Camping meal prep and planning for a trip is as essential as the gear you pack. Your meal prep and planning will depend on the type of camping you are doing. For this, I am going to focus on a trip where you return to the same campsite each night. My hope is that some of these principles can be transferred to other types of camping as well.
Typically, I plan with three main meals in mind: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You’ll need at least one larger cooler and one small/medium size cooler. These cooler requirements do not include refreshments.
Read: Cooking Like a Caveman
Meal Prep Tips for Camping
Breakfast
- Overnight oats – I like making a few jars of these. Here is a basic recipe that you can easily modify to include your own preferences.
- Pre-made breakfast burrito – These can be heated up over the fire. Here is a recipe that looks tasty.
- Hash browns and eggs in a cast iron skillet over the fire.
Lunch
- Deli sandwiches – This is all that I bring for lunches. I include ham, turkey, cheese, butter, and bread. It is basic but gets the job done. I usually pack the ingredients for sandwiches in the small/medium cooler since we are typically away from the campsite during lunch. The separate cooler makes it easy to bring lunch, either pre-made or just the ingredients, with us. If I pre-make the sandwiches, I like to wrap them in tinfoil for storage since we usually have a roll of tinfoil as opposed to a stash of sandwich bags. The other benefit of having the ingredients in a separate cooler is that it is more easily accessible during long drives. Passengers can make the sandwiches fresh so there is no need to make an extra stop.
- TIP: to spice up your sandwiches, add some chips! I like to add Doritos.
Read More: 20 Camping Hacks for Your Next Trip
Dinner
TIP: I typically decide prior to the trip what we will eat for dinner each night. This helps with planning and organizing. I will organize all the ingredients for each meal into gallon-size bags. A lot of times, I will fill sandwich bags filled with the correct portion of ingredients to be included in the larger bag as well. On the outside bag, I write what the meal is, what the contents are, what extra dry ingredients are needed, and the cooking directions. This not only helps with planning but it also makes the actual act of cooking dinner a bit easier after a long day of activities.
- Tacos – You can cook the meat in your cast iron over the fire.
- Pulled pork – Cook it ahead of time and just heat it up over the fire. A can of baked beans and some chips are easy sides. You could also add a baked potato cooked on the fire.
- Burgers – A camping classic but definitely an easy meal and liked by most.
- Pizza Pudgy Pie – these are my all-time favorite camping food and I would eat these for lunch and dinner! I personally like mine on white bread. Here is a general recipe for this ooey gooey goodness.
I hope you found this article helpful and best of luck while meal-prepping for your next camping trip.
