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An especially enjoyable part of camping is watching your food cook over an open fire and dining on a tasty meal outdoors with your whole family. Although you are far away from a kitchen or restaurant, camping meals do not have to be free from flavour or variety. With the right tools and preparation, you can cook up just about any type of easy meal on your next camping trip.
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Lunch ideas for your next camping trip
Classics
Many campers enjoy old-time classic camping foods like roasted hot dogs with all of their favourite toppings. Such foods are classic, as well as easy to make. All you need is a skewer long enough to reach the hot dog to the fire without burning your hand.
You can even use a stick from the nearby woods. S’mores are another camping classic. A roasted marshmallow and a piece of chocolate served between two graham crackers are sure to be a family favourite and are an easy dessert option.
Dutch Oven
If you’re looking to make a meal for a family or large group of people and want something that tastes home-cooked from the oven, try a Dutch oven meal. A Dutch oven is a large, deep, cast iron dish with a cover that sits in or on top of a fire to cook food. Dozens of recipes work well inside the Dutch oven including shepherd’s pie.
A mix of vegetables, beef, and sauce, topped with instant mashed potatoes will be a hearty meal to enjoy around the campfire. Desserts such as peach and cherry cobblers also work well in the Dutch oven.
Foil Packets With Your Favourite Ingredients
One of the easiest ways to enjoy a hot, hearty meal straight from the campfire is a foil packs dinner. By wrapping up your favourite cut of meat–such as a thin steak, chicken breast, or even ground beef–in tin foil with vegetables like corn, potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, and onions, you can create a hot meal in minutes.
Add a small slab of butter to keep your handful of ingredients from drying out. Place your prepared foil dinner in the middle of a low fire or on top of hot coals for 20 to 40 minutes, turning regularly, then open and enjoy a great lunch.
Fish Make A Great Meal
If you really want to experience the outdoors, try catching your food for dinner. Find a nearby river, stream, lake, or pond and catch a few decent-sized fish and bring them back to your campsite. Roasting them over the fire on skewers or frying them up in a simple frying pan or cast-iron skillet are both great options.
Knowing how to gut and debone the fish is essential to enjoying a great fish dinner in the outdoors, so make sure to bone up on your fillet knife skills before heading out into the great outdoors. If you have some flour tortillas and seasonings, you can even fry up your fish for a hearty and filling delicious campfire meal – the fish tacos.
Meat With Your Favorite Veggies
Various types of meat can be cooked over a campfire with a metal grate over it for an easy lunch. Cook the meat in a broiler basket if a grilling grate is not available. A broiler basket encloses the meat in a wire basket and features a handle for holding the basket over the fire. Small charcoal grills allow meats to be grilled over coals instead of an open flame.
Soups Are An Easy Camping Food Ideas
Cook your favourite soup over the campfire. Suspend the pot over the fire or place it on a metal grate over the fire. Cooking tripods are available for suspending pots over the fire. Chili only requires a few ingredients and cooks well over a fire. Another option is to cook your favourite soup at home and reheat it over the campfire. This reduces cooking time and ensures all ingredients are cooked fully.
Hot Sandwiches For Your Family Camping Trips
A cast iron pie cooker allows campers to cook hot sandwiches or calzones over a campfire. The handle of the pie cooker is attached to an enclosed cast iron cooking element. The ingredients are placed inside the cooking end and held over the campfire. The pie cooker can also be used to make assorted pastries. This type of breakfast sandwich will be a hit even amongst picky eaters.
Vegetables And Fresh Foods
Cook the vegetables and your fresh ingredients over a campfire for a unique flavour. Skewer your favourite vegetables, drizzle them with oil, and season them before cooking them over the campfire. An alternate method of camp-cooking vegetables is to place them inside a foil packet before cooking them over the fire. Use heavy-duty aluminium foil or a double layer of regular aluminium foil.
Pita Bread Pizza
If you can’t imagine the thought of kneading pizza dough outside with the gnats buzzing around, and find it hard to keep a frozen pizza frozen, try making a pita bread campfire pizza. Grill the pita, then top with bottled gourmet pizza sauce, olive oil, mozzarella cheese, and a selection of favourite meat or veggie toppings. The best part is that the pita bread is the perfect round size for individual “pies.” It’s an easy, fast, and most of all, delicious alternative to burgers, buns, and beans.
Waffle On A Stick
Plain and simple, almost any kind of food that can be eaten on a stick is fun. Add that stick to something both sweet and also fitting for the first meal of the day, and you’ll want to indulge in this “breakfast in the boonies” treat on every camping trip. Just take a thick Belgian waffle and toast it to crispness over the fire or grill. Weave a stick through the waffle, drench it in syrup (or chocolate for something extra special), and top it with whipped cream.
Chix on Stix
Chicken on a stick is simple, easy, and delicious fireside fare. And there are no fingers to lick or utensils to wash later. Simply marinate chicken breasts in your favourite sauce, thread on a skewer, and place them on the grill. Served with a favourite dipping sauce or as is, kids and adults alike can “grab and go” with this healthy treat. And they’re great at a “sit-down” dinner around the campfire too.
Cooking at a campsite presents a challenge due to the lack of traditional cooking appliances. The campfire offers one source of heat for cooking while camping these easy camping meals. A small charcoal grill adds an alternative to cooking over an open flame. Portable cooking stoves allow campers to cook other foods that don’t cook well on the grill or over open flames.
Portable Cooking Camping Stove
Use a portable camp stove for food items that cannot be easily cooked over an open flame. A portable cooking stove usually has one or two burners and is often fueled by butane. Food items that are cooked in skillets or saucepans are a possibility with a portable cooking stove. Options for the cook stove include eggs, pancakes, pasta, and sauteed foods.
If there’s one way to kick back and take it easy, it’s camping. But even with all the lounging around, you still need to eat, and the fresh air and fun activities with friends and family can work up an appetite. Part of the enjoyment of roughing it in the great outdoors is cooking over a roaring fire, as you make do with equipment, food, or techniques you don’t use every day. This is a good time to try out something different and fireside friendly.
Win a Hip with Purpose Clutch Lunchbox
To help you enjoy your food no matter where you go this summer, I have a Hip with Purpose Clutch Lunchbox to giveaway.
PRIZE: Hip with Purpose Clutch Lunchbox
To enter simply complete the Gleam widget below, all entries are optional and each one completed will gain you more entries into the random draw.
Hip with Purpose Clutch Lunchbox (WTDS)
