Trail Meal | Fried Onion Couscous

Couscous is a staple in the hiking community for its ease of preparing out in the backcountry. With one pot needed and not much cooking at all, you have yourself a filling meal. Here is another Couscous recipe to put in your backpacker’s pantry!

I thought of this recipe by buying some of the well known ready-made fried onions in the supermarket a few months earlier. With pretty much stuck in a partial lockdown in Germany my mind went to thinking off a few trail meal recipes again. Here is Fried Onion Couscous!

Ingredients for Fried Onion Couscous

• Couscous – preferably the Durum Couscous for better flavor. One cup.
• 1 Bouillon cube, this time I used a very good Chicken stock cube.
• Fried onions, you can get these in the Netherlands and Germany pretty easily. Half a cup.
• Salt and pepper to taste, or hot sauce.
• Little olive oil if available
• Two cups of water

Calories:

Couscous	one cup	112 kcal
Fried onions	half a cup / 50 grams	295 kcal
Bouillon cube	one cube	30 kcal
Total	–	437 kcal

Total weight for the meal: 160 grams

Cooking gear

Cooking gear you will need to prepare the fried onion couscous:

• Cooking pot
• Spork
• Backpacking stove
• Tea towel for cleanup

Preparing the Fried Onion Couscous

Cooking the Couscous is everyone familiar with I assume. But here is my method:

Step one: Put two cups of cold water and your bouillon cube on the burner, could be a gas stove, alcohol stove, or whatever your favorite backpacking stove is.

Step two: wait for it to boil and add your one cup of couscous. Plus some of the Fried onions to partially rehydrate. Let it come back up the boil and turn off your stove. Else the couscous will burn on the bottom.

Step three: Cover with lid and let it all sit for a few minutes. Usually takes about 5 minutes.

Step four: Remove lid and fluff up the couscous, add the rest of your fried onions on top of the meal. And at last, you can dig in! Add hot sauce or salt and pepper when needed.

And that’s it for this trail meal, as always feel free to adapt it to your own taste. Add in fresh greens or some dried sausage. Lot of things you can do to it further to make it your own!