Back Country Cuisine Nasi Goreng Review

Overview

Back Country Cuisine is a New Zealand-made freeze-dried meal brand that’s a staple on trails throughout NZ and Australia. The Nasi Goreng is their gluten-free take on the classic Indonesian fried rice dish — brown rice, pumpkin seeds, vegetables, and diced egg in a mild Asian-style sauce. It’s aimed at hikers who want a quick, no-fuss dinner and don’t mind a milder flavor profile than you’d get from the Southeast Asian dish itself.

Key Specs

Spec	Detail
Brand	Back Country Cuisine
Sizes available	Small (90g) / Regular (175g)
Water required	188ml (Small) / 375ml (Regular)
Prepared serving size	278g (Small) / 550g (Regular)
Prep time	10–15 minutes
Diet	Vegetarian, Gluten-free
Shelf life	4 years
Country of manufacture	New Zealand
Calories (Small)	~366 Cal / 1530 kJ
Protein (Small)	11.8g

Performance

The mechanics of this meal are straightforward and well thought out. You add boiling water — 188ml for the small pouch — stir, and wait 10 to 15 minutes. One nice touch retailers mention repeatedly: the pouch has a lower tear tab so once the meal has been reconstituted you can tear the lower perforation and use the pouch as a bowl. That’s a small detail, but on trail it means one less thing to pack and one less thing to wash.

Rehydration itself isn’t the issue — it’s the flavor, and that’s where reviews get split. On the positive end, one reviewer called it “a good version of Nasi Goreng and a nice meal after a long day hiking,” with “lots of flavour and pleasant enough to eat for a freeze-dried meal.” An Australian Hiker reviewer landed in the middle, saying they “didn’t dislike this meal nor would I rave about it either,” noting there were “too many other excellent options from Back Country” they preferred.

But several verified buyer reviews on the official Back Country Cuisine site are considerably harsher. One customer described it as having “no flavour” at all, saying “I actually couldnt be bothered eating this.” Another went further, calling it flavorless and joking that “if this was my emergency meal and I was stuck in the bush an extra 3 days I still think I would end up throwing this away uneaten,” adding the group “could only laugh at how sad a meal it made,” and speculating the pouch might be “defective and missing a spice sachet.” That same reviewer was clear that this was an outlier in the range, noting “all the other Back Country variations were pretty good, but out of the 10 or so we tried this was by far the worst.” That’s a meaningful signal — it suggests the Nasi Goreng specifically underperforms relative to the rest of the Back Country Cuisine lineup, rather than the brand as a whole having a flavor problem.

On the nutrition side, the small serve comes in at roughly 366 calories with 11.8g of protein and 8.8g of fat — perfectly serviceable as a dinner, though not calorie-dense enough on its own to be your sole fuel source for a big mileage day. The regular size doubles the water and roughly doubles the nutrition, which is the better bet if you’re hiking hard rather than car camping. Shelf life is a genuine strength here: a four year best before date means you can stock up when on sale without worrying about it going stale in your pantry before your next trip.

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Genuinely lightweight — the pouch itself is a fraction of the finished meal’s weight, per the brand’s own claim that the pouch weighs one third of the meal it makes
• Convenient tear-tab pouch doubles as a bowl, cutting down on dishes
• Gluten-free and vegetarian, which broadens who in your hiking group can actually eat it
• Four-year shelf life makes it easy to stockpile for emergency kits or infrequent trips
• Quick 10–15 minute prep, no cooking gear beyond boiling water required

Cons:

• Flavor is inconsistent across reviews — ranges from “pleasant” to “no flavour at all,” which is a real gamble if you’re buying blind
• Multiple reviewers rank it as the weakest option in the Back Country Cuisine range
• Only available for purchase within New Zealand from the official site, due to export restrictions, per the retailer note that these foods are for sale within New Zealand ONLY due to issues when exporting foods — Australian buyers need to go through NZ- or Australia-specific retailers instead
• Not calorie-dense enough in the small size to serve as a standalone big-mileage dinner

Who Should Buy This

This is a reasonable pick for casual trampers, car campers, or anyone building a gluten-free/vegetarian emergency food stash who values convenience and shelf life over bold flavor. If you’re doing serious ultralight thru-hiking and rely on dinner as a psychological high point of the day, the mixed flavor reports are worth taking seriously — you might want to test a single small pouch at home before committing to a resupply box full of them.

Verdict

The Nasi Goreng nails the practical side of freeze-dried meals — light, fast, gluten-free, and shelf-stable for years — but the flavor reviews are genuinely split, with more than one buyer calling it the weakest meal in Back Country Cuisine’s otherwise well-regarded lineup. I’d rate it a 5.5/10: worth trying once before you buy in bulk, and if it doesn’t land for you, the rest of the brand’s catalog is reportedly a safer bet.