One of the great things about camping is cooking your own meals. If you hate cooking while camping you haven’t found the right easy camping meals.
Cooking while camping is all about planning easy camping meals. Now, this doesn’t mean a bunch of freeze-dried, just add water meals. Sure if that’s what you like go for it, but the other part camping food is that it should taste good. Camp food is easy fun, and simple to clean up.
With a little planning, it doesn’t have to be store-bought donuts, hot dogs, and sandwiches. You can eat like a king, with little effort.
Breakfast
Traditional Breakfast
Cooking a traditional breakfast of eggs bacon and hash-browns is easy.
Cook the Bacon or sausage first in your pan. Then making frozen hash browns right on top of the grease. Once done cook up the eggs to your liking.
If you use a cast-iron skillet and a camp stove the clean up is next to nothing. Just wipe it out with a paper towel.
Cinnamon Rolls
Cinnamon rolls are a great breakfast meal. You can buy ready to bake ones at any grocery store. Either in a tube or bonus if you find them in a tin pan ready to throw in the oven.
All you have to do is throw them in your Dutch Oven and cook them until done. Of course, you will want to put more coals on your lid than under, so they bake instead of cook. You don’t want to burn the bottoms and have raw tops.
Homemade Donut Holes
It’s very easy to make donut holes while camping. All you have to do is take some of the pre-made biscuits in a can. Avoid anything that says flaky on the tube. Buttermilk Biscuits work best. Roll them into balls. Add vegetable oil in a Dutch Oven or deep-frying pan. Fry them until golden brown moving them around while cooking to get them even.
Once done if you want to add sugar, cinnamon, or powdered sugar. All you have to do is throw whatever you want into a brown paper bag. Then put your donuts holes in the bag and shake them up until coated. Personally, a mixture of sugar and cinnamon seems to work the best.
Supper / Dinner
Frozen Pizza
There are plenty of recipes online for making pizzas while camping. However, they all require getting dough, pizza sauce, toppings, and cheese. That is easy, but what’s even easier? Buying a frozen pizza and cooking it in your Dutch Oven. The only downfall is finding a pizza that fits in your Dutch Oven. That’s where the single serving, microwaveable pizzas are perfect. You can get a box of 2 or 4 pizzas from Walmart for under $5.
Preheat your Dutch Oven. Then throw a few pizzas in Dutch Oven placing a lot of coals on top with almost none underneath. Wait till the cheese is melted and the crust is cooked. It’s so simple you’ll wonder why you didn’t do this sooner.
Taco’s
Simple Tacos take almost no time to make. Grab a pound of hamburger, a packet of taco seasoning, and your favorite toppings. If you like onions, black olives, shredded cheese, prepare that stuff ahead of your campout. So all you have to do is Brown the hamburger follow the seasoning instructions and load your taco shells.
Tin Foil Meals(Hobo Meal)
There are tons of different ways to go about a Tin Foil meal. Not to mention lots of different names for the same type of meal.
The basic concept is, you take whatever meat you like(hamburger, cube steak, chicken deboned) add your favorite veggies. Put it all on a piece of tin foil. Wrap everything up good, making sure it’s sealed so no juices leak out. If it takes two layers to seal it that’s ok.
Once sealed up. Throw your dinner in your campfire, and cook until the meat is done. Flipping it over occasionally. Usually, they are done when the outside of the tinfoil starts to look a little brownish. Of course, different fires are warmer or cooler, so it’s a matter of checking every 10-15 minutes. Just make sure when you open it up to check you try not to tear the tin foil so you wrap it back up and cook longer if need be.
Pigs in a blanket, on a stick
These are very easy. Put your favorite hot dog, on a stick. Then wrap a thin layer of biscuit dough around it. Cook over an open campfire. If you want to add cheese under the dough go for it. Of course, you can have real fun, and use cheese plus bacon instead of dough.
Deserts
Dutch Oven Cobbler
Cooking Dutch Oven cobbler is one of the most common and easy camping meals. All you need is two cans of your favorite pie filling, a box of cake mix, and a can of your favorite lemon/lime pop(soda).
To make it. Grease the bottom of your Dutch Oven, with butter or your choice of grease. They do make Dutch Oven liners if you’d rather. Pour in the pie filling. Then you can either pour the dry cake mix on top and pour the pop on top of them or mix the two before pouring over the pie filling. I’ve seen it done both ways. If you don’t premix the two the top comes out a little crisper. It’s all personal choice, and of course how many dishes you want to clean.
Once everything is in the Dutch Oven. Put around 10 coals on the bottom and 20 on top. If you’re using a campfire just make sure you have more heat on top of the oven than underneath it. Cook until the top is done. It’s that simple. Normally it takes around 20-30 minutes.
Funnel Cakes
There are plenty of recipes for making Funnel Cake batter from scratch. However, as you likely already have a pancake mix, use it. Because the pancake mix isn’t very sweet you can add some sugar to the mix to taste.
Once mixed all you need is a Dutch Oven or deep skillet. Add oil your favorite cooking oil, and heat to cooking temperature. Then pour the batter into the oil and cook until golden brown on both sides.
S’more’s Brownies
S’more’s Brownies is yet another one of the easy camping meals. Grease up your skillet, and pour your favorite brownie mix into the bottom of the pan. Then crush up graham crackers and put them on top of the mix. Covering the whole thing with chocolate chips and miniature marshmallows.
Then all you have to do is throw it on a grill or camp stove and wait till the marshmallows start to get puffy.
Conclusion
As with anything camping, meals can be exactly what you want them to be. If you truly enjoy spending hours whipping up a meal from scratch. Then, of course, easy camping meals aren’t your thing. For the rest of use, when like to eat well, but hate spending hours cooking. Use these ideas, make some of your own, and share them in the comments. Think about how to cook with the least amount of dishes and simple ingredients. If you do this you’ll eat like a king and be able to relax like your on vacation.