Looking for healthy, delicious snack ideas? I drove almost 8,000 miles in the dead of Winter and never stopped to buy food…for real!
My list of foods that didn’t require cooking or heating is more timely than ever! Don’t wait till next winter. Don’t wait till your next road trip. Or a once-in-a-generation snowstorm. There’s nothing wrong with being prepared by having good, convenient, portable foods on hand.
12 Instant Snacks and Heat and Eat Meals for a Long Road Trip or Camping
Along with my homemade treats, I subsisted for thousands of miles (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) without having to go shopping thanks to this simple list.
1. Lorissa’s Grass Fed Jalapeno Beef Sticks for Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner
The 24-pack of super spicy Jalapeño Lorissa’s Kitchen Grass-Fed Beef Snack Sticks sat in my car through 50 degree heated car temps down to 20 degree temperatures overnight.
They got chilly but never yucky. Economical too, at about $1.50 each for a 6-gram serving of protein. There’s something about the epicly hot bite of Lorissa’s that has won my palate!
2. Vermont Smoke & Cure beef sticks
Nothing is more sanitary than a single-serve beef stick. Peel back the wrapper and munch away. I loved them on the road and will always have these in my backback. (Chomps from Trader Joe’s and Vermont Smoke & Cure beef sticks are other humanely raised beef sticks I’ve road-tested.
3. Seeds of Change Pre-cooked Organic Rice and Quinoa Packs (from Costco or Amazon)
These packets are a great snack for vegans and to make instant meals out of any other protein or add-ins you might have on hand (like the meals below!) Or even if you brought cans of garbanzos or other beans on your trip. Very tasty by themselves.
4. Tasty Bite Indian Meals
These Indian meal packs, ready to microwave are even good cold, which I discovered the hard way when my hotel microwave turned out to be on the fritz.
I recently discovered Tasty Bite is owned by the Mars Company! It’s no wonder you can find these almost anywhere. It may sound strange to be happy this international food company owns an Indian meal company: You can be pretty sure they follow the most stringent food production practices because of this.
I buy these meals at Trader Joe’s and Costco.
5. Lotus Foods rice ramen cups
Lotus Foods was founded in the East Bay, in the SF Bay Area, and the founders are committed to helping rice growers reduce the amount of water needed to produce rice.
Overall, Lotus Foods is totally committed to quality, unusual rice products you can feel good about eating…especially if you are gluten free, since they are made of rice!
6. Safe Catch Ahi Tuna in one-portion sized pouches.
You can find Safe Catch low-mercury tuna in most supermarkets these days. I was buying them from Costco in 8 pack boxes or Amazon — but am told Costco no longer has the packets!
Along with tuna in easy-to-open packets (which you can eat out of with a fork) you can also find salmon and other seafood in this convenient format as well as pre-seasoned tuna pouches.
The tuna isn’t just for roadtrips. I take it whenever I travel, as a quick protein snack upon arrival!
Plus you can add tuna to your rice pouches or ramen cups – instant high protein meal!
7. Simple Mills Almond Crackers and Mary’s Gone Crackers
You can’t help but feel good about crackers made with nutritious ingredients. Having crackers on hand gives you a palette for whatever dip or spread you may have on hand…or if you just have the munchies!
8. Coffee. Lots of coffee.
Instant Coffee and Instant Cold Brew Coffee from Trader Joe’s got me through the trip (as did occasional Starbucks drive throughs).
Both of these Trader Joe’s coffees are great cold or hot. I would fill my thermos with hot water at a hotel — which was only serving light roast coffee — and dunk twice the recommended amount of instant coffee into the water. Even a day later, my coffee was still drinkable. Truly a coffee drinker’s life saver!
More cofffee supplies: A very sturdy Melitta Signature Series drip coffee filter and filters for pour-over coffee along with a jar of ground coffee (which I most love in a dark roast) were the chicken soup for this coffee lover’s soul.
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9. Bags ‘o Fruit and Veges
Easy to transport, leave unrefrigerated, and so flexible when it comes to eating them.
- Mandarin oranges
- Apples
- Avocados
10. Peanut butter or other spreads
While it’s best to refrigerate nut and seed spreads after opening, during a several day roadtrip, you’re pretty safe plowing through the jar without any problems. At least, that’s what I tell myself.
Also, I made 2 delicious snacks at home that lasted for days:
- A walnut-filled banana bread lasted for a week and was incredibly handy it would be for a quick breakfast snack. Truth be told, I made it in an 8×8 pan then put it in a box I had on hand…with a fork and knife. I’d fork up a big piece and shove it in my mouth while behind the wheel. Not pretty but oh so good. (This Allrecipes recipe is similar to mine.)Made with honey, and no other sugar, this dense bread keeps when wrapped in foil. It’s delicious heated up (can’t hurt to add some butter) or cold.
- Muhamarra vegan red pepper dip…again filled with walnuts. The New York Times has the perfect recipe for my favorite dip which features pureed, roasted red peppers, toasted walnuts, olive oil, pomegranate molasses, bread, green onions, lemons, salt, and pepper.I could live on this; from the recipe you can see it would be healthy to live on this!I brought the muhamarra in a plastic tub, in a small freezer pack with a couple of ice packs that I froze every night at my Airbnbs. (Lots of Hampton Inns have refrigerators now. If staying in hotels, be sure to ask!)
Don’t forget to bring a few bottles of spices to dress up your meals, paper towels, and utensils.
Be safe and enjoy! I would love to hear what other delicious snacks power your trips!
