Cheap Backpacking and Hiking Snacks You Can Make at Home

If you're cheap like I, then you like to save money in any way you possibly can. Snacks for the hiker at Whole Foods or even your regular grocery store can be pretty expensive. Here are some ways I've found to save money on hiking and backpacking snack foods that can be made at home.

Beef jerky is a favorite food of backpackers as is is easy to store and carry, because it is lightweight and compact. It is full of protein that you need when exerting all that energy on your hike. It's really tasty, too. Of course, if you like to spend money and are unimaginitive, you can easily and conveniently purchase those tiny little two ounce beef jerky packages at the store for five or six bucks a pop.

But as I mentioned before, I'm cheap. I don't like to waste money when I can make something at home for a small fraction of what it costs at the store. Jerky takes a long time to make, but most of that time is just waiting while it cooks, so you can be doing other stuff around the house in the meantime.

Jerky can be made with almost any kind of meat. Pork, beef, ground beef or turkey, chicken, fish, buffalo, deer, you name it. You can use cheaper cuts of meat too, if you're going to marinate it well. Basic jerkey should be made with curing salt, or sodium nitrate, at the ratio of one teaspoon per five pounds of meat. The other ingredients are up to you. You can do a simple seasoning of salt, pepper and garlic, or any basic marinade. You can do a Teriyaki marinade using ginger, garlic, brown sugar and soy sauce. You can do sweet and sour, spicy hot, or garlicy.

You can marinate for up to 24 hours. Just season both sides of the meat, or place in your marinade, and put it in the fridge for at least several hours before drying. Slice your meat into one eighth to quarter inch slices before marinating or seasoning. Dry your jerky on a cookie sheet in the oven at 160 degree for about six hours. Open the oven every hour or so for a couple minutes to get some air circulation.

You can also make your own inexpensive trail mix at home as well. Just throw together some super cheap ingredients together in a ziplock, and that's your trail mix. Raisins, peanuts, sunflower seeds, pretzels, some dry cereal like Chex or Cheerios all work fine. Whatever is on sale or cheap. Leave out the more expensive nuts and dried fruits.

You can dry your own fruits at home. That's great if you have a dehydrator, but some fruit can be oven dried as well. Make sure you're using fruit that's cheap and in season, or else your defeating the whole purpose of saving money. Here's how to make your own banana chips: cut some ripe bananas into thin one eighth inch slices, and dip them in pineapple juice. Dry the slices on a lightly oiled cookie sheet in the oven at 200 degrees for two hours. Flip the slices over, and dry till their chewy but not crisp. Your banana chips will be ugly, brown shriveled things, but they'll taste good. Good luck!