Whether you’re a mountaineer or an ultralight fastpacker, saving space in your pack is critical. Packing your gear as efficiently as possible also keeps it organized and easy to find. One of the best places to look for space-saving opportunities is your backpacking cookware. As empty space, pots can store all sorts of gear inside like stoves, utensils, mugs and more. Here, we break down how to look at your cookware as a packing system and outline some of the popular MSR stove and pot nesting combinations.

Think Nesting

So, you have a backpack and a mountain of gear that, somehow, needs to fit into it. Consolidation is key—nesting smaller items inside larger ones reduces your overall gear volume. With a tighter gear system, you’ll eliminate excessive danglers on the outside of your pack. It also means you can opt for a smaller (and therefore lighter) pack if you desire.

Pots are an obvious choice to store things in (they’re meant to hold stuff after all). If they fit, packing your stove and fuel canister inside is entirely logical. This keeps your cooking gear together and makes setting up your camp kitchen fast. If there’s room, you can add your lighter, utensils, food, coffee/tea, mug, etc. Our DeepDish™ Plates and Bowls match perfectly with pots of the same diameter, saving a ton of space, and they'll also help protect your pots and pans from whatever you put inside. 

Large pots offer endless stowing possibilities: clean socks, towels, bear bag, etc. Stuffed full, this modular compartment (now one of your heavier items) is ideal for placing at the mid-bottom of your pack—where heavier stuff goes.

To protect your nested gear, wrap any sharp edges, like stove legs, in a camp towel. This also helps reduce rattle while you’re walking down the trail.

Embrace Folding and Multipurpose Gear

Besides being packed efficiently, gear can also be designed for efficiency. Cooking gear that folds down for packing but expands for full functionality, such as a folding cutting board, saves space without sacrificing your culinary experience.

Any gear that earns its way into your pack should generally have more than one purpose. For example, MSR’s Alpine Utensils are ultralight, fold down and each offers multiple tools in one, like a spatula with a built-in cheese grater or a ladle with graduation measurements.

The more functionality each piece of gear offers, the fewer items you have to bring.

A pot is no exception. If you’re paring down, your pot can double as a bowl and/or a mug. Some MSR pots, such as the Titan™ Cup, Trail Mini™ Solo Pot, and WindBurner® Personal Pot, were designed to be both cooking and eating vessels.

Finally, even the shape of your pot can eke out space savings. Pots that feature a taller, narrower profile like MSR’s Trail Lite™ 2 Liter Pot, rather than short, stout shapes, slip easier into smaller packs.

Nesting cook set or individual pieces?

Whether you opt for a pre-assembled cook set or piece together your own kit à la carte depends on your priorities.

On one hand, engineered cook sets do a lot of packing calculation for you—you know it’s all going to fit together. If you need plates, mugs and more, cook sets make easy purchase decisions. They also offer grab-and-go convenience during the midnight packing frenzy before a trip. Furhter, you now have a solid base of supplies that you can customize, leaving behind things you don't need for smaller groups or ultralight objectives. 

Stove kits, which feature a stove in addition to cookware, take this convenience one step further, covering all of your camp kitchen needs in one nesting bundle.

On the other hand, piecing together your own cook kit allows you to customize it based on your weight preferences and cooking goals. Here, choosing compact, efficiently engineered gear matters. Adventurers moving fast and light likely prefer this approach, forgoing the luxury of plates and mugs for hyperlight pairings, like a titanium cup and the featherweight PocketRocket® 2 stove.

As you shop for backpacking cookware, pay attention not only to its materials but to the nesting and packing opportunities it provides.

Popular MSR stoves and pots that fit together

Diehard minimalists relying on the tiniest stove and pot possible and backpackers seeking larger systems alike must conserve space in their packs. To help you pair your stove with the right pot for nesting, here’s a look at popular MSR stove-pot combinations.

Titanium Cookware	Stove Pairings
Titan Cup 450ml	PocketRocket® 2	PocketRocket® Deluxe
Titan Kettle 900ml	PocketRocket®	PocketRocket® 2	PocketRocket® Deluxe
Titan Kettle 1400ml	PocketRocket®	PocketRocket® 2	PocketRocket® Deluxe	WindPro™ II
Titan™ 2-Pot Set	PocketRocket®	PocketRocket® 2	PocketRocket® Deluxe

 

Aluminum Cookware & Compatible MSR Stoves

Aluminum Cookware	Stove Pairings
Pika™ Teapot	PocketRocket®	PocketRocket® 2	PocketRocket® Deluxe
Trail Mini™ Solo	PocketRocket® 2
Trail Mini™ Duo	PocketRocket®	PocketRocket® 2	PocketRocket® Deluxe
Trail Lite™ 1.3 L	PocketRocket®	PocketRocket® 2	PocketRocket® Deluxe
Trail Lite™ 2 L	PocketRocket®	PocketRocket® 2	PocketRocket® Deluxe	WindPro™ II

 

Ceramic Cookware & Compatible MSR Stoves

Ceramic Cookware	Stove Pairings
Ceramic Solo Pot	PocketRocket®	PocketRocket® 2	PocketRocket® Deluxe
Ceramic 2.5 L	PocketRocket®	PocketRocket® 2	PocketRocket® Deluxe	WindPro™ II	Liquid Fuel Stoves

 

Stainless Steel Cookware & Compatible MSR Stoves

Stainless Steel Cookware	Stove Pairings
Alpine™ 4 Pot Set	PocketRocket®	PocketRocket® 2	PocketRocket® Deluxe
Alpine™ 2 Pot Set	PocketRocket®	PocketRocket® 2	PocketRocket® Deluxe
Alpine™ Stowaway 475 mL	PocketRocket®	PocketRocket® 2	PocketRocket® Deluxe
Alpine™ Stowaway 775 mL	PocketRocket®	PocketRocket® 2	PocketRocket® Deluxe
Alpine™ Stowaway 1.1 L	PocketRocket®	PocketRocket® 2	PocketRocket® Deluxe
Alpine™ Stowaway 1.6 L	PocketRocket®	PocketRocket® 2	PocketRocket® Deluxe

Which fuel canister fits inside my MSR pot?

Stowing your fuel canister inside your pot is nesting goal number two. All MSR pots—with the exception of the Titan Cup and the Pika™ Teapot—are designed to nest either a 4-ounce or 8-ounce fuel canister. Here are the pots that fit each.

All of these will fit at least a PocketRocket 2 stove along with the fuel. Those that fit an 8-ounce canister will also fit the 4-ounce.

Fuel Canister Size	MSR Cookware
4-oz. Fuel Canister	Titan Kettle Titan 2-Pot Set Trail Mini Solo Trail Lite 1.3 L Ceramic Solo Ceramic 2 Pot Set Alpine 4-Pot Set Alpine 2-Pot Set WindBurner Personal 1.0 L Reactor 1.0 L Alpine Stowaway 475 mL Pots Alpine Stowaway 775 mL Pots Alpine Stowaway 1.1 L Pots Alpine Stowaway 1.6 L Pots
8-oz. Fuel Canister	Big Titan Kettle Trail Mini Duo Trail Lite 2 L Ceramic 2.5 L WindBurner Duo 1.8 L WindBurner Sauce Pot Reactor 1.7 L Reactor 2.5 L Alpine Stowaway 1.6 L Pots

As you’re choosing your canister sizes, it’s important to know how large of a canister you can use with a certain stove if that stove is particularly small or tall. Here are the two we get asked about most:

Largest fuel canister for PocketRocket stove models:

Never use fuel containers larger than 8 ounces (227 grams) or more than 4 inches (~10 centimeters) in height without an MSR Universal Canister Stand or a Low-Down™ Remote Stove Adapter. Never use fuel containers larger than 16 ounces (450 grams).

Largest fuel canister for WindBurner Personal stove (top-mounting design):

Never use fuel canisters that weigh more than 8 ounces (227 grams) and never use canisters more than 4 inches (~10 cm) high. Use an MSR canister stand or a Low-Down Adapter with canisters less than 4 inches (~10 centimeters) in diameter.

Where does the skillet go?

We’ve talked cook sets and stove-pot combos, but what about the more elaborate tools of the backcountry chef? Nesting a skillet onto the bottom of your pot allows you to carry it into the wilderness without much of a packing penalty. Here are the sets our two skillets nest with:

Skillet	Cook Set Pairings
Ceramic Skillet	Flex™ 3 Cook Set	Ceramic 2.5 L	Ceramic 2 Pot Set	Alpinist™ 2 Cook Set	Quick™ 2 Cook Set
Quick Skillet	Ceramic 2.5 L	Ceramic 2 Pot Set	Alpinist™ 2 Cook Set	Quick™ 2 Cook Set

A note on backpacking cookware material

Choosing a cook set can be a little overwhelming. The easiest place to begin is by considering your weight and cooking goals. Some materials are lighter, while others conduct heat better. Your weight and cooking priorities will help you determine the cookware material you choose.

Consider a stove system for hyper-efficiency

Stove systems, like MSR’s Reactor® and WindBurner® systems, take efficiency to a whole new level. These units feature a specialized stove and pot with an integrated heat exchanger that work together to deliver incredibly efficient heat transfer, largely unhindered by wind.  This means they boil water faster, with less fuel, and in a broader range of adverse conditions that any stand-alone stove could even come close to. In fact, the Reactor is still the fastest in the backcountry, boiling a half-liter of water in just 1.5 minutes. In addition, all components–and a fuel canister–nest inside the pot.

Stove systems were once considered purely water-boilers, but our expanded WindBurner collection now features a compatible skillet, saucepot and stockpot—which all nest together. In addition, the remote-burner stove design that comes with WindBurner’s larger pots even nests inside the smallest 1.0L Personal Pot.

On top of that, we now offer the Switch Stove System. while not as fast as dedicated stove systems, it takes the middle road between hyper-efficiency and convenience, allowing you to use a dedicated pot with a heat exchanger over a more conventional canister stove for maximum efficiency, or to swing out traditional pot supports for use with conventional, flat-bottomed cookware.

Other tips for packing efficiency

Stowing things in your pots is a no-brainer for condensing your gear load. Another way to keep things organized and achieve the perfect gear Tetris is to use stuff sacks and zippered pouches. Stuff sacks help you literally shrink the size of soft items like clothing, and allow you to minimize loose items floating in your pack.

This stuff sack-packing philosophy is great when you have a large, cavernous pack.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, tiny bike touring panniers and tailored bikepacking bags are so small, you’ll actually want to shove each piece of gear in individually. That way, you can fill every nook and cranny possible. Even your sleeping bag should be smooshed in sans stuff sack.

Regardless of your pack of choice—giant mountaineering rucksack or tiny bikepacking frame bag—your cookware should swallow up at least a few items. No point in wasting any of that oh-so-precious space.

Now, where did you put that lighter?

Read on:

• Keeping it Clean: Backcountry Dishwashing Etiquette
• Cookware Materials 101: Titanium vs. Aluminum vs. Stainless Steel
• Building Your Backcountry Kitchen: Stove & Cookware Pairings

Updated. Originally Published August 21, 2019.