Food to Take Camping

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  • mrfrodogetdown
    mrfrodogetdown Posts: 54 Member
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    Cans of those little potatoes! Puncture the top, put it right in the fire to heat up.. Yumm!

    Premake (or buy) some kabobs.

    How many nights?
  • hazymary
    hazymary Posts: 190 Member
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    I marinate chicken, then freeze it in ziplock baggies...I also chop up veggies, zucchini onions mushrooms grape tomatos, put in zip lock baggies and make kabobs. For breakfast I make zip lock baggies full of omelet mix then add meat or veggies when I cook them. Cold cuts work good for lunch. Guess you figured it out zip lock baggies are a campers best friend,,,,well it goes well with wine.
  • lisiloulah
    lisiloulah Posts: 125 Member
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    If you have a fire to cook on you can do Jacket potatoes - just wrap them in foil and put them on the edge of the fire (not too close that they burn to charcoal, but not too far away that they don't cook) It's been a few years since I've done this so I don't recall timings, but probably an hour or two as it's a long slow cook.

    As a Girl Guide, when we went camping we all loved stew and dumplings cooked on the gas camping hob, but anything with a sauce like bolognaise, chilli etc would work well, assuming you have a second hob to cook rice and pasta on. Fried Burgers, Sausage, and even Fish Fingers are easy enough on a little stove too.

    A trick to bringing meat with you is to freeze it at home and pack it frozen - in a cooler it will slowly defrost, but it will add an extra day to the freshness (don't do this to the meat you plan on eating the first night!) When I was little we used to take family holidays in a touring caravan, and my mum always packed a roast chicken for dinner the first night (and used leftover meat in sandwiches for lunch the second day).

    Have fun - you've made me want to go camping now though...
  • splashwags
    splashwags Posts: 262 Member
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    If you want easy, you can't beat freeze-dried backpacking food ;)

    Camping out of a car? Eggs, chicken, pasta (cheese-filled tortellini is great), hot dogs, cheese (grilled cheese, don't forget the butter), oatmeal, bagels, and.... spam.

    I'm not kidding about the spam. Fried spam with cheese on a bagel is the greatest camping food in the world, I swear to god.

    I was going to suggest spam as well. Slice it up fry instead of bacon... Actually pretty good. Not cleanest mind you. And prepping stuff beforehand also helps. How manys days/nights?
  • Linli_Anne
    Linli_Anne Posts: 1,360 Member
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    I pre-pack foil dinners - things like salmon steaks with a couple of lemon slices, a drizzle of maple syrup, throw in some asparagus spears or green beans and wrap it all up in a foil pak to throw in the grill/over the fire.

    Chicken breasts are great for grilling.

    We love sliced up potatoes and onions, again in foil, thrown onto the hot embers of a fire to get nice and brown and crispy.

    Buy some quality italian sausage, and throw into a skillet with some onions, bell peppers, a drizzle of olive oil.

    I love camp cooking...in fact at the end of camping season I often joke to my husband that I am going to permanently set up the old coleman camp stove in our kitchen and use that instead of the silly electric range.
  • Seaglass1123
    Seaglass1123 Posts: 500 Member
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    Chicken, potato salad, corn on the cob, sandwiches, burgers YUMMM

    I want to come!
  • gerard54
    gerard54 Posts: 1,107 Member
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    Make sure u have charcoal or you'll have McDonalds every night...
  • LittleMissNerdy
    LittleMissNerdy Posts: 792 Member
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    Don't forget about canned foods. You could pick up some beef stew and just warm it up/cook it over the fire.
  • liesevanlingen
    liesevanlingen Posts: 508 Member
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    I often pre-cook meats so then they just need to be heated up. Lots of finger food- fruits and veggies with or without dips--think bananas, apples, pears, strawberries, raspberries, nectarines, or celery, carrots, peppers, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms--whatever your kids might like. Salad's an easy veggie dish that doesn't require cooking. You can bring sandwich makings for lunches--bread, sandwich meat, cheese, jam, and other spreads. Pre-boil some eggs and bring them along as a handy snack. Yogurt cups are good too. I usually freeze the meats (whether they are cooked or not) and then they help keep the other food in the cooler cold for longer.
  • Natihilator
    Natihilator Posts: 1,778 Member
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    If you're planning on doing any sort of hiking or activities, trail mix is your friend. Granola bars freeze too hard if it's cold, and make sure you get Smarties or M&Ms in your trial mix if it's hot instead of chocolate chips, to prevent a melted mess.
  • rumplesnat
    rumplesnat Posts: 372
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    Beef jerky and cereal. :tongue:
  • amberlykay1014
    amberlykay1014 Posts: 608 Member
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    We always take Mountain House foods.. It's real, cooked meals designed for hikers, so they are super light weight. You just boil water on your stove and pour the water in the bag. It cooks in the bag and then you eat it out of the bag, eliminating dirty dishes. You can burn your bag when your finished in the campfire. They taste amazing -- way better than MREs.

    Car camping is great! For snacks and light lunches we bring lots of cheese, tuna packets, hard boiled eggs, crackers, avocados, yogurt, peanut butter... You can bring stuff for deli sandwiches too.

    Baked potatoes taste amazing in the fire! Just wrap them in aluminum and throw them in the hot coals at night. 40 minutes later they are perfectly baked. No need for butter or salt, although you can if you want.

    Frozen meals like those italian Bertoli bags are good for a fast car camping meal. Just put it in a big pot over the fire and treat it like a stir fry.

    Have fun!
  • BernadetteChurch
    BernadetteChurch Posts: 2,210 Member
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    A great way to keep food chilled is to pack it in between frozen Capri-Sun pouches inside a cooler. If the food goes in frozen it takes a little longer to defrost, and if it's just chilled it will stay that way. Just shuffle stuff around as you use it so that the food you want next is on the top and will thaw out. And the best thing is that you get to drink your "ice packs" as you go along. Plus you don't end up with a cooler full of water as the ice melts and waterlogs all your food at the same time!

    We also got ourselves one of those machines that vacuum seals food. Vacuum sealing it prolongs the life of cold meats anyway, plus the fact that it's sealed means you don't have leakage.

    Fajitas are one of my favourite camping foods. Slice up the chicken before you go, vacuum seal it and then when you're there all you have to do is slice the veg and throw in the spice mix. Otherwise for me it's burgers, hot dogs, sausages and beans all the way.
  • gacowboy
    gacowboy Posts: 22 Member
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    Something easy is Hobo dinners. Take lean ground beef make it into patties place it in the middle of a sheet of aluminum foil and put potato slices, bell pepper rings, a little butter and seasoning maybe jalopenos for adults and place over fire. Make sure the potato slices get soft and there is usually no problem with the meat being done. Open them up, eat right from the foil and when done toss the foil and it is easy clean up. You can also do this with chicken strips. Hope you enjoy the camping!
  • climbamnt
    climbamnt Posts: 190 Member
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    Hobo Pockets - http://allrecipes.com/recipe/campfire-foil-packs/

    Easy to customize - ground beef, chicken, steak whatever + any veggies you like and seasonings + aluminum foil and hot coals. Set it in the coals and go have fun. Come back and you have a meal!
  • rduhlir
    rduhlir Posts: 3,550 Member
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    You can get some "just add" water pancake mix for in the morning. And eggs usually keep really well. So in the morning you can have eggs, pancakes and bacon. DO NOT BRING SYRUP CAMPING! It gets everywhere, no matter how well you pack it. Instead, just add some of the M&Ms from the trail mix to the cakes when they fry. Also, cooking spray works wonders.

    For dinner, Ho-Bo stew is great! Take some lean beef or turkey, some red potatoes, carrots and onions with salt & pepper or what ever seasonings you like. Put it all in an aluminum foil packet (fold or wrap them well so ashes don't get in) and when the fire has burned down and you have some nice hot coals put the packets on top or around those coals and let them cook for about 40 minutes or so, flipping (carefully lol) once. Then everyone gets their own pack. Great for kids too! They can make their own with what they want.
  • climbamnt
    climbamnt Posts: 190 Member
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    Something easy is Hobo dinners. Take lean ground beef make it into patties place it in the middle of a sheet of aluminum foil and put potato slices, bell pepper rings, a little butter and seasoning maybe jalopenos for adults and place over fire. Make sure the potato slices get soft and there is usually no problem with the meat being done. Open them up, eat right from the foil and when done toss the foil and it is easy clean up. You can also do this with chicken strips. Hope you enjoy the camping!

    Haha beat me too it!
  • Aross83
    Aross83 Posts: 936 Member
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    For camping i marinate the meat ahead of time and then freeze it before i go camping.so once i pack the cooler its frozen already and will stay for longer in the cooler!

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