No-Stove camping food ideas?

I'm assuming your fire is going to have a grate to cook stuff over? Or you'll bring one?

If that's the case, any meat. Cheeseburgers, grilled chicken, pork chops. Corn can also be grilled. You can do those aluminum foil wraps. You can do all kinds of stuff in them. Baked potatoes, chopped potatoes, all kinds of veggies (peppers, onions, squash, sweet potato, apples, zucchini, the list goes on & on). Just add olive oil & spices, wrap it up & put it on the grate or in the coals. You can take cans of soup & heat them over the fire (obviously not the kind you have to add water too) or any type of canned food for that matter. If you have pots you're willing to put over the fire, that opens up a whole other set of foods: noodle dinners, rice, stews, etc, etc.

About anything you can cook on a grill or stove top can be done over a fire. You might need some creativity, but it can be done. You can Google campfire dinners (or something along those lines) and will find endless options.

My husband would always rather cook over a fire than on the camp stove. But in my opinion, the camp stove is much easier (less mess, no waiting, easier to control temperature). Just curious, but why are you guys against using your camp stove?

I was going to suggest dehydrated food, too! I backpack a lot and pretty much everything I eat is reconstituted with boiling water. I never actually cook. I've had chili, mac & cheese, spaghetti with meat sauce, chicken curry, oatmeal, beans and rice. The options are pretty endless! Minute rice and par-boiled pasta reconstitute with just water, too.

Oatmeal for breakfast with dried fruit (raisins/craisins) & nuts. No need to cook, just pour boiling water over it and cover with a plate and let it steam. If your kids like them and you don't mind processed food, Cup O' Noodles or ramen are quick and easy. There are also cups of Mac & Cheese where you just add hot water. Definitely weenies and brats and buns.

A week is a long time to just boil water for foods unless you are backpack camping? If not, finding room for a skillet would definitely increase your options. Hubby and I car camp (in our Subaru) and we always bring a camp stove, skillet and a pot. The camp stove is a must have because it is WAY cleaner than cooking over a campfire. I make most of our food in advance (curry, spaghetti, cooked chicken breasts) and then we just heat it up in a couple minutes. The prep is worth the time and effort of bringing raw/unprepared foods. Of course, we do roast some marshmallows over the campfire.

I camp quite a bit in the summer. I have a campfire coffee pot, and I take a cast iron pan. Scrambled eggs and ham are easy to do, and you can cook just about anything you'd like. For baked beans or pork and beans, or other canned stuff, I just open the top most of the way (you want it to vent but not all the way off cause it keeps ashes out). I also have a rack that unfolds like a laptop/t.v. dinner tray that you can put over the fire. Chicken or burgers, or anything you normally grill on a BBQ can be cooked on it. All dishes are paper or plastic so they can be thrown away, except for the coffee cups for the coffee (or cocoa for the kids).
Have fun!

Cheesy567 wrote: »

Google Freezer Bag Cooking. Basically homemade instant food, just add boiling water to the ziplock bag of food, wrap in a sweatshirt for 15 minutes while it rehydrates. Like the backpacking meals you can buy, except you're in control of all the ingredients.

yea this... we just went camping and I made potpie filling and put it in baggies. Brought a pot that could go on/near the fire and put water in it then put the vacuum sealed bags in to warm up. Also made breakfast gravy and like a enchilada casserole. Potatoes in tin foil also a favorite with caned chili to put on top.

Direct-fire cooking:
BLTs - get bacon, thread on to stick (I usually use cherry wood - but if you have those metal campfire sticks, go for it), roast slowly over hot coals. Add to bread with tomatoes and lettuce. Or, wrap bacon around a hot dog, secure with toothpicks, and cook the hot dog slowly over hot coals. (The coals will give you a hotter area with more even heat than trying to cook over high flames. I find this to be true for cooking most things over a fire.) Bacon roasts are a thing where I'm from, and we have entire parties built around cooking bacon over an open fire.

Cubes of chicken or pork can also be threaded and cooked easily over a fire. Make sure the chicken is cooked through before eating, obviously. Very kabob-like. You can add vegetables, but I'd probably cook them separately in case they burn way before the chicken is finished.

Corn on the cob - either husk and wrap in foil or cook it in the husk.

Baked potatoes - wrap in foil and set in hot coals for about an hour. I love baked potatoes with spicy black beans and salsa. You can also bake most of the way, then cut off the top, crack in an egg and some cheese, re-wrap and cook the egg in the potato.

Hardboiled eggs, really any eggs if you want to make them in a pot. You can eat these on some seriously good grilled bread if you have a cooking grate.

Pie irons! They're like a cast iron double sided basket on a stick. You can make any kind of grilled cheese, panini, chicken, burgers, eggs, anything. Because it's cast iron, there is minimal cleanup.

Make your one pot a Dutch oven and cook anything you'd like.

Get a cast iron Dutch oven and there will be almost nothing you cannot make. Lids often do double-duty. Even a cast iron skillet would improve your meal selection process. Cast iron goes right into the coals, sits there a while and comes out none the worse for wear.