Mountain House Meals | Backpacking Meal Review

This post is sponsored by Mountain House.

First, I must mention that Mountain House has been my favorite brand of backpacking meals for as long as I can remember and is my guilty pleasure on the trail. So, when I had the opportunity to try out their new Homestyle Turkey Dinner Casserole and Spicy Southwest Breakfast Hash, I was completely thrilled. I have yet to find a meal of theirs that I don’t like (unless it’s something I wouldn’t normally eat anyway).

Here’s why I love them so much:

• 30-Year Shelf life
• Tastes Homemade (they are cooked just like you would cook a meal, just in much bigger pots)!
• Easy clean-up
• Taste Guarantee – They guarantee your Mountain House pouch or can meal will still taste good in 30 years!
• Top Quality Ingredients – They only use top quality ingredients. Also, if you ever read the ingredients list for each meal, you know what you are consuming because it’s real food!

I try not to eat a lot of spicy stuff (thanks to GI issues), so while I still did a taste test, I let my husband have the Spicy Southwest Breakfast Hash while I ate the Homestyle Turkey Casserole Dinner (he also taste tested it).

Like all Mountain House meals, both meals were quick and simple to make and clean up was a breeze thanks to being able to pour the water directly into the pouch. The only thing we had to clean was our forks!

Homestyle Turkey Dinner Casserole – A Thanksgiving meal anytime I want?!? That is how I felt eating this meal! It really reminded me of sitting down on Thanksgiving Day and stuffing myself with turkey and stuffing without the hours upon hours of cooking! This is now by far my favorite entree meal from Mountain House!

Spicy Southwest Breakfast Hash – Both my husband and I had the same opinion. While I only had few bites he devoured the bag like I hadn’t fed him in over a week! It has a great taste and while it does have a kick to it, it is about as spicy as a mild-medium salsa. He did say that it did a great job of filling him up, so it was the perfect portion size.

Using only the highest quality ingredients, Mountain House cooks their meals the old-fashioned way, which results in home-cooked flavor.

From their website:

We are nestled in the heart of the lush Willamette Valley of Oregon, just south of Portland. It is here in our hometown of Albany that we cook up our hearty, savory meals.

At Mountain House, we trace our roots to meals we made for the United States Special Forces.

During the Vietnam Conflict, the military put out a request for food that tasted better, lasted longer and weighed less than old K and C rations. Our parent Company, OFD Foods, LLC (then called Oregon Freeze Dry) responded to that request and won the contract. We immediately started making freeze dried food as Long Range Patrol rations for the military. We’ve continued making food for the United States Special Forces and other branches of the military ever since.

As the war began to wind down, we took our surplus rations to military surplus and sporting goods stores, where they rapidly sold out. It was then in 1969 that we realized the great consumer demand for good tasting, easy to prepare freeze dried food and Mountain House was born.

Have you had a Mountain House meal? What did you think?