Double-bagging ingredients

Here are some of our hiking staples: curry paste, pesto sauce, miso paste, Korean chilli paste. These ingredients don’t weigh much, but they really punch above their weight in the flavour department.

However, at times these pastes and sauces have an amazing ability to escape from the zip-lock bag you have carefully stored them in. There’s nothing worse than opening your backpack at the end of a hard day’s walking, only to discover that the pesto sauce has soaked into tomorrow’s clean undies.

To minimise the chance of leakage, we recommend that you double-bag ingredients like sauces and pastes. Over the years, we’ve found that freezer bags work best for this. Here’s how it goes.

1. Get two freezer bags

These are easy to find in your local supermarket. They are very cheap and extremely lightweight.

Freezer bags beside a jar of curry paste, ready to be packed for a hike. Photo: A Hutchings

2. Put ingredient in first bag

Scoop the paste or sauce into one of the freezer bags.

Curry paste put into a freezer bag in preparation for a bushwalk. Photo: A Hutchings

3. Tie up the first bag

Squeeze as much air out of the bag as possible, then tie the bag in a tight knot. Cut off any excess plastic.

Cutting excess plastic off a bag filled with curry paste for a hiking meal. Photo: A Hutchings

4. Repeat the process with the second bag

Take your bag of paste and put it into the second bag, then tie this in a tight knot. The ingredient might escape out of the first bag, but it’s unlikely to get through the second bag and into your backpack.

Curry paste double-bagged prior to a hike. Photo: A Hutchings
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