Food To Pack For Camping Trips

The Perfect Food Items For Camping Out Trips

When my family goes on a camping trip it often seems like we are more like a “meals on wheels” crammed into a Subaru station wagon. Preparing great meals on camping trips is really not that complicated when you pack the right ingredients before you leave. Have you ever noticed that food tastes better while camping? A lot of people seem to think that they have to eat things like hot dogs and canned chili on camping trips. This does not have to be the case. With the proper ingredients and equipment, you can prepare the same meals camping that you do at home. We store all of our camp kitchen dry foods in clear plastic Sterilite storage bins sold at Walmart.

The best fresh foods for camping are easy to make as long as you have the right equipment such as large portable Xtreme Coleman cooler, adjustable camping stove, and an organized camping pantry.

Would You Like To Prepare The Following Foods On Your Next Camping Trip?

Coffee Cake. We have the ability to bake cakes with a steamer that rests inside our wok. The chocolate cake is fantastic!

Gourmet Omelets. We make restaurant quality omelets in a caste iron griddle. We acquire farm fresh eggs from locally raised chickens, onions, peppers, and often cut small pieces of lean beef or bacon together with some grated cheese.

Organic Mixed Dried Fruit & Raw Nut Granola. For brunch, I make crunchy organic mixed fruit & nut granola in a stainless steel wok. This granola tastes every bit as good as what you can buy at an organic grocery store and it’s about a tenth of the price. My ingredients include organic shredded coconut, chopped almonds, sliced pecans, and any dried organic fruit that I have in our camping pantry.

Whole Bone Chicken SoupA small chicken fits right into a pressure cooker along with onions, garlic, salt, pepper, and a few other spices to create a healthy and mouth watering soup. I highly recommend using a pressure cooker on your next camping trip if you have never tried using one. The pressure cooker has been one of the most useful pieces of camp cooking equipment that we bring.

Hot popcorn There are times that we crave a salty snack and we have found that hot buttered popcorn made in the wok is the ticket for us. Who says that a wok is for Asian cooking? Our wok is as useful as the pressure cooker and it will always be a major part of our camping equipment.

Chicken Fried Rice. A pressure cooker works as well as any rice cooker. After a day or two, my wife will make chicken fried rice.

Cast Iron Griddle Steak. Grilled steak can be easily made on a flat Lodge Logic cast iron griddle in minutes. On camping trips, we eat t-bone steaks more often than we do at home.

Lamb Shanks With Caramelized Onions. I never realized that grilling lamb on the road is as easy as making steaks. We serve the lamb with boiled potatoes.

I like to prepare camping meals that I am familiar with such as our favorite meals that we make at home. If I am going to try cooking something new on a camping trip, I usually will attempt the procedure at home to make sure that it works. When you stick with foods that you are familiar with, buying supplies and preparing the meals will be all the more easy. Bring along food that you already know how to prepare and enjoy eating. Give me a cup of coffee and a bowl of fruit for breakfast and I am happy.

Don’t Leave Home Without These 7 Dry Foods For Camping

Mixed raw dried fruits, nuts, and seeds. Make sure that you pack plenty of raw seeds, nuts, and dried fruits for your next camping trip. You can eat them for breakfast, pack them for snacks, and have them stashed away as an emergency food source.

Coffee, herbal teas, black tea, green tea, etc. Coffee and tea are food for the mind and soul-not a proven fact but a nice hot beverage with a little caffeine sure is nice on cold morning and chili nights. Coffee and camping are not separable an non negotiable for me. Why should you spoil your camping trip with a trip to Starbucks when you can bring the coffee shop to your campsite? Leave Starbucks and Seattle’s Best for the city boys. If you don’t drink coffee & tea, I am confident that you have other comfort foods and drinks that you enjoy on your camping trips. These are comfort drinks and will keep you happy if you are missing your home.

Chia seeds-a super food that everyone should be eating. Chia seeds have become extremely popular after the release of Christopher McDougall’s book “Born To Run” ranted about the benefits of chia seeds for endurance athletes. Chia is very rich in omega-3 fatty acids, even more so than flax seeds. Chia has a pleasant nutty taste. They can be mixed with water, fruit juice, nut milks, or even fresh dairy milk and cream. I like to sprinkle chia seeds on my salads as a crunchy topping. I find them tasty and an interesting addition to my diet.I like to add fresh cream, milk, coconut milk, or nut milk to a 1/2 cup of raw chia seeds and let it sit for several hours. After the mixture gets firm like pudding, I will add a light sweetener like maple syrup or rapadura sugar. If you like tapioca pudding, then you are really going to like chia pudding as it sort of has the same consistency. I add sliced fruits when available.

Dried beans and legumes. Beans have long been a staple for many campers. My boys and I make honest to God cowboy chili together on every camping trip. Cooking beans is an easy task for us since we travel with a pressure cooker.

Parmesan cheese. Hard cheese like Parmesan or Romano will stay fresh for weeks even when not refrigerated. I like to finely grate Parmesan cheese and sprinkle it on my salads or over a hot plate of pasta where it melts just like a soft cheese.

Pasta Pasta is probably the tastiest and easiest meal to make on camping trips. Pasta is lightweight, easy to store, and a gourmet meal can be prepared in minutes. Serve with fresh pasta sauce and grate Romano cheese. Fresh pasta tastes great and is easy to prepare at your campsite. I am not fond of the typical grocery store variety pasta sauces. I will buy a decent marinara sauce from Trader Joes or Costco when we are near any of these stores.

Canned tuna. It’s hard to beat canned chicken or fish for a super protein packed meal or snack.

Make a camping checklist several weeks in advance. A check lists prevents you from over buying and over packing. We do a majority of shopping on the road since we tend to enjoy fresh food as opposed to pre-packaged camping foods sold by REI. I must admit that the freeze dried dinners produced today taste as close to gourmet food as you can get while camping. It’s a good idea to throw a few freeze dried camping food packages in your storage bin as an emergency food source or when you are feeling lazy.

If you like things that are easy to prepare and take along on hikes, then plan that into your checklist. We enjoyed fresh fruits and vegetables. So guess what we do? We enjoy foraging for fresh berries and edible plants. Last summer while camping in Northern Oregon, we discovered a scenic route called “The Fruit Loop”. We were able to pick our own organic blueberries and fresh cherries with a view of Mt. Hood and the beautiful Cascade Mountain range in the background. It was one of the most amazing camping experiences in her life.

On the same trip, we finished for trout and were able to enjoy some excellent fresh fish dinners.

Not too far away from the Fruit Loop was a beautiful remote campground located at Lost Lake. When we arrived at the lake, we noticed people filling small pails with beautiful berries. When we inquired what type of berries they were picking the young ladies explained to us that they were wild huckleberries. We spent the next 3 days eating as much huckleberries as we could.

The Following 6 Spices Need To Be Included In Your Camping Pantry

Camping food needs to be as tasty as it is at home or you will be heading for the nearest fast food restaurant or diner.

Salt & Pepper
Hot pepper
Dried Onions
Dried Garlic
Italian Seasoning
Cinnamon

Use double duty cookware like woks and pressure cookers. Stay away from the big-box discount store camp cooking sets as most of those are nice to look at but are not very practical or functional. Keep your meals simple and tasty so you can have more leisure time to enjoy other activities. On the other hand, if you love camp cooking, then bring it on with compact camping pantry and create unbelievable gourmet meals on the road.

Gourmet Camping Trips