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Best Campfire Foods: What Do You Eat While Camping?

2008_06_13-CampingFood.jpgNo doubt about it, summer is in full swing. Time to shake out the tent, unearth the camping gear, and lace up our hiking shoes!

Some of our best childhood memories are of eating around the campfire. Food is somehow extra special and extra tasty when it's cooked outside after a long day of running around in the woods.

What are your favorite camping and hiking foods?

Click through for a few of ours!

Here's a round-up of some camp-friendly recipes from our archives--some to make ahead some to assemble at the camp site!

For Breakfast:
Basic Granola Formula
Cellar Hole Granola
Bill Granger's Oat, Pear, and Raspberry Loaf
Steelcut Oats with Dates, Coconut, Cinnamon, and Pecans
Mini Blueberry Lemon Muffins
Pear Ginger Raisin Muffins
Lemon and Honey Fruit Salad

For the Hike:
Trail Mix (of COURSE!)
Old School PB n' J
Dried Fig and Nut Bars
Peanut Butter Popcorn
Sweet and Salty Cinnamon Almonds
Spicy Oven-Roasted Chickpeas
DIY Graham Crackers (plus marshmallows for later!)
Peanut Butter Oatmeal Monster Cookies

For Dinner:
Hot dogs
Baked Potatoes
Roasted Beet Salad with Barley, Feta, and Red Onion
Quick and Easy Black Bean Soup
Gazpacho with Canned Tomatoes
Rice and Mixed Greens Salad with Dates, Cashews, and Chickpeas

Hmmm, we got a little stuck on the dinner options. What makes a good campfire dinner?

Related: What Foods Can You Carry on the Plane?

(Image: Flickr member khawkins04 licensed under Creative Commons)

Tags

Recipe Roundup, Summer, camping, outdoors, camping food, hiking, hiking food

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Comments (22)

Another dessert:
Banana Boats- Peel back one side of a banana, slice open the exposed fruit, smear some peanut butter in there spinkle with mini marshmallows and chocolate chips. Enclose in foil and place over hot coals or small fire until all inside is melty and wonderful, about 3-5 minutes. Open foil and eat with spoon.

posted by Robin Sue on 2008-06-13 09:25:30
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I don't eat a lot of red meat, but when camping, nothing beats a steak cooked over campfire coals!

I also do a lot of shish kabobs. The night before you go, cut a variety of veggies (I use colorful peppers, mushrooms, red onions and cherry tomatoes) and chicken breasts into 1 1/2"-2" chunks. Add everything to a large, resealable plastic bag, then pour on enough Italian salad dressing to coat all ingredients. Let marinate in the cooler all day at the campsite, and that night, add the ingredients to skewers, and grill over the coals until the chicken is cooked through.

EVERYthing tastes better when cooked outdoors!

posted by brandemt on 2008-06-13 09:46:57
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For dinner we usually do Italian sausages with peppers and onions on a roll. Its easy to prep in advance and super easy to prepare on the grill. Oh, and we can't forget smores for desert.

posted by rosebud on 2008-06-13 09:50:08
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I haven't been camping since my early twenties...a long time ago...but off the top of my head I can remember some of my favorites:

-spaghetti with clam sauce using canned clams and bottled clam juice, brightened with fresh lemon,

-roasted cornish hens, buttered and herbed, wrapped in foil and buried into the coals, the frozen birds keep very well in the cooler, this cooking method is good for potatoes too.

-egg scramble with bacon, potatoes (canned), cheese, onions, green peppers, etc.

and I remember once a friend, who cooked pretty much all day, made a pot roast with root vegetables in a dutch oven over a campfire that I can still taste. So delicious.

posted by miabica on 2008-06-13 09:52:05
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We are going camping tonight. Our menu:

Dinner: Hot dogs (my husbands fav) and roasted corn

Breakfast: Cereal with soy milk
Lunch: Roast beef and cheddar sandwiches
Dinner: Hobos (Hamburger, onions, garlic, carrots and sweet potatoes put in tin foil with seasoning and cooked on hot coals for about 20 minutes)

Breakfast: Donut holes.

Snacks: chips and salsa, granola bars, cookies, fig newtons.

Clearly we are car camping. This is our first time as a couple, so it is very exciting.

posted by Kassie on 2008-06-13 10:19:33
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Anything in a Dutch oven: roaster chicken with all kinds of vegetables, chili, pizza, breakfasts with eggs and cheese and sausages, and the best cobblers known to man. (My boys used to be in Scouts, and went camping a lot.) We still use the Dutch oven in the backyard, and take it when we go camping too. Once you get it going, it is virtually carefree.

posted by Peggasus on 2008-06-13 10:19:33
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I just got back from a car camping trip and possibly ate better then I do at home.

Dinner: Salmon cooked in a cast iron skillet, just olive oil, salt,pepper, and lemon. foil pack veggies, and a loaf of campfire cooked flat bread (I just packed a ball of no knead bread from my stash in the fridge, flattened it and through it on the grill)

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, with veggies, and hash browns.

Dinner 2: bratwurst and more foil pack veggies.

And of course s'mores were a given.

posted by kittyball on 2008-06-13 10:29:29
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I adore camping and campfire cooking. My favorite dishes are dutch oven chili, making biscuits, salsa chicken (chicken breasts in foil, cover with salsa, wrap it up and let it do it's thing. The salsa keeps the chicken tender and makes an instant sauce.) I love to grill corn on the cob over the fire. And for dessert - hobo pies, two pieces of bread with pie filling (or nutella and bananas) in the middle. So tasty...

posted by renee c.f. on 2008-06-13 10:34:58
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I'm a big fan of fish (preferably salmon) cooked in foil on the campfire. Add a little oil, salt and pepper, and you're good (a few seasonings if you wish, but no need, or you could marinate it ahead of time). Also good in foil: chicken wings with BBQ sauce, potato chunks with vinaigrette dressing, veggies with butter (my favorites are baby carrots, but anything works), etc.

We also eat a lot of "convenience" foods while camping, like instant oatmeal, hot cocoa, and boxed cereal. The best convenience food for camping I've found, however, is the individual boxes of soy milk. They taste close enough for cereal in the morning, and don't have to be refrigerated. If you have a small cooler, you can just put one for each person in there, and when you remove one replace it with a warm one.

My boyfriend made a spit two summers ago and we cooked a roast, which was quite yummy, though it took an entire afternoon (and a lot of firewood).

posted by kls987 on 2008-06-13 10:36:24
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I forgot to add that for breakfast, biscuits and gravy are actually pretty easy to do camping. Just make the biscuits ahead of time, and bring sausage, a package of gravy mix, and some breakfast sausage. In a cast iron pan, it cooks up quickly and is hearty enough to get you through hiking or other strenuous activities.

posted by kls987 on 2008-06-13 10:38:23
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A quick scramble for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and freshly caught trout for dinner--quick, simple, and awesome!

posted by OneWallKitchen on 2008-06-13 10:58:49
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When we camp, we have fried biscuits for breakfast. In a skillet or dutch oven over hot coals, warm about an inch of cooking oil and drop in canned biscuits. Don't forget to flip so both sides cook! Sprinkle with sugar when they're done. Yum!

posted by Aimi on 2008-06-13 11:07:38
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Kassie: your comment about "first time as a couple" made me smile...some of my favorite memories of early dating days with my (now) husband are our camping trips. Have fun!

posted by spossberg on 2008-06-13 11:09:30
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We always take smokies or sausages to grill up and usually we'll bring out either big pork loin chops or a big ol' ribeye to share.
The fanciest camping food I had when I was small and was camping with my parents. They were roasting whole chickens and corn. Back in the late 80's this was fancy camping food. Our neighbours were always jealous.

I'm a big fan of camping pancakes. Mix up a batch of batter and put it into a juice jug. Pours right out so easily onto the griddle. Mmmmm.

we're taking our first camping trip in a couple weeks. I'm so excited! Fresh air always does me good.

posted by revolution9 on 2008-06-13 11:26:18
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Quesadillas are great. Saute mushrooms, peppers, put between two tortillas with cheese, warm it up, and it's done. Avocado on top is great too!

We usually make tuna salad as well.

posted by SFGail on 2008-06-13 12:56:02
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I was thinking about a thread like this the other day. Love camp cooking. Most of what I do is already mentioned but it is worthwhile to pre-cook bacon so you don't have all the fat to deal with.

I have a little espresso maker and take a battery operated foamer for lattes.

Also for car camping I have 4 rubbermaid dishpans - sounds excessive but they stack so four don't take up any more room than one or two - as I hate the taste of soap on dishes. One for dirty dishes, one to wash, one to rinse and one to drip dry.

posted by Gallivant on 2008-06-13 13:43:22
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Snow slurpees with drink powder
Trout fried in margarine
Boiled trout (because the bear ate all the margarine)
Tootsie rolls with snow (changes the texture completely)
Cocoa mix with powdered coffee and powdered milk
Fried spam!

posted by ao on 2008-06-13 17:32:15
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pudgie pies! Of course, you have to haul the pie irons with you, but to get max usage out of them, we make both grilled cheese pies and dessert pies. You can also do tomato sauce and cheese and make "pizza pies". But the best is an apple pudgie pie. Tastes exactly like an apple charlotte. But better because everything tastes better outdoors.

posted by RoseCampion on 2008-06-13 21:41:20
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My fave is spaghetti/pasta with sauce from the jar, with some shredded parm and campfire-grilled Italian snausages.

Sounds boring, but it's much less so - when cooked at NIGHT, kinda FRANTICALLY, rather LATE, when half-cocked on WINE, after a long ass day of HIKING!

posted by Bx on 2008-06-14 00:10:32
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My newest one is cheese fondue with lots of fun dippable stuff-chunks of bread, apple, broccoli. It's not very specific on how high the heat needs to be, and can be done over a sterno under a dining canopy should it end up raining.

posted by KatieD on 2008-06-14 23:30:38
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We always looked forward to foil dinners at the campsite! Just lay out a couple sheets of aluminum foil, fill with whatever you like- we usually did chunks of beef, carrots, some onions, celery, salt & pepper, maybe some A1 or soy sauce- and wrap up into a little pouch. Nestle the foil pouches right into the hot coals to cook and then dig out and enjoy! Everybody got to make their own as they pleased. Delicious!

posted by kkf on 2008-06-16 12:22:38
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We a bit of "camping foodies". We eat really well .... slow cooked ribs, steaks and portabellas, good wine, creme brulees, homemade marshmallow smores - the works! Only proves you don't have to eat canned food or dried food to have fun camping!
http://www.chezus.com/?p=20
http://www.chezus.com/?p=21

posted by ChezUS on 2008-06-17 23:16:01
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