I love bagels as a backpacking lunch staple because they are
Calorically dense – a single bagel has about 200-300 calories
Carby, which is what you want when you’re doing endurance-based physical activity like hiking
Packable – though not compact, they can withstand some amount of squishing without completely disintegrating
Plus, there are so many flavours/types to choose from! I love to alternate between seedy, whole grain and everything bagels.
The combination I usually go for is bagels with hummus, or bagels with cheese. While hiking in the Chilcotins, which was a week-long backcountry trip, I was getting a bit tired of eating the same thing, so I played around with our dinner ingredients, and voila – pizza bagel!
Pizza bagels: now a regular in my backcountry lunch rotation / Nicomen Lake, Manning Park
Recipe
Serves: 3 Ideal for: Backcountry trip Type: Lunch
Ingredients 1 pack (of 6*) bagels of choice
200g vegan cheese of choice (sliced or shredded is ideal, but a block is good too)
1 small can** (213 ml or so) pizza sauce***
Three-ingredient lunch
At Home Nothing. If your pizza sauce came in a glass jar or a large size, or you don’t have a can opener in your multi-tool, you might want to repackage that.
At Camp
Separate a bagel into half slices.
Smear pizza sauce and top with cheese.
Recipe Notes
*This recipe assumes 2 bagels per person, but you might need more.
**The cans are shelf-stable, making them a good choice for a longer trip. However, make sure you can open them! If your multi-tool doesn’t include a can opener, get one with a pull-tab, or repackage into something easier to open at home. Note that repackaging means it’s no longer shelf-stable.
***A lighter option is to make your own pizza sauce spread: mix 5-6 tablespoons of tomato paste with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder or fresh minced and dried herbs. Tomato paste is thicker, so there’s less water weight, and you can customise the flavours to your taste. However, this will not be shelf-stable, so you cannot take it on a longer trip in warm weather.
