Whether you’re heading across the country, across the world, or simply across town, this series of recipes is made for life on the move. They’re easy to make, easy to pack, and taste just as good hours later as they do fresh from the kitchen. Perfect for road trips, picnics, hikes, airplanes, potlucks, packed lunches, busy weeknights, and anywhere else you need to go.

This series of recipes is exclusively for members of The Lost Supper Club (paid subscribers).

If you were to suddenly show up at my home and invite yourself inside, and then start rummaging around in my freezer, there’s a high probability that you’d find the following items (also, that would be weird): Frozen chicken thighs, ground beef, and some kind of fish. Frozen strawberries, blueberries, and bananas. At least one package of frozen spinach or kale. Ice cream, always and forever. A couple of unbaked frozen dinner rolls and buttermilk biscuits. Balls of chocolate chip pecan cookie dough. And individually wrapped slices of ’s Maple Miso Loaf.

The recipe is in Baking with Dori, a book I got soon after it was published, and that Maple Miso Loaf was the first thing I baked from it. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t baked much else from the book because every time I flip through the pages, I just end up baking another Maple Miso Loaf.

Here’s what I love about it: It’s both sweet and savory, has a complex, nuanced flavor, is dense but not heavy, and exceptionally moist. It also freezes well and is one of the best things to take with us on road trips and sailing days. If you’ve been with me on either a road trip or a sailing day, there’s an excellent chance I’ve handed you a slice.

Dori’s cake was the first time I’d ever baked with miso, an oversight I have been working to correct ever since.

Exhibit A: Maple Miso Brown Butter Frosting.

Exhibit B: This Pumpkin Miso Chocolate Chip Cake

My freezer will always have room for slices of Dori’s cake. But, friends, from now on, there is also going to be room in there for this pumpkin miso chocolate chip cake. Possibly an entire shelf.

Why have I never thought to pair pumpkin and miso before? It’s a lavishly interesting combination. I’m picturing it in soup, pasta, and maybe gnocchi? Maybe some kind of roasted pumpkin salad?

Or maybe just more of this cake.

Just like Dori’s recipe and this recipe for Walnut Chocolate Chip Spice Cake, this is a cake that freezes well and is easy to take with you. If you’re going on a road trip, camping trip, to a BBQ, or a picnic, THIS is the cake you want to make for it. But also, pack it into lunches, for your afternoon commute, or maybe just for the walk from your door to the mailbox. Because, this is a recipe that travels well but I don’t want you to have to wait for a travel situation to make it.

Pumpkin Miso Chocolate Chip Cake

Road food notes: Stays soft and fresh for 3-4 days • Individually wrapped slices travel well • Not too sweet • Pumpkin and white miso create a sweet and savory combo with a layered, nuanced flavor • Freezes well

More road food recipes:

Whether you’re heading across the country, across the world, or simply across town, this series of recipes is made for life on the move. They’re easy to make, easy to pack, and taste just as good hours later as they do fresh from the kitchen. Perfect for road trips, picnics, hikes, airplanes, potlucks, packed lunches, busy weeknights, and anywhere else you need to go.

This series of recipes is exclusively for members of The Lost Supper Club (paid subscribers).

After 5 months in Michigan, Steve and I packed up and left last weekend, traveling through Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa before parking ourselves in Nebraska, where we’ll stay for the next couple of weeks.

We split the drive from Michigan to Nebraska into 2 days and spent Saturday night in the Cabela’s parking lot in Omaha. On Sunday morning, I got up and assembled these salads for our lunch, using chicken, pickled sumac onions, and yogurt dill dressing that I had prepared a couple of days prior. I packed the containers into a cooler along with slices of walnut chocolate chip spice cake from the freezer.

This is how I save us from truck stop food on long travel days. We ate our lunch in the truck while parked at a rest stop somewhere along I-80, and it was honestly so much better than anything we could have picked up on the way.

Every part of this salad is quick and easy to prepare in advance. I made the Turkish chicken, pickled sumac onions, and yogurt dill dressing on Thursday, packing them in the refrigerator along with a container of greens and a cucumber.

Sunday morning, it only took me about 5 minutes to fill two containers with greens, a chopped cucumber, cold pieces of chicken, and some pickled onions. I packed our salads into a cooler along with the jar of dressing, which we poured onto our salads right before eating.

The chicken is inspired by Turkish kebabs. Chunks of boneless, skinless chicken thighs marinate for a few hours in a garlicky pepper and paprika yogurt mixture before baking in the oven. Once cool, the pieces of chicken will keep well in the refrigerator for up to 3 days and are delicious eaten cold.

The pickled sumac onions take less than 10 minutes to prepare and keep well in the refrigerator for at least two weeks.

The yogurt dill dressing requires nothing more than adding all the ingredients to a blender or a food processor and blending everything until smooth. It will also keep well in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

And that’s it. Add some greens and a chopped cucumber and you’re set.

You, of course, do not have to relegate this salad to road trips or packed lunches. This is the kind of salad that travels well, but traveling is not required. It does lend itself to advance preparation, however, which is something that I think we all can appreciate.

If you have some time to cook the chicken, pickle the onions, and mix up the dressing on Sunday afternoon, for example, you have a nearly ready-to-eat meal waiting for you. And that is always a good thing.

Recipe notes:

• If you can’t find Aleppo pepper in your local supermarket, it’s easy to find online. This is the brand I almost always have on hand: The Spice Way Ground Aleppo Pepper (When I clicked over to Amazon to find the Aleppo pepper link, it informed me that I’ve purchased it 15 times already this year and it’s barely October. I might be obsessed.)

More road food recipes

Whether you’re heading across the country, across the world, or simply across town, this series of recipes is made for life on the move. They’re easy to make, easy to pack, and taste just as good hours later as they do fresh from the kitchen. Perfect for road trips, picnics, hikes, airplanes, potlucks, packed lunches, busy weeknights, and anywhere else you need to go.

This series of recipes is exclusively for members of The Lost Supper Club (paid subscribers).

Walnut Chocolate Chip Spice Cake

Road food notes: Stays soft and fresh for 3-4 days • Individually wrapped slices travel well • No mixer required • Not too sweet • Soft and hearty crumb with nibbles of walnuts and chocolate in every bite

We had two solid days of rain last week, which is honestly one of my favorite things in the whole world. I love rainy days. They are all the excuse I need to get a pot of soup going and bake something sweet. And is there anything better than tucking into bed with a good book and the gentle patter of rain on the roof? Especially with a belly full of soup and cake?

I had started working on this recipe a few weeks earlier and decided the rainy weather was the perfect excuse to fine-tune its rough edges. I wanted a soft, tender cake with tiny pieces of walnuts scattered evenly throughout.

As a general rule, I am not a fan of large pieces of nuts in my baked goods. I’d rather keep my banana bread, brownies, and carrot cake nut-free, and if nuts are to be involved, I don’t want them to interfere with a soft crumb or creamy texture.

That said, I love nuts of all kinds. I’m just picky about using them in baked goods. So for this cake, I ground the walnuts in the food processor with a bit of sugar to help break them into small pieces without turning them into a paste.

The ground walnuts are scattered evenly throughout the loaf, their delicate little crunch adding some contrast to the soft cake.

After cutting the cake and wrapping the slices individually, I brought one to a friend who lifted it to her nose and took a deep breath. Mmmmm, it smells like fall, she said.

And that is what we want from any kind of spice cake, isn’t it? There is something about the smell of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves that announces the arrival of fall. Add to that the smell of butter, vanilla, walnuts, and chocolate, and you can practically hear the leaves crunching under your feet.

Ingredient notes

This cake uses a combination of cake flour and whole wheat flour. The whole wheat flour gives it a sturdy, hearty texture and intensifies the nutty flavor of the ground walnuts. The cake flour keeps it soft and tender.

Grinding up the walnuts and using mini chocolate chips give each bite a nutty, chocolaty crunch. So what we have here is a buttery spice cake that’s soft, tender, hearty, chocolaty, and nutty all at the same time.

A little bit of everything, that’s what this cake is. It feels good to have it all sometimes, doesn’t it?

Packing and serving tips

I like to cut the loaf into 6 to 8 slices and wrap each one individually in plastic wrap. The slices will keep well at room temperature for 3 or 4 days. They can also be frozen for up to 3 months. Pack individually wrapped slices into a ziptop bag or other airtight container before freezing. Remove the number of slices you need about four hours before you want to eat them to give the cake time to thaw.

By the way, having a few individually wrapped slices of loaf cake in the freezer is a very good thing. They are perfect for packing into sack lunches, picnic baskets, backpacks, or grabbing a slice you rush out the door.

This vanilla loaf cake is one of my favorite things to bake, slice, wrap, and freeze. The recipe includes several variations on the basic vanilla cake; choose from blueberry, chocolate chip, raspberry, or cinnamon swirl.

Another favorite is this lemon olive oil loaf cake .

More Road Food Recipes

Road Food: Good food that travels well

Whether you’re heading across the country, across the world, or simply across town, this series of recipes is made for life on the move. They’re easy to make, easy to pack, and taste just as good hours later as they do fresh from the kitchen. Perfect for road trips, picnics, hikes, airplanes, potlucks, packed lunches, busy weeknights, and anywhere else you need to go.

This series of recipes is exclusively for members of The Lost Supper Club (paid subscribers).

Middle Eastern Meatball Wraps

Road food notes: Packs easily • Stays warm for hours in an insulated container • Delicious hot or at room temperature • Delivers that well-fed feeling you get from a home cooked meal even when eaten from your car

These meatballs are spiced with cumin, coriander, paprika, cinnamon, and garlic, fried until crispy on the outside and tender and juicy on the inside, then smothered with a garlicky lemon yogurt sauce and wrapped up in a warm flour tortilla. This is the kind of simple, no-fuss, handheld meal that you can wrap up and take with you anywhere.

I’ve been sitting here trying to describe the kind of food that gives me that visceral, grounding feeling of being well fed.

This is not the same feeling as being full. Being full can be pleasant or very unpleasant, depending on the situation. This is also not the same feeling as just not being hungry. A bag of chips, while delicious, might curb my hunger but it does not make me feel well fed.

Many years ago, when I was pregnant with one of our children, I had a few weeks of particularly bad morning sickness coupled with the actual flu. One morning, I woke up feeling better, and Steve suggested we go out to eat. We went to a restaurant where I ordered roast chicken and mashed potatoes and it was, I am not exaggerating here, the best thing I’d ever eaten in my whole life.

Was it actually the world’s best roast chicken? Certainly not. But for me at that particular moment in my life, it was life itself. Nothing had ever tasted better or made me feel so completely nourished, from the tips of my toes to the satisfied smile on my face.

That’s the feeling I’m talking about here. The feeling of deep satisfaction that comes from a meal that really feeds you. It doesn’t have to be fancy. In fact, in my experience, the food that makes me feel the most nourished is quite simple and down-to-earth.

I still don’t feel like I know exactly how to describe it, but I know you know what I’m talking about.

That’s what these meatball wraps do for me. And honestly, that’s kind of the entire point of the Road Food series. Most of us live a significant amount of our lives on the go, whether we are traveling, or commuting, or driving kids to sports practice. We get hungry, and our modern world offers about a million ways to curb that hunger.

But how many of those options leave us feeling well fed?

These delicious meatball wraps will. The meatballs and the yogurt sauce are quick and easy to make. Warm up a few flour tortillas and fill each one with meatballs, piping hot straight from the pan. Roll the wrap in a double layer of aluminum foil and tuck it into an insulated container, if you have one. The wraps will stay warm for several hours.

Even if you don’t have an insulated container, the wraps will still stay warm for at least an hour. And, the meatballs do not have to be hot. They are just as delicious at room temperature.

If you’re packing these to go, I’d recommend packing the yogurt sauce separately. Open up your wrap and spoon some sauce over the meatballs or just dip the wrap in the sauce, bite by bite.

If you’re not taking these wraps to go, spoon the yogurt sauce over the top of the meatballs before wrapping them up.

One final word about the tortillas. I almost always make these homemade tortillas because they are superior in every way from the packaged variety, and the payoff far outweighs the minimal effort required to make them. So that’s what you see in these photos. But packaged flour tortillas, or any other kind or wrap, work perfectly well.

Packing and serving tips

To keep the wraps hot for a few hours, pack them in an insulated container. I have this one and I like it because it has two separate containers. This allows me to pack hot food in one container and cold food in the other. For these wraps, that means I can pack the wraps in one section and the yogurt sauce in the other.

I like to serve these with a simple salad made from diced tomatoes, cucumber, and onion tossed in nothing more than lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. I pile the salad into a container with a lid and tuck it into the “cold” compartment of my insulated container along with the yogurt sauce.

Three more great salad options: White Bean Pasta Salad, Israeli Salad, and Veggie and Couscous Salad. All three of these salads can be packed into single-serving size jars for easy serving.

And, if you’re the kind of person who likes something sweet at the end of a meal, you simply can’t go wrong with these Bourbon Vanilla Caramel Bars.

Food safety tips

For longer trips, keep the wraps hot in an insulated container that maintains a temperature of at least 140°F. Pack the yogurt sauce separately and keep it cold. The meatballs are also delicious at room temperature; just eat them within two hours without temperature control, or within one hour if it’s above 90°F.

More Road Food Recipes

Whether you’re heading across the country, across the world, or simply across town, this series of recipes is made for life on the move. They’re easy to make, easy to pack, and taste just as good hours later as they do fresh from the kitchen. Perfect for road trips, picnics, hikes, airplanes, potlucks, packed lunches, busy weeknights, and anywhere else you need to go.

This series of recipes is exclusively for members of The Lost Supper Club (paid subscribers).

Bourbon Vanilla Caramel Bars

Road food notes: Packs easily • Travels well when wrapped individually • Stays fresh for several days • Includes plenty of options for substitutions and additions

We are going to start this discussion with a bold statement: This recipe is exclusively for paid subscribers and, my friends, if it’s all you get for your $35, it alone would be worth the price of admission.

Like I said, bold statement. But I stand by it.

Here’s what we’ve got going on here: Salty, sweet, bourbon and vanilla flavored shortbread bars, dripping with caramel and covered in bourbon glazed pecans, toasted coconut, and chocolate chips.

They are seriously seductive, so you might want to be careful who you share them with. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This series is about food that travels well, and whether we’re talking road trips or packed lunches, I think there’s value in a bit of decadence interspersed among the healthier options. You might have packed white bean pasta salad or paprika chicken for lunch, but you’ve got bourbon vanilla caramel bars for dessert.

Everything in moderation, including moderation.

These cookie bars were inspired by a bag of bourbon vanilla trail mix I purchased for a recent sailing trip. The flavor combo was delightful and I immediately typed out a few notes on my phone for how I might replicate the idea in some kind of cookie. This recipe is the result.

At first glance, these cookie bars might strike you as unnecessarily complicated when you could satisfy your sweet tooth with a candy bar from the gas station.

But I have two very good responses to that objection: These cookie bars will be done and cooling on your counter within about an hour. And, once you make them, you’ll never think of a candy bar as a reasonable alternative again.

And look, I love myself a Twix from time to time. But, if I have the option, I’ll take one of these cookie bars every single time.

Recipe notes:

• These bars rely on a very simple shortbread base. Simply stir the ingredients together in a bowl, press the dough into a square baking dish, and pop it in the oven to bake.

• While the shortbread bakes, make the caramel. Making this bourbon and vanilla flavored caramel requires nothing more than dumping ingredients into a saucepan and heating it to 250°F (121°C). The process is super easy, but it is important to have a candy thermometer so you know when it’s reached the right temperature.

• Pour the caramel over the shortbread and top it with bourbon glazed pecans, toasted coconut, and mini chocolate chips.

• To take them with you: Cut the bars into squares and wrap each square individually. Well wrapped, the bars will keep for at least 5 days. You can also freeze these bars for up to 3 months.

Easy packing tips

Lining the pan with foil keeps the caramel from sticking to the pan and if you cut a large enough strip to overhang two of the pan’s edges, it makes removing the entire slab a piece of cake. :-)

Make three evenly spaced cuts in one direction, then three evenly spaced cuts perpendicular to them to make 16 bars.

Wrapped individually, these bars will keep well for at least 5 days at room temperature. Or, freeze for up to 3 months.

Additions and Substitutions

All of the topping ingredients for these bars can be swapped out with something different if you prefer.

• Use almonds, walnuts, or peanuts instead of or in addition to the pecans. You could even swap the nuts with pumpkin seeds.

• Lean in hard to the trail-mix vibe these bars were based on and add some dried cherries or dried cranberries to the topping ingredients.

• Omit any of the topping ingredients: Leave out the bourbon glazed pecans for a nut-free version. Leave out the coconut if it’s not to your liking. Same with the chocolate. If you want more nuts, or chocolate, or coconut, add as much as you like.

• If you’re not a fan of bourbon, a great substitution is rum. Or, leave the liquor out entirely. The glazed pecans and the caramel can be made as instructed with or without the bourbon.

Other Road Food Recipes

Whether you’re heading across the country, across the world, or simply across town, this series of recipes is made for life on the move. They’re easy to make, easy to pack, and taste just as good hours later as they do fresh from the kitchen. Perfect for road trips, picnics, hikes, airplanes, potlucks, packed lunches, busy weeknights, and anywhere else you need to go.

This series of recipes is exclusively for members of The Lost Supper Club (paid subscribers).

One of the things I’ve been doing for years on travel days, when we are moving from one campground to another, is packing hearty salads into jars and tucking them into the cooler. This allows us to eat lunch inside the truck, usually at a truck stop, with everything contained neatly within our individual jars.

Since adding a sailboat to our modes of transportation, I’ve learned that lunch in a jar is also the perfect meal while sailing. But honestly, this is the kind of salad that travels well in almost any situation—packed lunches, hikes, picnics, beach days… you get the picture.

It doesn’t, of course, have to be packed into jars. A few weeks ago, I brought a bowl of this salad to a potluck with friends. It’s the kind of easy salad that can be prepared in advance, tossed together quickly, and goes well with anything.

This is also the kind of recipe in which every single ingredient should be taken as a suggestion, not a rule. Add anything you like—additional vegetables, herbs, or pickled things like banana peppers. Swap anything you don’t particularly like for something you do. And add more or less of anything to your heart’s content.

When Steve and I eat this for lunch as a main dish, I usually add some protein. Tuna, rotisserie chicken, and hard-boiled eggs are my go-to choices. But if you want to keep it plant-based, add some nuts and seeds or simply increase the ratio of beans to pasta.

One final note about the pasta: For the photos you see here, I used trafilata al bronzo, a type of small pasta that was gifted to me by a friend who lives in Italy. It was delicious, but any kind of small pasta will do, such as orzo, farfalline, ditali, or macaroni. You could also use rotini or small pasta shells.

Four more salads that travel well

1. Pearl Couscous Salad: This healthy, vibrant pasta salad is made with pearl couscous (toasted Israeli-style pasta), whatever fresh herbs and vegetables you like, and dressed simply with lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil. The salad keeps well for days and can be packed into mason jars for the perfect packed lunch or camping meal.

2. Kale and Broccoli Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette: This salad is crunchy, chewy, salty, sweet, and loaded with flavor and texture in every bite.

   Tossed with farro, parmesan, dried figs, peanuts, and cherries, it’s a hearty salad that manages to feels both wholesome and indulgent. Make it for lunch, pack it for a picnic, or serve it with any kind of grilled or roasted meat, poultry, or seafood. This is the kind of salad that plays nice with everything.

3. Israeli Salad with Pomegranate Vinaigrette: This Middle Eastern salad recipe is low in calories, vegan, dairy-free, and gluten-free, making it the perfect option for dietary restrictions and anyone interested in clean, plant-based meals. But don't let its health benefits fool you. Israeli Salad is also bursting with flavor and easy to prepare. So whether you're looking for a quick lunchtime bite or a tasty side dish for dinner tonight, this salad has got you covered.

4. Sesame Chicken Salad with Tahini Dressing: This sesame chicken salad is one of our favorite travel-day and lake-day meals. I pack it into mason jars that I place inside a small cooler and it makes a delicious high-protein lunch on days when we’re driving around the country from one campground to the next and want to save ourselves from truck stop food.

Whether you’re heading across the country, across the world, or simply across town, this series of recipes is made for life on the move. They’re easy to make, easy to pack, and taste just as good hours later as they do fresh from the kitchen. Perfect for road trips, picnics, hikes, airplanes, potlucks, packed lunches, busy weeknights, and anywhere else you need to go.

This series of recipes is exclusively for members of The Lost Supper Club (paid subscribers).

Blueberry Pie Bars

For the past several weeks, I’ve brought a giant box of blueberries home from my weekly trips to the local farmers market here in Michigan. I pour them by the cupful into our oatmeal and over bowls of Greek yogurt. And I bake them into all my favorite blueberry recipes, which now include these blueberry pie bars.

I “road tested” these bars on the sailboat last weekend and am happy to report that, when wrapped individually, they gave us something to snack on from Friday through Sunday. They’ll keep perfectly well at room temperature (or boat temperature) for several days.

These are perfect for picnics, lunch boxes, hikes, beach days, camping trips, and maybe especially on days spent running from one thing to the next when a sweet, portable treat is just the reward you need for being a grown up and doing all the grown up things.

Individually wrapped, these will keep well in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Recipe Notes

You can use a 21-ounce can or jar of prepared blueberry pie filling to make these bars, or make the filling yourself.

In the bars you see here, I used my favorite homemade blueberry pie filling. You’ll need about 2 1/4 cups of filling, which just happens to be exactly half of one full blueberry pie recipe. To make the exact amount you’ll need for these bars, just cut the recipe in half.

Or, make a full recipe and use the rest of the filling to make something else. For example, when I made the bars you see pictured here, I used the other half to make two mini blueberry pies!

I found these disposable 5-inch pie plates, lined two of them with my favorite foolproof pie crust, divided the remaining 2 1/4 cups of blueberry pie filling between them, added a top crust, and that night, Steve and I each got a little blueberry pie all to ourselves.

You can also use the remaining blueberry pie filling to make a batch of these Blueberry Pie Cookies with Granola! Last year I taught a class on how to make these cookies and you can watch the replay here.

Extra blueberry pie filling will also freeze well, so you could just pop the remaining filling in the freezer for the next time you want to make a batch of blueberry pie bars!

Whether you’re heading across the country, across the world, or simply across town, this series of recipes is made for life on the move. They’re easy to make, easy to pack, and taste just as good hours later as they do fresh from the kitchen. Perfect for road trips, picnics, hikes, airplanes, potlucks, packed lunches, busy weeknights, and anywhere else you need to go.

This series of recipes is exclusively for members of The Lost Supper Club (paid subscribers).

This roasted eggplant dip is smoky, garlicky, just a little bit spicy, and exactly the kind of thing I want to eat with pita chips or warm buttered naan—and maybe a stash of cut vegetables and a handful of roasted nuts.

It’s a lose interpretation of baba ganoush - similar, for sure, but straying too far from the traditional for me to actually call it that. Still, if you like baba ganoush, I feel quite confident that you’ll like this recipe.

Also, I’d like to mention that my husband does not care for eggplant but loves this dip. I mean, LOVES it. So, if you have a similar aversion to eggplant, that doesn’t mean you won’t like it when it’s roasted and pureed with chili and garlic.

To make the dip, start by roasting eggplant at very high heat until the surface is charred and the flesh is meltingly tender. Scoop all that roasted goodness into a food processor…

And blend it up with some toasted garlic and spices, plus a bit of tahini and lemon juice. That’s it!

The result is a gorgeously silky dip that’s layered with smoke and spice, and just enough acidity to balance everything out. This dip keeps well in the refrigerator for up to 4 days and in a cooler for as long as your cooler keeps things cool.

It’s also safe to leave at room temperature for up to two hours—or one hour if the temperature is above 90°F. Pack it with naan, pita, crackers, or sliced vegetables for road trips, picnics, potlucks, packed lunches, and anywhere else a very good snack might improve the entire situation.

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Whether you’re heading across the country, across the world, or simply across town, this series of recipes is made for life on the move. They’re easy to make, easy to pack, and taste just as good hours later as they do fresh from the kitchen. Perfect for road trips, picnics, hikes, airplanes, potlucks, packed lunches, busy weeknights, and anywhere else you need to go.

This series of recipes is exclusively for members of The Lost Supper Club (paid subscribers).

This dip takes less than 15 minutes to prepare, will keep in the refrigerator for days, and in a cooler for many hours.

I was the host of the July CookStack Collective class and one of the things we made was hummus. I’ve always made hummus with a drizzle of ice-cold water. The water is like a magic trick, helping the oil and fat emulsify into a creamy, dreamy consistency.

During the class, several people said they toss an ice cube into the food processor instead. One of the people cooking along was having trouble getting her hummus to a creamy consistency, so she tried the ice cube trick. After a while, she happily reported that the ice cube had done the job and her hummus was gorgeously creamy. So there you have it.

I’ve used the same trick in this recipe. It might seem strange to toss an ice cube into your food processor along with a can of beans and some spices. But the freezing temperature of the ice cube helps the fat and oil emulsify and, as it melts, it incorporates tiny pockets of air into the dip. The result is a light, ultra-smooth and creamy texture.

This dip is the kind of thing you could take anywhere.

It’s snack food that could easily be the whole meal. Because it’s made from beans, it’s high in fiber and protein, plus all the other good stuff that beans contain.

Also, there’s no mayonnaise or sour cream in this recipe, so it’s a little more forgiving when it comes to sitting out for a while.

Toss in a bag of tortilla chips, some pita bread, crackers, or veggie sticks. What more could you need?

Okay… As I typed that, I thought of what else I needed. Cheese. Any kind, but this marinated feta has many of the same flavors and would pair beautifully with this dip. Also, I’d like some roasted nuts and some dried fruit. Please and thank you.

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Whether you’re heading across the country, across the world, or simply across town, this series of recipes is made for life on the move. They’re easy to make, easy to pack, and taste just as good hours later as they do fresh from the kitchen. Perfect for road trips, picnics, hikes, airplanes, potlucks, packed lunches, busy weeknights, and anywhere else you need to go.

This series of recipes is exclusively for members of The Lost Supper Club (paid subscribers).

The Let’s Get Lost Newsletter is available to everyone, for free. This is only possible because of the generous support of paid subscribers. As a thank you, Lost Supper Club Members have access to exclusive content and some cool free stuff including three free cookbooks, access to The CookStack Collective, and this series of Road Food Recipes.

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I have been making versions of this recipe for many years. I’ve used bone-in and boneless chicken, thighs, breasts, legs, and wings, grilled and baked, served hot, at room temperature, or even cold, spooned over rice or onto a sandwich, sometimes with yogurt sauce, or with a dipping sauce like ranch or Caesar dressing.

In 2019, Steve and I rode from Colorado to Alaska on a motorcycle, then we rode all over Alaska in the week we had to spend there before turning the bike towards home. One day we found ourselves in Valdez and were so awestruck by the beauty we found there that we didn’t want to leave. Valdez is a small town and this was the middle of July, so there wasn’t an empty motel room to be found. But we desperately wanted to stay for at least one more night, so we kept searching and found a tiny house for rent on Airbnb.

At the time, living our lives in an RV or on a sailboat was not on our radar, so the novelty of a truly tiny space was great fun. We’d been on the road for a couple of weeks by then and I decided that what I really wanted to do was make dinner in that tiny kitchen that we could eat outside, on the little porch, next to the gurgling stream that ran through the property.

So, we went to the local grocery store and piled ingredients for the night’s meal into the back of the bike. What did I make? Paprika chicken. I don’t remember what I served with it, I just remember it being the most obvious choice: just a small handful of ingredients, one pan, and a home-cooked meal I knew we’d love.

Now that we live our entire lives on the road, I’ve come up with ways to make our old favorites more travel-friendly. That’s what this recipe is.

This recipe requires about 5 minutes of prep time and can be served hot, at room temperature, or cold. It’s one of my favorite things to take on travel days, boat days, or picnics. Pack it in to-go containers, pile them into a cooler, and off you go.

This also makes an excellent packed lunch. If you're shuttling kids to sports practices, dance lessons, or other extracurricular activities, it's an easy way to feed yourself, and everyone else in the car, a high-protein, home-cooked dinner with less effort than a trip through the drive-through.

If you want some veggies to go with your protein, cut up raw veggies or a simple tossed salad are both great options. I also sometimes like to boil veggies just until they are crisp-tender in heavily salted water or really flavorful broth. Drain the veggies, let them cool, and then pack them in their own to-go container. If you’ve salted the water well enough, or if the broth contains enough seasoning, they won’t need any additional seasoning.

And slices of loaf cake are standard around here for any kind of packed lunch. I do my best to keep a few individually wrapped slices in the freezer. Thanks to a recent trip to the local farmer’s market, we have more blueberries than we know what to do with, so we now also have slices of blueberry loaf cake in the freezer. There are certainly worse things.

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Whether you’re heading across the country, across the world, or simply across town, this series of recipes is made for life on the move. They’re easy to make, easy to pack, and taste just as good hours later as they do fresh from the kitchen. Perfect for road trips, picnics, hikes, airplanes, potlucks, packed lunches, busy weeknights, and anywhere else you need to go.

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White Bean Tuna Salad

Road food notes: No cook • Packs easily • No reheating required • Pantry-friendly • Cooler-friendly

This bright, protein-packed salad is tossed in a simple lemon-Dijon vinaigrette and loaded with crisp scallions, creamy white beans, flaky tuna, and your favorite briny vegetables. It’s endlessly adaptable, requires no cooking, and is perfect for meal prep, road trips, picnics, or easy lunches on the go.

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