This is to make a comprehensive guide to the casual or inexperienced Russian IRP buyer in order to make them properly understand how the menus are outlined, which ones are recommended, and how the food is to be consumed. As well as my personal review about each food component.
Russian ration menu variation:
Menu 1: Compressed Rice with Chicken and Vegetables / Beef Toshunka / Beef with Green Peas and Carrots
Liver Pâté / Smooth Pâté
Vegetable Caviar
Menu 2: Buckwheat Kasha with Beef / Beef Meatballs / Potato Goulash with Beef
Smooth Pâté / Sausage Luncheon Meat
Vegetable Ragù
Menu 3: Compressed Rice with Beef / Fatty Beef Patties / Beef with Beans and Vegetables
Liver Pâté / Fatty Sausage Luncheon Meat
Vegetable Caviar
Menu 4: Buckwheat Kasha with Beef / Beef Goulash with Tomato / Beef with Green Peas and Carrots
Liver Pâté / Smooth Pâté
Vegetable Ragù
Menu 5: Compressed Rice with Chicken and Vegetables / Beef Toshunka / Potato Goulash with Beef
Smooth Pâté / Sausage Luncheon Meat
Vegetable Caviar
Menu 6: Buckwheat Kasha with Beef / Beef Meatballs / Beef with Beans and Vegetables
Liver Pâté / Fatty Sausage Luncheon Meat
Vegetable Ragù
Menu 7: Compressed Rice with Beef / Fatty Beef Patties / Beef with Green Peas and Carrots
Liver Pâté / Smooth Pâté
Vegetable Caviar
Standard food for all meals:
Pack of 8 Plain Hardtack Biscuits (x2)
Pack of 8 Rough Hardtack Biscuits (x2)
Canned Fat spread with Salty Bacon
Canned Cheese
Apple Jam
Canned Sour Applesauce
Dark Chocolate bar
Pack of 10 chewing gums
Fruit or Berry drink concentrate (x3)
Black Tea bag (x2)
Soluble Instant Coffee (1x)
20 grams Sugar sachet (x3)
2 grams Dry Creamer sachet (1x)
5 grams Salt sachet (x1)
1 gram Pepper sachet (x1)
Standard accessories for all meals:
Multivitamin pill (x1)
Water Purification Tablet (x3)
Portable Stove with 3 Fuel Tablets
6 All-weather matches with striker.
Hand disinfectant wipe (x3)
Paper napkins (x3)
Plastic Spoon (x3)
Plastic Knife (x1)
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Calorie content
Menu 1: 4828 Calories
Menu 2: 4750 Calories
Menu 3: 4812 Calories
Menu 4: 4755 Calories
Menu 5: 4864 Calories
Menu 6: 4806 Calories
Menu 7: 4721 Calories
Note on Russian entrees: The Russian breakfast meal is usually very filling, Buckwheat Kasha and Rice type stuff with a greasy/oily flavour. The lunch items tend to be high in fat content and involve a lot of meat. The dinner items are the most light meals in calories and would be the most normal-tasting food for the Western palate, usually being a bit of lean meat and a fair chunk of vegetables in a lighter sauce.
Note on packaging: The Russian MRE packaging leaves a lot to be desired. While the food tends to hold for a long time as long as the seals are intact, often there would be a spread or main that was discovered to be compromised due to a tear in the item itself or the cover. This has to do with the fact that the components are fragile and vulnerable to being squeezed in the box. The items moving around and banging into each other as they are placed loosely in the box is another problem.
The biscuits are sometimes in pieces but mostly they are fine because of their hardness.
Note on amount of food: These MRE’s have a whopping amount of calories. Lots of side items, and is guaranteed to feed you for a day with a variety of food and drinks, maybe it will last even two or three days if you simply eat them on front desk duty as easy meals like i have done.
Note on accessories: The multivitamin pill has a disgusting flavour and is hard to swallow without getting stuck in your throat, so swallow it down with water if you want to take it.
The water purification pills likely work as intended but I still suggest finding a better supplier instead of relying on these as they seem very cheaply produced and of low quality.
The spoons will bend into awkward shapes and become unusable if you use them to stir directly in boiling water. So wait until your tea or coffee has cooled down a slight bit before stirring them. Otherwise the spoons and the knife work just fine for the spreads and meals.
The matches and the stove fuel burns very dirty and should never be used inside as it will fill your room with toxic fumes. As an alternative you can boil your mains in a pot of boiling water in 5 minutes and they will turn out perfect. This also has the advantage of checking if your mains are still sealed or compromised. If they sink to the bottom instead of up then they have a pinhole and should be discarded as they are rotten.
Suggested item pairings:
This will give a suggestion for you on how to maximise the enjoyment of each component by allocating the correct amount of biscuits for each side spread to not use too much or too little for each component and risk running out of biscuits for a spread.
(Canned fat spread with salty bacon) = (6x) rough hardtack biscuits.
(Vegetable Caviar or Ragù) = (6x) rough hardtack biscuits.
(2x Pâté’s) or (1x Pâté and 1x processed sausage) = (2x) + (2x) rough hardtack biscuits.
(Canned Cheese) = (10x) plain hardtack biscuits.
(Apple Jam) = (6x) plain hardtack biscuits.
(Canned Sour Applesauce) = Eat on its own as dessert.
(2x Black Tea) = (2x) 20g Sugar
(1x Coffee) = (1x) 20 g Sugar + (1x) 2g Dry Creamer
Note: Hot drinks go well with the dry crackers and spread while the cold drinks go well with the “wet” hot meals.
Breakfast items:
Compressed Rice with Chicken and Vegetables
In menus: (1, 5)
Score: 1 out of 5
Review: This meal was very disappointing to me and I unfortunately did not enjoy it at all.
As it is the only non-beef entry with the addition of some vegetables I thought this could be one of the more flavourful and less intense breakfast meals available. But what comes out of the package is pretty much a brick of compressed rice that has a heavy flavour of chicken fat and a small hint of shredded carrot.
The main problem to me is the flavour and consistency, it just doesn’t taste good. It tastes like flattened rice soaked in brothy/salty chicken fat and the vegetable flavour is too faint to add much positive to the overall experience.
Another downer is that there are few pieces of actual chicken in this meal, and what little there is, is usually too shredded and downsized to matter.
Adding salt or pepper did little to save it as the meal already has a salty and fatty flavour I did not like to begin with.
The only upside to this meal is that it is very filling and if you are too hungry to care about the flavour, this will definitely fill your stomach up for the day.
Compressed Rice with Beef
In menus: (3, 7)
Score: 2 out of 5
Review: An overall underwhelming experience, but can be made passable with some seasoning.
This meal comes out like a big chunk of flattened rice with pieces of shredded beef scattered around in it. There is a very greasy and oily flavour when eating the food. The pieces of beef are a bit too small to add much texture so the only real flavour you will get out of your chew is greasy rice. Fortunately the addition of salt and pepper rescues this meal from its bland and nauseating nature.
It is a very filling meal and will keep your stomach full for the day to come if you get it all down.
Buckwheat Kasha with Beef
In menus: (2, 4, 6)
Score: 3 out of 5
Review: An unusual experience for Westerners, but with some habituation it becomes enjoyable.
This meal comes out like a big compressed chunk consisting of buckwheat grains, grease, and shredded beef.
The flavour is very savoury and greasy but the buckwheat grains mostly balances out the heaviness of the flavour. Overall it is not a high-class or especially noteworthy meal. But I've come to enjoy the Russian buckwheat Kasha for its simplicity and filling nature. Salt and Pepper is a good addition to the Kasha as it might be a bit bland otherwise. However the flavour without is a passing grade.
I recommend this breakfast item the most overall. It has decent flavour and will keep you full for quite some time.
Lunch items:
Beef Toshunka
In menus: (1, 5)
Score: 5 out of 5
Review: This is one of the items to look out for if you’ve never had it before. This is a delicious big braised beef chunk with a lot of flavourful fatty broth to come with it.
The quality of the meat will be varied, sometimes you may unfortunately come across a piece of it with a lot of muscle and less tenderness. But discarding those instances, the beef is very tender, having a slow-cooked consistency with a delicious savoury and spiced flavour.
The runny part that comes along with the meal I've seen some reviewers discard, but that is a mistake. If the broth is still heated and runny then you should just drink it straight from the container, or by using a spoon. Because it is very good. It is not pure fat but rather resembling that of a stew with brothy and fatty flavour that doesn’t get overbearing. Make sure not to let it cool down too much though, because it will harden into a gel which is a less pleasant consistency. And it will happen fast so consume or drink it immediately. Afterwards you may enjoy the meat with some pepper added.
This item is something I wish I had thousands of.
Beef Meatballs
In menus: (2, 6)
Score: 4 out of 5
Review: This might seem like a basic dish but the Russian MRE meatballs are surprisingly tasty.
The dish comes out as medium sized beef meatballs in a savoury tomato sauce. The sauce has a flavour of melted fat which gives it a gravy-like consistency and it is quite good. The tomato flavour is not as strong as one might expect because of the fat mixed in.
The meatballs themselves are ground up but still have some rough bite to it because of the pieces of fat that are blended in during the manufacturing. They are easy to eat and the flavour of the meatballs is excellent and complex. The sauce is one of the most savoury you can imagine and it complements the dish very well.
Despite being a simple dish it has been quite elevated from your basic meatballs and as long as you like tomatoes you should try it.
Fatty Beef Patties
In menus: (3, 7)
Score: 5 out of 5
Review: A strong flavour of savoury fat and processed meat. For being what it is, it’s good.
This dish is quite similar to the meatballs, except there are larger pieces of processed meatcakes in a sauce that has more of a brown sauce flavour mixed in with copious amounts of fat. The meatcakes are ground up fine but still have a rough flavour to them, and there is quite a lot of fat mixed into the meat. The sauce has a fine flavour and it goes well with the meat. Very filling dish and heavy on the meat flavour.
This is the quintessential military meal that soldiers would dream of when they are in the trenches, tired and seriously hungry for some food that is just oozing fat and calories. Despite its basic nature this is as good as it gets when it comes to military ration meat mains.
Beef Goulash with Tomato
In menus: (4)
Score: 2 out of 5
Review: A surprisingly disappointing mush of clashing flavours and lacking in actual chunks of meat.
What comes out of this metal can is a concoction of various vegetables in an overbearing tomato that seems like it was just squished into a paste together with a strong flavour of fat and a very few pieces of actual beef.
Despite having a lot of vegetables and nutrients the flavour isn’t good at all and the lack of beef pieces doesn’t help matters. Instead there seems to be a large amount of fat which does not mix with the overbearing tomato flavour. The vegetables are tasteless as all one can taste is the bad tomato-fat mixture.
I would not recommend this dish unless you really are in need of more vegetables in your lunch.
Dinner items:
Beef with Green Peas and Carrots
In menus: (1, 4, 7)
Score: 3 out of 5
Review: A dish that is easy to eat, but the overly canned flavour detracts from the experience a lot.
What comes out is a whole lot of peas and carrots with a bit of meat on the side in a simple broth.
This tastes exactly like if you would eat peas and carrots straight from a tin can. The vegetables are mushy, watery and the strong flavour of peas has seeped through everything. The meat tastes like straight up spam that has been soaked in pea water for a long time. There is a sauce with a slight bit of savouriness but the meal itself really just feels like an excuse to fill you up on peas. It certainly is easy to consume and an unassuming dish. But you better add some salt and pepper so you’ll taste some form of seasoning.
Beef with Beans and Vegetables
In menus: (3, 6)
Score: 3 out of 5
Review: A whole lot of beans and protein. And that’s pretty much all it is.
What comes out of this can is pretty much a heaping bowl of black beans with some meat in a savoury broth.
The meat and beans didn’t seem like the most perfect fit in my opinion, but the dish is not horrible. The beans have the correct amount of chew you’d expect from well-cooked beans, and the little bit of meat tastes just fine on its own. The sauce seems a bit strange to me but it’s essentially just a broth made out of beans and meat cooking together. Add some pepper and it’ll work.
Easy to down the food, but nothing to write home about.
Potato Goulash with Beef
In menus: (2, 5)
Score: 5 out of 5
Review: An excellent goulash of some of the best MRE potatoes i’ve ever tasted with meat in a delicious sauce.
What comes out of this dish is a whole lot of diced up and cubed potatoes with meat on the side resting in a slightly reddish broth.
The potato cubes have the most perfect chew and texture despite having been placed in a broth in a tin. The meat goes well with it and the delicious sauce that has the classic goulash flavour. Add pepper and salt to make it even better somehow.
Highly recommended, potatoes are world-class for an MRE.
Side spread:
Smooth Pâté
In menus: (1, 2, 4, 5, 7)
Score: 3 out of 5
Review: A buttery and smooth pâté without any strengths or weaknesses.
This Pâté is easy to spread and has a simple but not very flavourful taste. The butter makes it seem more smooth than most other Pâté’s on the market, but it’s a very simple taste. Not bad, but not exactly impressive either. It’s very smooth and easy to eat, which makes the consistency it’s strongest trait.
Liver Pâté
In menus: (1, 3, 4, 6, 7)
Score: 1 out of 5
Review: One of the most unrefined and awful Pâté’s i’ve ever had.
This Pâté comes out with weird gel and fat on its corners and the consistency is strangely firm.
The flavour is god-awful and tastes more like dog food than something intended for human consumption. While I like liver flavour this Pâté has such a strong and metallic flavour it becomes overbearing. Mixed in with some fat just to complement its dog food nature. As I love Pâté’s I could still finish it, but I struggle to have something positive to say about it.
Sausage Luncheon Meat
In menus: (2, 5)
Score: 4 out of 5
Review: This smooth sausage meat has some fat marbling which works to its favour.
This is like a smoother and better spam, the processing of the meat has made it very smooth and with a delicious aftertaste of savoury and fatty gel.
An excellent snack item.
Fatty Sausage Luncheon Meat
In menus: (3, 6)
Score: 5 out of 5
Review: A more unique processed sausage with extra amounts of fat marbling, giving the meat a texture of smooth sausage with extra amounts of surprisingly tasty and soft fat mixed into the meat in small clumps. If you enjoy the fatty gel that tends to come in processed sausage then you’ll love this.
It’s certainly a different take on processed sausage, but one I do not dislike at all.
Vegetable Caviar
In menus: (1, 3, 5, 7)
Score: 4 out of 5
Review: A nice breather from the meat-heavy components. Excellently flavoured and smooth vegetable paste with a flavour of aubergine (Eggplant), light tomato as well as various other mixed and spiced vegetables.
This is a slightly acidic but very flavourful vegetable spread that goes excellent on hardtack, there is also a fair bit of vegetable oil which makes the spread more smooth, but can make the flavour seem slightly oily. However this is one of the more unique Russian spreads that might surprise you on how good it is.
Vegetable Ragù
In menus: (2, 4, 6)
Score: 5 out of 5
Review: A vegetable pot winner.
This mix of vegetables and sauce is like if the vegetable caviar was made even better with the addition of some chunky vegetables like Aubergine (Eggplant), Paprika (Red Bell pepper), and other vegetables in a flavourful oily sauce. Should be consumed cold on a hardtack for the best flavour. The acidic and oily flavour works to its advantage here due to the addition of a fair chunk of vegetables.
An absolutely recommended spread.
Canned Fat spread with Salty Bacon
In menus: (All)
Score: 2 out of 5
Review: Now this might be one of the most challenging items for Westerners. Simply a bunch of pig fat right there in a can with some meat maybe. Can be made enjoyable but it’s a gamble.
Now how do you prepare this item? I’ve seen reviewers make the grave mistake of warming this item until the fat turns into a disgusting melted mess of slimy bites and salty, runny pure fat. This will always be bad. What you’re really supposed to do is to open it up cold and use your plastic fork to cut some bites of the firm fat and place it on your hardtack and eat it as is.
I’ve had moments of serious hunger where I actually found myself to enjoy it for what it is, but also a lot of moments of dry heaving and difficulty in consuming what is essentially pure pig fat. If you’re lucky your can will have some whole pieces of meat in it which taste much better than the fat surrounding it, try to cut some pieces of the fat and a little bit of the meat on a cracker and you will see that it actually tastes ok.
The fat itself can taste quite salty and it is most definitely an acquired taste you might not immediately be into. But overall this is not as bad as you might think, but it can be rough for newcomers. Especially if they have no idea how to properly consume the item.
I give this item a score of two, because despite having tried it multiple times and sometimes enjoying it, I'm not overall as much of a fan of this item as all of the other sides. But I don't hate it. In a combat situation this item is precious.
Canned Cheese
In menus: (All)
Score: 4 out of 5
Review: A very sharp cheesy flavour and great take on processed cheese.
This item tastes very strong so you should definitely have it with some plain crackers to balance out the cheesy flavour. The flavour itself is very good and if you like cheese and crackers at all then this is a winner. The cheese just like every other Russian MRE item seems roughly processed with some gel on the sides but it doesn’t detract from the experience, for a cheese it’s a solid score of 4.
Apple Jam
In menus: (All)
Score: 4 out of 5
Review: Quite sweet but very nice natural apple taste.
Russian ration jam is notorious for its natural and refined flavour. And this is no exception, put some on a plain cracker to turn the flavourless flour into an apple pie-like sweet and tart flavour. Could be a bit less sweet to my taste, but it is exceptionally good.
Hardtack:
Plain Hardtack
In menus: (All)
Score: 4 out of 5
Review: Flour, water, salt.
A long-time staple. These may be hard to eat on their own, but the flavour isn’t bad. However they are very dry so having some form of jam or spread is recommended.
I found myself to quite enjoy these as they pair well with sweet or sharp flavours.
Rough Hardtack
In menus: (All)
Score: 4 out of 5
Review: Slightly thinner and more easy to eat hardtack with a flavour of unrefined flour.
These hardtacks pair well with the savoury and filling spreads such as the pâté’s and fat spread. Alternatively may be used for the breakfast meal to down it easier.
Not as good on their own but they are good when paired with something.
Dessert and sweets:
Canned Sour Applesauce
In menus: (All)
Score: 5 out of 5
Review: Very sour and tart applesauce that has a homemade quality to it.
This is really delicious and quick to eat. I do not recommend pairing this with hardtack as I find it best on its own. Consume it as a dessert to a filling meal so you can digest the food easier.
Dark Chocolate bar
In menus: (All)
Score: 2 out of 5
Review: A dry and strangely textured dark chocolate bar.
I never was a big fan of dark chocolate in general, and this one I find particularly odd. It’s very thick and it has a strong bitter flavour. It has a weirdly flaky consistency like it’s been rolled up like a croissant.
Does its job but is not especially noteworthy.
Pack of 10 chewing gums
In menus: (All)
Score: 2 out of 5
Review: Plain sugar-sweet gum of unusual consistency.
These gum tablets are round and small. When chewing them they seem tough at first but gradually get easier to chew. The flavour is a moderate burst of sweetness like that of sugar with not much else to say about it. I don’t really have anything overly negative to say about these and they do fine as a sort of candy, but it’s not of very high quality.
Hot and cold beverages:
Black Tea (x2)
In menus: (All)
Score: 4 out of 5
Review: Strong, plain black tea with decent flavour.
I like my tea quite sweet so 20 grams of sugar suits me just fine. The tea gets quite strong with just moderate steeping time. Reminds me of English Breakfast tea, but slightly stronger flavour.
Definitely not a bad drink, and useful too for the caffeine and sugar burst. I recommend the hot tea with Beef Toshunka if you got it in your ration. The flavour of the sweet tea and fatty broth mix exceptionally well.
Soluble Instant Coffee
In menus: (All)
Score: 3 out of 5
Review: Acceptable coffee with a slight “MRE Coffee” aftertaste.
This soluble coffee consists of freeze-dried chunks that mix into an acceptable coffee that can be infused with both sugar and dried milk powder if desired. Drinking it with just sugar and no milk gave off a slight artificial/chemical flavour that is typically associated with MRE coffee. The milk powder helps mask this flavour a bit so it is recommended to use it.
Fruit or Berry drink concentrate (x3)
In menus: (All)
Score: 4 out of 5
Review: These drinks vary from absolutely amazing to just decent flavour. In some rations I've gotten 3 different drinks ranging from Cherry, Apricot and Raspberry. While in others I've gotten 3 of the same drinks, such as Strawberry or Blackcurrant. No matter what you’ll be getting though, the experience is somewhat the same. A powder consisting of sugar and fruit/berry concentrate. The flavours are usually exceptional but be careful not to mix with too much water as that will make the drink taste too much of plain water. The sugar is hard to mix in but give it some time and it will eventually melt away even in cold water. The drinks have a mostly sweet flavour but with an underlying burst of natural fruit/berry. The Blackcurrant is my favourite, but any of them pair well with any of the meals and are refreshing.