In our quest to find more brands in the emerging outdoor meal industry, I came across Beyond Outdoor Meals. The company is Utah-based, and with a short time of research, I was able to find out they are part of a bigger group. Can I prove that? No. But it’s pretty darn obvious when one shares the same address with Emergency Essentials, My Patriot Supply, and Patriot Seeds. The website for Beyond Outdoor Meals doesn’t have an About page. It does fit well, though, with Emergency Essentials, which has been around for a long time. They now have a line of ready-to-make meals for camping, hiking, emergency use, and such. So again, I cannot prove it, but considering they are listed on EE’s website….
So, before we went into it too heavily, I ordered one meal on Amazon to see how they were. Beyond’s website has free shipping for orders over $50. My Amazon order took 23 days to arrive. Looking today, they are on Prime and would be here in 2 days, so I have to think they were between being stocked. I wasn’t in a rush, so it worked for me. The price on Amazon was $14.95 with Prime free shipping, so it was cheaper than buying directly from Beyond directly.
They have six dinners and two breakfasts to choose from. We decided to try out the Orange Chicken. It was the only rice-based meal out of the 6; the rest are pasta-based.
The Review:
The price was $14.95 (on Beyond’s website and on Amazon). For serving size, it is considered a two-person meal. The meals claim a 10-year shelf life; our bag was manufactured in May 2024.
Ingredients:
Orange Chicken Sauce [Chicken, Brown Sugar, Broccoli, Onion, Red Bell Pepper, Carrots, Distilled White Vinegar, Lemon Juice (lemon juice from concentrate (water, concentrated lemon juice) and less than 2% of sodium benzoate, sodium metabisulfite, and sodium sulfite, lemon oil), Orange Juice (filtered water, orange juice concentrate, ascorbic acid (vitamin C)), Gluten-Free Soy Sauce (water, soybeans, salt, sugar), Vegetable Oil (canola or corn), Orange Zest (chopped orange peels, cane sugar, natural orange flavor), Corn Starch, Ginger (ginger, phosphoric acid, sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate), Garlic, Red Pepper Flakes], White Rice
Nutritional Stats (for the whole bag)
710 calories / 16 grams fat / 860 mg sodium / 36 total/30 grams of added sugar (eek!) / 4 grams fiber / 41 grams protein
Dry ingredients in the mylar pouch. The meat and vegetables were full-size chunks, not flakes.
Instructions call for 1¼ cups boiled water and a 10-minute sit time.
The meal’s aroma, both in a dried and rehydrated state, is pleasant. The meal’s flavor is neither strong nor sweet (even with all the added sugar), and it isn’t overly salty either. I might have preferred more flavor depth, but that is me.
It’s not the best meal ever, but neither is it bad. It’s in the middle. For people who like average American-style food, they will like it. It rehydrated perfectly, doesn’t use much water to prepare, isn’t super high in sodium, and is filling. I felt it was a one person meal, not two people.
My takeaway is the meal was a more gourmet version of Mountain House. It’s not overly fancy but edible and enjoyable.
~Sarah
FTC Disclaimer:
We purchased the product used in this review. All thoughts are ours.