The humble instant noodle is often looked down upon, but this lightweight and carb-laden meal is a backpacker’s best friend. No other meal is at once so easily transportable, so quick to cook, so packed with flavor, so filling, and perhaps most important of all, so very cheap. Dehydrated backpacking meals have come on leaps and bounds in quality, but the cost can leave a week-long backpacking trip feeling like a week in a resort.
Luckily, that’s where your instant noodles step in. Given the choice, I’d always whip up a Pad Thai with chopped peanuts, ginger, and fresh chili if I had all kitchen amenities at my fingertips, but it can’t be denied that instant noodles have their place. One of those places is on the trail.
