Review: Peak Refuel Meals
Peak Refuel offers freeze-dried meals with homestyle flavors, more protein than many backpacking meals, and plenty of options featuring foods I enjoy on outdoor trips.
After exclusively making all of my own backpacking meals for the previous seven years, I decided to give freeze-dried meals a try. Making your own food usually costs much less per meal than commercial foods, but I was also looking forward to less up-front work and easier meal prep at camp.
Having been a firm holdout in the “I’d rather clean a pot than eat from a plastic bag” camp for a long time, this is quite a switch for me. And after a full year of eating straight from the bag, I can say that I am now a firm believer in convenience… if you can find meals that you look forward to. Fortunately, several of the Peak Refuel meals will be on my regular backpacking menu from now on. A bonus is that I spend less time on kitchen camp chores and have more time to relax. Or hike. 🙂
My favorite Peak Refuel meals
Chicken Alfredo Pasta
Peak Refuel’s Chicken Alfredo Pasta combines noodles, chicken, and Alfredo sauce in a meal I look forward to every time. It’s creamy and cheesy without being too much, and rich and filling without leaving me feeling like I overdid it. Yum!
- calories: 870 | protein: 53g
- my rating: 4.8 out of 5
- price: $13.99
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Beef Stroganoff
The Beef Stroganoff meal fulfills my craving for homestyle food on outdoor adventure trips, and the sour cream gives it a great flavor. Rich and creamy, but not heavy on the stomach. The beef tastes like real beef, which isn’t always the case in freeze-dried meals.
- calories: 810 | protein: 46g
- my rating: 4.8 out of 5
- price: $14.99
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Homestyle Chicken & Rice
The Homestyle Chicken meal has big chunks of carrots and mushrooms in a sour cream sauce with rice. Mmm! I would be content to include this meal on every backpacking trip.
- calories: 740 | protein: 37g
- my rating: 4.8 out of 5
- price: $13.99
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Breakfast Skillet
The most substantial quantity of any of the meals I tried from Peak Refuel is the Breakfast Skillet. For me, half of this meal is still a lot of food for breakfast. When splitting this meal in half, boost the calories by bring a flour tortilla, a stick of cheese, and a packet of salsa for an outstanding breakfast burrito.
- calories: 540 | protein: 31g
- my rating: 4 out of 5
- price: $14.99
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Additional Peak Refuel Meals I Recommend
I’m a big fan of pasta and really like the Chicken Pesto Pasta. I also tried several of the breakfast meals from Peak Refuel. The flavor of the Biscuits and Gravy is very, very good, but I found it difficult to break up the whole biscuit and couldn’t get it to rehydrate very well. I’d love this meal if the biscuits were provided in smaller chunks and not whole.
For the easiest prep possible, the Strawberry Granola is a no-cook breakfast – just add cold water and stir. The taste is just like having cereal at home, which is my favorite type of breakfast everyday.
My least favorite Peak Refuel Meals
I liked all of the meals that I tried, but the Chicken Teriyaki was my least favorite. I love Asian food, so I was looking forward to this one, but the flavor just wasn’t right and the meal is one of the least caloric in Peak Refuel’s lineup, so it wasn’t substantial enough for a backpacking meal. And since I love pasta, I was surprised that I didn’t care for the Beef Pasta Marinara. The sauce had a graininess to it and not enough flavor, so I probably wouldn’t buy this one again.
Disclosure: I purchased these meals with my own funds.