade your ramen in ways that can bring near-infinite adaptability.

A favorite option of mine is to add a flavored chicken packet, like BBQ, into the ramen, but you can get as creative as you like.

Why Is Ramen Such a Quintessential Food Choice?

Ramen is beloved as it is both simple and easy to prepare as well as has sodium which helps replenish everything you sweat out all day long.

The noodles are also satisfying as they soak up all the water and broth for easy clean-up afterward with little mess.

Then ramen is also amazingly adaptable to many recipes and this allows you to be flexible while on the trail.

You can also find cold soaking ramen in a multitude of flavors making it an excellent way to change it up on the trail without having to rebuild your whole food list.

Cold Soak Ramen Recipes

I am always trying to find recipes and adapt over items I love in real life, obviously, the closer to noodles they are the simpler it is to come up with stuff.

Finding the perfect taste that fits your needs while on trial is needed. Anyone can enjoy it as these all can be cooked or not with very little difference other than the heat aspect of the meal, making mixing a bit simpler in some cases.

I know of many people who create amazing meals, some even choosing chopsticks from Vargo on GGG instead of “normal” utensils. They make things like ramen pad thai below:

Ramen Pad Thai with Peanut Butter “Sauce”

Take a Maruchan or other ramen and crush up the ramen to fit in the container. Some like near powdered and crushed to-death ramen, others like it broken into larger and lengthier noodles.

  1. Crush and Soak Ramen
  2. When prepared to eat, add in the following and mix well:
    • Soy Sauce Packet
    • Olive Oil Packet
    • 1/2 packet ramen chicken seasoning (to provide a base chicken flavor)
    • Add a peanut butter single-serving packet.
    • Powdered Butter (Many stores may have in individual bag sections, which is harder on a trail to replicate but bringing some little butter packets could work also. Be careful as a pack of butter could blow.)
  3. Stir and mix ingredients well to get PB goodness in each bite!

For some yummy additions:

  • Additionally, to bump up protein more, you want to add a plain chicken packet to make it a “Chicken Pad Thai.”
  • Some others may add Siracha packets to get some additional heat and get the taste amped up a bit more.
  • To save weight for gram counters, adding something like Dried chili powder or crushed red pepper could add a spicy element.
  • If you can find portable versions of lime juice, small brown sugar or palm sugar, and garlic, all can add a little bit more flavor and make this a “Go to” dish.

Italian Garlic Parmesan Ramen

A swap on the traditional spaghetti, but for those looking for a different ramen approach, you could go with a more Italian flair by making a garlic parmesan ramen.

Add a little powdered butter into the mix and you have something others will try and steal from you!

  1. Crush and Soak Ramen
  2. When prepared to eat add in the following and mix well:
    • Garlic Salt
    • Olive Oil Packet
    • 1/4 packet ramen chicken seasoning (to provide a base chicken flavor)
    • Parmersan Cheese Packet (From Pizza Delivery Etc)
    • Powdered Butter (Many stores may have in individual bag sections, harder on trail to replicate but bringing some little butter packets could work also be careful as a pack of butter could blow.)

For some yummy additions:

  • For heat you can add some crushed red pepper flakes
  • I would add an unflavored chicken packet to get the protein up for the meal also.

Pesto Ramen Power

This is much easier that many of the others as long as you can find a powered pesto sauce in your grocery store.

  1. Crush and Soak Ramen
  2. When prepared to eat add in the following and mix well:
    • Powdered pesto sauce
    • Olive Oil Packet
    • 1/4 packet ramen chicken seasoning
    • Parmersan Cheese Packet (From Pizza Delivery Etc)
    • Powdered Butter (Many stores may have in individual bag sections, harder on trail to replicate but bringing some little butter packets could work also just be careful a pack of butter would blow.)

Chicken Carbonara Ramen

This is a huge favorite of mine when I go to an italian restaurants, I know anyone who loves food has definitely had a decent carbonara at some point.

Noodles, chicken and bacon is a hard thing to hate and it is perfect for hunger satisfaction on trail.

  1. Crush and Soak Ramen
  2. When prepared to eat add in the following and mix well:
    • Garlic Salt
    • Olive Oil Packet
    • Powdered Egg (about 1 egg serving)
    • 1/4 packet ramen chicken seasoning (to provide a base chicken flavor)
    • Parmersan Cheese Packet (From Pizza Delivery Etc)
    • Powdered Butter (Many stores may have in individual bag sections, harder on trail to replicate but bringing some little butter packets could work also just be careful a pack of butter would blow.)
    • Bacon Seasoning

For some yummy additions:

  • For heat you can add some crushed red pepper flakes
  • I would add an unflavored chicken packet to get the protein up for the meal also.

Chicken Bacon Ranch Ramen

I used to love these when I could get them at the sub shop as a sandwhich, while Quiznos seems to have evaporated from being commonplace I can’t help but eat a chicken bacon ranch meal from time to time.

  1. Crush and Soak Ramen
  2. When prepared to eat add in the following and mix well:
    • Ranch Seasoning Packet
    • Olive Oil Packet
    • 1/4 packet ramen chicken seasoning (to provide a base chicken flavor)
    • Parmersan Cheese Packet (From Pizza Delivery Etc)
    • Powdered Butter (Many stores may have in individual bag sections, harder on trail to replicate but bringing some little butter packets could work also just be careful a pack of butter would blow.)
    • Adding some Bacon bits or this Bacon Seasoning can give you a nice addition of bacon flavor

For some yummy additions:

  • For heat you can add some crushed red pepper flakes
  • I would add an unflavored chicken packet to get the protein up for the meal also.

Chow Mein Ramen

This is more inspired by then a perfect match as obviously without a wok or cooking things will be a little weird but the taste is amazing!

  1. Crush and Soak Ramen
  2. When prepared to eat add in the following and mix well:
    • Soy Sauce Packet
    • Garlic Powder
    • Sugar Packet
    • Olive Oil Packet
    • Chicken Packet (Unflavored)
    • Dried Onion and Carrots (Spice Rack Options Possibly or Asian Section in Grocery)
    • 1/2 seasoning packet or more to taste and preference

Some yummy additions:

  • For heat you can add some crushed red pepper flakes
  • I would add an unflavored chicken 

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