Campfire cooking seems to be dominated by anything you can easily hold on a stick. Sometimes people bring a grate to cook some burgers, but we’ve never been camping with anything much fancier than that. We think that should change. Just because you’re sleeping on the ground, you shouldn’t have to eat like a caveman, so next time you’re camping, set your culinary sights a little higher. You and your stomach will be happy you did.
Grilled Pizza Bread
This pizza bread probably isn’t going to be super close to a New York slice, but neither are most pizza places, so not much lost there. And calling it pizza is more based on the ingredients than the end result. It’s more like garlic bread than anything else. But it’s still delicious and highly customizable, two of our favorite adjectives for food. Their recipe calls for pepperoni, black olives, red onion, and green pepper, but you could just as easily throw sausage, pineapple, extra cheese, buffalo chicken, or any other pizza topping you can think of. Making it couldn’t be easier either. Scoop the bread out, put everything on, wrap it in foil, and stick it over the fire. Recipe
Cilantro Lime Shrimp Foil Packs
This is another one you’ll be wrapping in aluminum foil, which is a method that gets a lot of love when you’re cooking over a campfire. The dish is kind of a seafood bake, with shrimp, corn, and zucchini all mixed into a single container and cooked together. Everything combines its flavor into a really nice single dish meal, where no single taste takes over the whole dish. Plus it scales really easily, so if you’re cooking for one or two, follow the recipe. If you have a group of twenty, do some simple math and maybe bring an extra roll of foil, just in case. Also, don’t forget the lime. Apparently whoever wrote the recipe didn’t get that piece of advice. Recipe
Dutch Oven Campfire Lasagna
We don’t have as much experience with a Dutch oven as we’d like, but we also have regular ovens at home, so there isn’t much call for kitchen equipment that also makes kids giggle. Except for when we go camping. Most of the prep for the lasagna should be done at home, as it’s easier to transport a fully constructed, uncooked lasagna in the oven than it is to manage assembly out in the wilderness. Prepping at home also cuts down on the number of containers you need for food storage. Recipe
Campfire Beer Pancakes
There’s some at-home prep work involved in these pancakes as well, but just like the lasagna, the early effort is well worth the payoff. Pancakes over a campfire just feels right, and mixing a beer into the batter delivers on its promise of fluffier cakes. This is a delicious way to start the day and works pretty well for your trip no matter how long. If you store the batter right, you’re looking at multiple days of pancakes. That means your backpacking trip breakfasts don’t have to be constant dry handfuls of granola. You can eat something that’ll actually make you happy to be awake. Recipe
S’mores Dip
S’mores are so iconic we never thought to shake up the formula. Good thing someone else did though, because s’mores as a dip arguably works better than s’mores as a sandwich. With a sandwich, you’re always in danger of squeezing the filling out onto the ground or your pants. But with a dip, everything gets a much better distribution and the risk for spillage is drastically reduced. You might drop it, but you might drop everything you ever hold, so that’s not really any kind of elevated risk. Cooking the dip also means your marshmallows are less likely to get burnt, ensuring a well toasted, brown, melty marshmallow for every bite. Recipe
Grilled Sausages with Potatoes and Green Beans
We’re going back to the wrapped foil again with this meal, a hearty, no-frills meal with everything you need to feel satisfied before bed. You get your meats, starches, and vegetables, all wrapped up in a simple meal you can eat right out of the foil. The cooking time on this one is a little longer though, so throw everything together and next to/into the fire and relax for twenty minutes or so. Have a beer, talk with your companions, and flip the foil at some point. The meal would even probably benefit from a bit of overcooking. A little char on potatoes and sausage never hurt anyone, and it might even make it taste a little better. Recipe
Red Wine Marinated Hanger Steaks with Flatbread
If you know you’re going camping in a few days, start marinating some hanger steaks, and when they come off the grill, you’ll be thankful you did. These sandwiches are good, solid meals, perfect for sharing among big groups of people. Speaking of big groups, this is another recipe that scales well and easily. If you don’t think a pound and a half of meat is enough for your group, feel free to get more. The other ingredients mostly come in nice round numbers that won’t hurt your brain when you have to multiply them. The only thing we’d change here is maybe adding some cheese, but that’s totally up to you. Recipe
Brad’s Campsite Jambalaya
Cajun food outdoors in the cold is a tantalizing prospect, so you can bet this recipe will be coming with us next time we’re out. And, truth be told, we’re still trying to nail jambalaya at home, but making it outside might be the shakeup we need to find some success here. The only problem is this recipe doesn’t travel long distances well. Having chicken and shrimp in there means you should probably keep this one away from day three of your backpacking trip. Save it for the campsites you don’t have to travel to. It’ll keep you from having to lug coolers up and down the trail. Recipe
