7 Kayaking Lunch Ideas (Perfect for Fun Days Out Kayaking)

One late night in October, with my bosom friend Alex, I suddenly planned and made a packing list for ten days of Kayak camping. We experienced backpackers and campers for a multi day trip when we moved to South America, North America, and North Carolina in the last year. Still, we didn’t have much experience with the Kayak trip.

We arranged everything the next day, such as a sleeping bag, water, camping meal, Towline, Maps, charts in a waterproof case, Camping gear, Paddle float, knife, Compass (that floats), Weather/VHF radio, dry bag, Ziploc bag, etc. for the Kayak trip.

Finally, we managed to explore a Kayak camping trip the last couple of days before for the first time; the destination was the National park and Saranac lake, New York.

We would love to share our journey, camping meal experiences, and 7 kayaking lunch ideas (perfect for fun days out Kayaking) to assist your diet plan.

What Things Should You Consider before Making Kayaking Lunch Ideas?

First and foremost, you must look at your meal wish list to check it with the necessities of your canoe trip. You can create a schedule chart based on your tour plan and write meal planning appropriately so that you can look at it at a glance.

Moreover, it’s better if you confirm that either your fantasy will perfectly match the reality of the requirement. You must plan additional meals, snacks, and food ingredients as the backup food supply.

It would be best if you made your Kayaking lunch ideas that are :

Rapid preparation, Non-perishable, Easy to pack.
Where you will land and the environment expected.
Finding fresh water sources or not.
Having facilities for using the stove, with or without the campfire.
Other circumstances ( weather expected or not tide wild camping, chalet, bear country)
Relaxing to eat, Filling, Fast-cooking, and washing.
The number of extra meals depends on the kind of trip you plan, etc.

Which Type of Food Will be Best on Your Float Trip?

You can cook ready-mix food on fire and let it into your diet chart, and it’s up to you. Usually, spicy, heavier, and fat-rich junk food always pretends you are full and might feel uncomfortable while paddling a river trip. Therefore you have to choose lightly portable food ingredients, ready to cook quickly and do not rotten easily when it comes to air and water.

However, carrying canned drinks and packed food with thin waterproof, stackable containers with properly fitting lids is highly recommended.

Because you have to paddle hour after hour, protein-based light snacks can lift your energy level after hours of Kayaking. While you anchor your Kayak to rest for a few hours in your canoe or tent, you can take a heavy diet that you accept to consume.

Actually, food habits may vary to one’s choice of taste, affords, and cooking ability. Yet, we can share three different types of healthiest food categories and meal ideas that you might love.

One # The dried and packed food you can cook easily

You might try basic pre-cooking home food on your canoe trips, such as making Pasta, Noodles, or Spaghetti. You can pick salt, Olive Oil (for cooking purposes), Chili Sauce, Pepper, Soya Sauce, preserved vegetables, onion, scrambled eggs, veggies, dry meatloaf, etc., to prepare these.
Homemade beef/chicken jerky, Energy Balls (or any other type of your preferred), and Dehydrated, Pre-Packaged Meat in tear-open foil packets will be healthy and delicious for river lunches.
Hot & Sour Thai/Corn/Chicken/Mushroom/Shrimp soup can be a perfect choice in cold weather.

Preparation: Unpack the instant soup mixes/ Corn Flour and Canned tomato ketchup with preservatives, Meat powder, Prawn powder, Soya sauce, and boiled pure water as ingredients.

You can add spices like Spanish olives and dehydrated herbs to give it more fragrance.

Yogurt ( Dehydrated protein meal) and Backcountry Smorgasbord.
The Chickpeas ( roasted ) are made with vinegar and salt.
Trail mix for a kayaking trip and Tin-Foil Camping Meals.
Gummy worms and Carrot Cake Power Scuffins.
Coffee Powder, sugar, milk powder, and tea leaves make you fresh and energetic.
You can also take rice cakes mixed with banana and peanut butter flavors.

Tips: Try to carry automatic and professional pieces of equipment so that you can cook any meat-based Stew, Camp Pizza, or campfire Fajitas.

Try to cook while you are underway in a kayak. I would appreciate it if you cooked food while anchored near the seashore in calm and quiet water conditions.

Two # Heavy main dishes when you don’t want to cook

Sometimes when you are not paddling and are tired enough, you might not want to cook. Better if you love to go fishing, sing or talk to your mates rather than cooking. And you are hungry enough; hence you are required to a bit heavy diet. You can take the following food to your menu chart :

Main Course with readymade ingredients without cooking :

Wrapped Summer Sausage ( you can simply open the wrapper from your food bag, slice the Cheese and sausages, put tomato sauce, pepperoni, and red onion on it, and now eat!
Unwrap the paper packaging to open hardy Wasa crackers and take horseradish mustard in plastic squeeze bottles for garnishing. You can make tasty food when you include Cheese and slice sausage with that mustard; Yummy and easy!
Adding maple syrup, sausage, and peanut butter to a Tortilla will be an amazing tongue-melting instant dish!
Mix powdered Hummus-Stuffed Pitas: To make a thick and consistent paste, add water, and to use later, you can store it in a plastic box for a few hours. Equally, fragile Pitas are convenient food to be fresh for a long time, yet you can add versatile ingredients alternatively not to make it monotonous!
Vegan Food: Veggie and Frozen fruits.
Maple Oatmeal.

Tips: Honey, Dried beef/chicken, Cheese,Sausage slice,Greek salad, Smoked salmon or Tuna from a pouch, Bell pepper, White Bean Salad, Nut butter, Cup fruit, etc., you can use as add-ons.

Three # No Refrigeration Meals – Snack

Dehydrated fruits (Cantaloupe, Pineapple, Blueberries, Honey Dew, Mandarins, Apples, Pears, Grapes)
Watermelon, Coconut.
Nuts, Chips, and Pop Corn
Edamame and Pretzels
Waterproof and air-tightening Biscuits

7 Kayaking Lunch Ideas : Perfect for Fun Days Out Kayaking

Knowing how to plan meals for the expedition in your sea kayak rental journey is indispensable to make it smoother. Based on the food mentioned above ingredients and our prior experiences, we will share seven top-notch healthiest lunch ideas, including the recipes below, that you will surely love.

01 # Sweet & Savory Oatmeal In Camping

There are many nutritional benefits of oatmeal; if you read many health related articles, you will be sure about it. One cup of oats contains thirteen grams of protein, five grams of fat, eight grams of fiber, fifty-one grams of carbohydrate, etc. Because it contains more protein and carbs than other food grains, beneficial to instant or easy cooking preparation, it would be the ideal item that adds much value to your kayaking journey.

Recipe :

Simply boil the water and mix your desired oats with the boiling water in your bowl. The food ingredients, such as the quantity of oatmeal and spices, will depend on how many people you cook. Please use a measuring cup or spoon to mix extra water or oats to stir the mixture.

You might use instant oats in small packets and can add sugar, salt, eggs, or other available toppings to it. The individual packets are always ready to mix, convenient, and easy to measure, yet additional sugar is mixed with them.

To curtail our budget and control the sugar level of our taste, we purchased a bulk bag of quick oats. We made diverse types of oatmeal preparation on different days not to feel monotonous.

Sometimes I added maple syrup, craisins, and coconut to create texture and added fresh banana or other dried fruit slices. On other days Alex mixed shredded cheddar cheese, diced apples, a little nutmeg, and brown sugar that brought the oatmeal bowl to a life full of pleasure.

Otherwise, you can try cutting leftover bacon and strawberries into small pieces and topping the oatmeal. You can carry a lightweight, small automatic stove that will boil water in less than three minutes, and within 5-10 minutes, you will get a perfect backpacking oatmeal lunch!

02 # Instant Rice with Beef Jerky, Beans, and Grains

The Calorie dense instant rice cooking is pretty simpler. You have to follow some easy procedures like boiling water, washing rice and adding to it, stirring, and covering it up. It’s better to wait five to ten minutes or until water is fully absorbed and remove it from heat.

The simplest and fast method to cook beef jerky, beans, and grains is to deep-fry it with olive oil, your preferred herbs and spices, onions, garlic, and available vegetables in a frying pan. You can also add hard Cheese that doesn’t require refrigeration, pre-cooked grains, and beans that are already cooked and sealed in foil packets.

03 # Ramen Noodles/ Spaghetti

I can recall my memories of how amazingly Alex cooked one of my favorite dishes, Ramen Noodles or Spaghetti, at lunch.

Recipe :

Firstly, Alex brought two cups of water to a boil in a pan and wrapped two small packets of dry noodles and noodles into the pot, breaking them up as they softened.

When the noodles seemed softer enough, he removed them from the heat and sank them into cold water.

Parallelly, Alex sliced onion, garlic, dried mushrooms, parsley, sun-dried tomatoes, bacon, veggies, and sometimes dehydrated meatballs and put another frypan on the stove again.

To start the next step of cooking, you have to add two tablespoons of olive oil to the frying pan to boil. After that, he added veggies, Mixed Noodles- spices, sliced meat, textured soya protein, mushrooms, and other toppings, and later mixed the boiled noodles.

Finally, he cooked noodles for two to three minutes with medium heat, occasionally stirring. Added garnishes as desired, such as two tablespoons of ramen soup base, concentrated tomato paste from a tube, and peppers, stirring it well.

In the end, he transferred it into the serving bowl and served it with parmesan and Romano cheese from my Ziploc bag.

04 # Prompt Shrimp, Beans, and Vegetable Soup

The process is pretty simple, for making it, you just have to fill a large pot with water and add pre-sliced vegetables, mushrooms, beans, meat or fish bones, dried shrimp, pepper, or other aromatic herbs.

While the soup’s ingredients have mashed up appropriately, stop boiling. You might skim off any foam that increases to the topmost of the pot. Ensure that the things boil inside the pot so strongly that the meat will toughen and the veggies will get mushy.

If you feel the noodles are starting to break down, strain the stock, and remove the bones. Add a packet of soup or corn flour, boil, and then simmer. Finally, add tomato ketchup, chili sauce, egg, or other desired toppings.

05 # Instant Rice with Yogurt Chicken (Asian Method)

We have discussed earlier how to cook instant rice in the instant pot. To make yogurt chicken (Asian method), you are required to slice the chicken into small pieces and leave the chicken in the yogurt overnight for up to twenty-four hours.

For marination, you can also add salt, sugar, lime juice, black pepper, and other sauces and seal the bowl with foil paper. The next day, you can add two tablespoons of olive oil to the frying pan to boil. After that, add cumin powder, chili powder, chopped onion, garlic paste, and water, then stir with a fork.

Five to six minutes later, add the mixed yogurt, chicken, and coconut paste, cover it up with the frying pan again and cook for fifteen minutes.

06 # Hot and Sour Pasta with Salad

Cooking pasta is not complicated; you can use macaroni or any pasta category in this recipe. There are many ways to cook pasta: traditional, Mexican, Greek, Asian, or other famous recipes you would love to pick.

However, while Kayaking, we recommend cooking Orzo readymade pasta as the simplest and fast-cooking process. Just unwrap the package and boil the pasta in hot water until it softens. When it becomes fully boiled, let them sink into cold water.

Later, put two-three tablespoons of olive oil into the frying pan and chop up the cherry tomatoes, kalamata olives, and cucumber equally. Add sliced bacon or ham, Cheese, Red onions, boiled pasta including salt, Red wine vinegar, green chili, sauce, and oregano powder into the pan.

Let them boil and cook for five to ten minutes until all ingredients are mixed in the pan. For Salad dressing, pick your desired fruits and vegetables, and add red and green lettuce leaves, toasted nuts, carrots, salt, sugar, extra virgin olive oil, or mustard oil to mix.

07 # Hot and Spicy Meat Stew with Bread

Meat stew will always bring comfort and joy to our kayaking trip, especially when cold and misty vibes surround you. You will need meat chuck, flour, salt, butter, pepper, olive oil, chopped large onion, garlic paste, diced tomatoes, dried thyme, rosemary herb, two cups of meat stock, etc.

You must season the meat with salt and pepper and then toss them in the flour until all the pieces are lightly coated. Take a large pan and let it on medium heat; add olive oil or butter and sear the meat until browned on all sides.

Later add chopped onion, garlic, chili, pepper, spices, sauce, carrot, oregano, and other herbs to the pan to boil slowly until the meat seems tender. Wait more than half an hour; if you feel the meal, enough rendered, softened, and juicy, you can leave the pan from the fire.

You can serve it with readymade and frozen loaves of bread, rice, or noodles, including homemade salad.

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Question: Why Pre-voyage diet is crucial before Float Trip To Prevent Motion Sickness?

Answer: To prevent motion sickness, skipping meals before traveling is better. Alcohol and fried foods that are highly prone to motion sickness are strictly prohibited. On the top, you have to pick effortlessly digested and might calm your upset stomach, such as ginger soda, sparkling water, or other carbonated beverage.

Question: What will you use for cooking your meals for Kayaking lunch?

Answer: Still, there are limitations to cooking you should think of before going to the boundary waters canoe trip area. While we went on expedition trips with my Kayak, I brought numerous propane bottles along with my integrated backpacking two-burner stove system.

Question: What food should I bring on a kayak?

Answer: We hope already you got your answer. Even if you what should I pack for lunch on a float trip, that answer also in the available already. Well, want to know what to eat before kayaking? Feel free to ask in the comment section. We are waiting to give you the exact answer. Enjoy!

Final Thoughts

We have sorted out the most demanding and healthiest top-notch seven kayaking lunch ideas, together with recipes. All the recipes are simplest to understand, convenient, nutritionally outstanding, easily customizable per your food-loving preferences, and time-consuming for pre-cooking preparation or washing.

We tried all the meals on our more than ten days longer kayaking trips. These really made our lonely days more pleasant. We hope the new kayakers will benefit greatly from reading it.

Happy First Kayaking!