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If you find yourself off the grid, either by choice or by circumstance, you’ll need to cook meals without the usual conveniences found in the home.
The easiest solution is to open a can and heat something over a fire. But that can get old when you have a family to feed.
Today I’ll share with some quick and easy camping food ideas and recipes that can break up the monotony of low-tech cooking.
Camping Food Tricks You Should Know
1. Heavy-Duty Aluminum is Your Friend
Whether you’re wrapping prepped food in it or simply using it to prevent flare-ups on the grill, heavy-duty aluminum should be your go-to material across the board.
It’s useful for storing food, cooking baked potatoes, and mitigating cleanup.
2. Freeze Your Meat Before Packing
You can cook frozen meat, but you can’t cook spoiled meat. Or at least, it’s not a beneficial idea.
For trips longer than one night, freezing meat prevents it from reaching the danger zone and insulates other food in your cooler from spoiling.
On average, you can keep your meats in the proper temperature range for an additional forty-eight hours.
3. Cook Perishables First
One of the golden rules of camping is to bring non-perishable foods, or at least packaged, processed foods with long expiration dates.
When you’re only heading out for two or three days as part of a family trip, you’re likely to bring along fresh produce from a nearby supermarket or bring your own.
Either way, plan out your recipes and use the foods that are most likely to perish early, such as fruits and vegetables, in your earlier recipes.
This saves food spoilage and doesn’t leave you with a missing element in an otherwise dazzling dish.
4. Cherry Pick Your Cookware
Camping cookware sets are usually fairly useful about only including what’s necessary, but if you’re not cooking pasta, then don’t bring along the strainer.
Cherry-pick your cookware, and make sure you’re bringing specifically what you need to cook in the great outdoors.
Anything else is simply an attempt to avoid adopting an effective minimalist mindset. If you’re bringing an RV or a fifth wheel, then it’s just clutter that you don’t need.
5. Prep Before You Exit
Why bring the knife, cutting board, and additional measures to clean them off when you can just prep everything at the start?
This coincides with our third tip, because effectively preparing your meal before you go means that you’ll be able to minimize containers, storage, and the time spent actually cooking.
You’ve got beers and good friends around an open fire. You want to serve them quality food, but time spent does not equal quality.
Save yourself the hassle and prepare everything before you hit the road.
6. Heat Your Cleaning Water While You Cook
Consider this a continuation of the previous tip, all with the mindset of minimizing cooking time so you can enjoy your camping trip.
Start heating up the water that you’ll be doing the dishes with during the meal.
By the time you finish eating, you’ll have hot water to use for dishwashing, which will effectively cut your cleanup time in half.
7. Only Bring Disposable Food Containers
You’re preparing your own food, which is a good thing, but sometimes we can forget something or the conditions will be a bit hotter than we expected.
Even with careful planning, food goes bad from time to time, and you don’t want to be the person bringing back an expensive container with rotting food in it.
Keep everything in disposable containers that you won’t miss if you have to chuck them; just be certain to dispose of spoiled food in the proper areas.
To avoid disturbing or attracting wildlife, campgrounds have restrictions on what can go in which barrels.
8. Always Keep Your Food Covered
Speaking of wildlife, let’s avoid bringing those little buggers onto the campsite.
Cover your food to avoid attracting bears and coyotes, but also to keep it safe.
There is dust, falling pollen, and scraps of nature whirling around you at all times. Keep the food covered, and it will stay safe for consumption.
9. Bring a Food Thermometer
If you like your steak blood-red rare, that’s totally cool. You do you.
However, you shouldn’t serve pork and chicken al dente to avoid food poisoning and serious illness.
Chicken, in particular, is very finicky because it can appear done but still be three to four degrees off of the lowest safe range.
We’ve all gotten caught cooking at night over the fire with nothing but moonlight and lanternlight around us; the thermometer means you’re trusting science, not just your eyes, when determining if food is done or not.
10. Block Ice, Not Cubes
Stayed at a hotel last night? Don’t fill up the Igloo cooler with the second-floor ice machine and those miniature crescent cubes.
Block ice stays solid for longer, whereas cube ice melts quickly, and the water temperature actually accelerates the rate at which the ice melts.
If you’re going out for a two- or three-day trip, block ice is going to be your best bet.
11. Soap Coat
Before bringing your pants out, coat the outside with soap. The sides, that is.
This makes cleanup a lot easier, and you don’t have to deal with a spilled soap packet or the wrapper from those one-and-done cleaning detergent packs.
This is simple, but once you do it once, you won’t be able to pack for the campsite without repeating it.
Favorite Camping Recipes Books
It’s a good idea to dream about and plan your camping meals. Try them at home, in the backyard, first, so when you’re out there, you can enjoy your camping trip.
And if you’re in a SHTF situation, you’ll already have experience. Here are a few camping recipe cookbooks to get you started.
Foil Packet Cooking 
Dutch Oven Cast Iron Recipes Campfire Grilling Recipes
Easy Camping Food Ideas And Recipes For Your Next Trip
Make camping more enjoyable by preparing absolutely delicious camping food that's quick and easy.
If you are a lone wolf or have a limited budget and a solar oven is too expensive or too bulky for a bug out, then I have a simple small solution that’s easy to make and easy to carry.
The Solar Cooking Jar!
This is so easy to make a child could do it! Cooks well and cooks a meal for 1 quick! I have used mine so many times I think of this as the norm when I go camping.
Solar Cooking Jar Split Pea Soup Recipe:Ingredients
1 c. split peas
½ c. diced potatoes
2 T. small cut up onion (1 T. dry)
1 bullion cube (1 t. powder)
2 dashes of pepper
Put peas, potatoes, onion, and bullion in your black-painted jar. Fill the jar with water to 1-inch below the neckline of the jar. Screw on lid and ring. (Oil the rubber seal of the lid so it doesn’t seal!)
It cooks up in about 4 hours, but time will vary with conditions and solar ovens. Watch the soup for a smooth consistency. Enjoy!
Good food can make all the difference in this world. Its the reason we still go home to momma and the reason we stay up watching cooking shows. The right meal at the right time is so full of power.
Now, you might think that these camping food ideas and recipes are here for a good time and you would be partially right. Learning how to cook over an open fire is something of an art. Like all other cooking.
Still, when the world tips over and you are left to survive these great recipes could be what pushes your group through the next 20 miles.
No one can deny that a good meal boosts morale. In survival, you need a continuous boost of morale. You need it over and over again. The beauty of the survivor is that one can be strung along with good food and hope when all else fails.
Life can get hectic sometimes: God knows mine does. When I have a busy week or my wife can’t be bothered to cook, especially on a hot day, we always have some of these “ready to go meals” on hand.
You can make these instant meals and take them to work for your lunch, camping to save on lugging all your cooking equipment around or just have them stockpiled at home for those “can’t-be-arsed” days.
All of these recipes can obviously be altered so you can make them to your taste but best of all these meals only contain dry ingredients so these can be stored for years.
Make bread in a can when camping or bug out situations for quick and easy calories that actually taste yummy.
You are probably thinking “bread in a can?” I was too until I read this wonderful article below, It shows us how we can take advantage of used cans small or large like #10 cans and make bread. I would even suffice to say we could even bake these on a fire.
The article below shows us how to make banana bread in a can too, so it's a 2 in 1 recipe. Maybe if SHTF and the power goes out this could be one of the only ways you could make bread. It's worth taking a look at and giving it a go. The shape alone would make your friends go “how the hell did you do that?”
This skillet campfire bread recipe will make you the envy of the campsite this season.
I love camping and I love cooking… I started looking for some great camping recipes and was instantly drawn to this recipe. Bread makes you feel good. It’s filling and just yummy when it’s homemade.
This recipe could be used in an emergency situation too. One Perfect Bite calls this the kitchen sink bread, as everything but the kitchen sink can be added to make this… great to finish off your camping food and a yummy treat to have with your main meal.
As many campers say “everything tastes better when it’s cooked over a campfire” I have to agree. I have always preferred the taste of campfire food, I think that’s why I go camping so much!
Camping season for me can go all the way into November. I love the crisp nights and 60 degree days!
This kind of weather makes me want to cook better food when camping because it’s not so stinking hot!
These foil-wrapped camping food ideas and recipes make cleaning up so much easier!
As with most great things, there is a bit of planning required with these recipes as they each have a few ingredients.
However, these recipes were created specifically for campers who don’t have a lot of storage space, so just a few food staples should do.
A bit of planning sure is a lot better than back-to-back boring meals! The list includes recipes for every meal: from breakfast burritos to grilled pizza, so all meals for the day can be mapped out! I can’t wait to try these out!
When you go camping, do you always cook the same old recipes? I know when my wife and I go, we always do and I’ll be honest (don’t tell her): I am getting quite bored of the food we eat while camping.
So as we have our camping trip in a few weeks I wanted to see if I could find some new recipes. I did just that. I found a cool article with 27 new camping recipes that cover breakfast, lunch, supper and deserts.
My favorite out of the whole list is good ol’ #1 – Breakfast Burger Biscuits. You just can’t go wrong with burger biscuits in the morning!
My preference is to add a thin slice of American cheese on top. The campfire smoke adds just a hint of flavor you can only get cooking over an open fire.
Do you want to make one of my favorite camping meals? They are called campfire onion bombs and they will fill you up and keep you full.
They also enable a clean camping site because there's no cleanup!
I make these in advance and keep them in a cooler until we need to eat. You cook these in aluminum foil straight on the fire. This is great because you don’t have to lug around heavy skillets.
I promise that once you try these you will want to make them every time you go camping.
I love camping and I love eclairs. I love how yummy, creamy, and delicious they are. So, why not combine two wonderful things and make some campfire eclairs next time you go camping?
They are super easy to make and only need a few ingredients (chocolate frosting & pudding, or whatever else you fancy!).
When I was younger I hated camping: it was smelly, boring and just not my thing. But if you introduce fun things to do while camping, your kids are more likely to associate good memories with camping. These eclairs certainly will do that. ?
Looking for some tasty food during some of my wilderness trips, I dug up an article for making dehydrated soup cubes. It’s a neat way to preserve food and doesn’t take much room in your backpack. This is a great idea!
Being able to drink some tasty, hot organic soup after a long day exploring the outdoors induces a wonderfully comforting feeling. These recipes can be made using wild edible herbs such as nettles, dandelion leaves, or dried kale.
Perfect for those times when you're bugging out or stranded somewhere. If you're out of food but could boil water, you'll have energy until you could find something more substantial.
Some day you'll be camping out of necessity, and not for fun. When SHTF you need protein to stay alive.
Rabbits, hares, and squirrels will be abundant and pretty easy to catch. Remember, there will be no supermarkets, Walmart and the like will be gutted in 3 days.
This will be a way of life so print this info off. You may just need it one day!
Ok, granted, if SHTF you probably won’t have the ingredients to try this recipe. In the meantime, you can give it a shot, it’s excellent.
How to Cook With a Thermos & a Few Recipes
I never knew you could cook with a thermos. I found a great thermos cooking website that shows us how and gives us some great recipes.
This information could be a great survival tool and a frugal way to cook. I think this would be a great way to cook if you were camping, and definitely a great backup way to cook if SHTF.
It’s Efficient: A thermos is the most fuel-efficient way to cook. Period. It’s Easy: You don’t have to stand over the stove stirring food all day. It’s Healthy: Cook healthy whole grains without the time and trouble.
Check out this video: cooking beef and rice in a thermos. If you like it, please share it with your friends. I have been prepping for years and have only just realized you could cook this way.
I hope my list of camping food ideas was helpful and got you excited about trying some new camping recipes on your next outdoor trip.
