Backpacking Campfire Recipes

Here are 50+ of the best backpacking recipes shared by experienced backpackers and camping chefs. These trail meals come from vegans, vegetarians, and omnivors. Take a look at their top-picks.

Barbara shares several ways to serve it Yellow Mung Dal (shown above) on the trail. Mung beans are fast-cooking, high in fiber, and loaded with protein.

A hearty Red Lentil Indian flavored meal. Zondra dries her Indian Dal into bark and serves it with vegetables and rice. Shared by Zondra Skertich.

Easy Camping Meals With Beef Jerky

Jamaican Jerk Chicken (shown above) shared by Squidbilly's wife, Granuaile's Chicken with Caramelized Onions & Tomatoes, Tanya's Curry Chicken & Rice, and Tassie's Penang Chicken.

Uses the squeeze bag method to mix and pour the dumpling mix into the boiling water. Easy prep at home and on the trail. Shared by Scottpash.

No meat lentil stew. Can be cooked on the stove, but it’s faster in an Instapot pressure cooker. Shared by Eric Payne.

Dehydrating Your Own Backpacking Meals & Recipes (for Beginners)

A wild game or lean beef stir fry meal cooked and dehydrated at home with quick prep on trail. Shared by Mephitus.

You don't always need to pull out the pot and stove for a trail lunch, especially on shorter trips where perishable foods like tortillas and cheese will keep for a few days and overall backpacking food weight is not as big of a consideration.

Another backpacking meal strategy for lunches is to prepare the meals in the morning in a thermos food jar. Just add hot or cold water depending on the recipe. At lunchtime, just open and eat - very convenient!

Backpacking Tacos (beef And Vegetarian Option) — Camp Kitchen

Hash Browns, Salmon Scramble, Breakfast Burritos, Flat Bread, Applesauce Oatmeal Pancakes, Cinnamon Breakfast Bannock, Chocolate Chip Plopcake, Apple Crumble and Banana Crunch Breakfast.

Toasted Oat & Almond Energy Bars, High-Carb Peanut Butter Energy Bars, Low-Carb Nuts & Seeds Energy Bars, Apple Jerky, Banana-Granola Trail Cookies, and Chef Glenn's Fig Nut Energy Bars.

Using a food dehydrator, you can make light-weight, delicious meals like Chili, Root Bark Stew, Ratatouille, Mexican Beef & Rice, Unstuffed Peppers and dozens more!Combining quick-cooking instant rice, freeze-dried vegetables, powdered eggs, and soy sauce packets, this fried rice recipe is a great backpacking idea that relies entirely on store-bought ingredients. No dehydrating required!

Campfire Bannock Recipe: The Easiest Way To Make Backcountry Bread

As so many backpackers do, we often get food cravings while out on the trail. While pizza is always high on the list, close behind is a carb-loaded favorite: fried rice. And not authentic fried, rice either. We’re taking super Americanized, food-court-at-the-mall style fried rice. (You know the kind!) We don’t really know why we love it, but we keep coming back.

So we figured we’d come up with a backpacking version that would satisfy our desire for “fried rice, ” while still being lightweight, calorie-dense, and quick cooking.

What’s great about this recipe is that it relies entirely on store-bought ingredients. So if you don’t have a dehydrator (or don’t have time to dehydrate), this is a great recipe to have in your back pocket. You can pick up the instant rice, veggie bouillon, dried spices from your local grocery store. And you can purchase the Just Veggies dehydrated veggie mix and OvaEasy egg from REI or Amazon.

Simple Backpacking Recipe Ideas + How To Create Your Own!

We made this fried rice vegetarian. However, if you want to up the protein in this meal, you could cut up a jerky bar and add it to the mix. We recommend the Epic meat bars – particularly the sriracha chicken!

At home, combine the veggies with the dried spices in a resealable container and place a cube of vegetable bouillon and two soy sauce packets inside. If you can track down individual soy sauce packets, you can also fill a small resealable container with soy sauce. You’ll need at least 2 tablespoons for this recipe (but why not bring a little more for extra flavor?)

In a separate container, store the instant rice. If this is the only meal that includes eggs, you will also need to store the OvaEasy in a separate container as well, but more often than not, we just bring the whole bag as we are using eggs for other meals too – like our Breakfast Scramble.

Let's Go Camping: Tried & True Outdoor Meal Ideas

At camp, the first step is to cook the eggs. In the bottom of a pot (with the heat off), mix the appropriate amount of egg crystals with water until the mixture is smooth. Then turn the heat on low to scramble. Add a little cooking oil if you’re worried about them sticking. Once the eggs are done, transfer them out of the pot into a bowl or cup.

The next step is to rehydrate the veggies. Pour the veggies and spices into the pot, add the vegetable bouillon cube, soy sauce packets (2 tablespoons-worth), and water. Let this all simmer for a few minutes, until the veggies are rehydrated and the bouillon cube is fully dissolved.

Then pour in the rice, turn off the heat, and cover. The rice is usually ready in about 5 minutes. All that’s left to do it stir everything up, mix the eggs back in and enjoy. If you brought a little extra soy sauce, this is a perfect time to drizzle a little on top.

Bring Your Ladle To The Campfire: 3 Siberian Recipes For Hiking

↠ Cook Pot: A good, nonstick cook pot helps prevent the eggs from sticking to the bottom. We like this one from MSR which has a ceramic coating.

↠ OvaEasy Eggs: You’ll have to try them to believe it, but OvaEasy really does have the taste and texture of scrambled eggs once cooked. You can find them at REI and Amazon.

↠ Minute Rice: Don’t try to bring along regular rice for this, it will take forever to cook. Stick with white or brown Minute Rice which you can find at most grocery stores.

Cook Delicious Spicy Ramen While Backpacking

Fresh Off The Grid is a culinary resource for the outdoor community. We offer a collection of recipes, how-to guides, and camp cooking gear to help you enjoy great food in the great outdoors!We love cooking outside, but unfortunately, many home recipes don’t lend themselves well to being cooked at a campground. For most car campers, the relatively limited camp kitchen setup (two-burner stove, no oven, no microwave, no electronic appliances) means you need to be a little more creative with the way you cook.

One-pot camping meals (or one skillet meals) can be made with just a single piece of camp cookware. Instead of using separate pans, for example, to boil water for pasta, simmer a sauce, and saute vegetables, one pot meals simplify the process and make the camp cooking experience so much easier!

Less Mess: One of the biggest advantages of one pot cooking is having fewer dishes to wash at the end of the meal. At home, this is nice. But when you’re cooking at a campsite, without a dishwasher (or even a sink!), not having to scrub multiple pots and pans at the end of the night means you get to spend less time cleaning and more time hanging out in front of your campfire.

Hearty Camping Breakfast Recipes

Timing: Every home cook knows how difficult it can be to get each part of a recipe ready at exactly the right time. This problem can be even worse at a campsite where you can’t just pop something in the oven to keep it warm. By cooking a meal in one pot, everything is ready at once.

Scalability: Whether you’re cooking for two or an entire trail crew, one pot meals can be easily scaled depending on the size of your group. Although you might find you need a bigger pot!

We’ve collected a variety of one pot recipes for you to try out on your next camping trip. Spend more time enjoying your time outdoors and less time doing dishes! Enjoy!

Best Backpacking Meals

With a custardy interior and butter-fried golden edges, this Dutch Baby pancake (aka German Pancake) is one of our favorite camping breakfasts. All you need is a Dutch oven!

This Dutch Oven French Toast Bake is a great breakfast idea when feeding the family. Toasty edges and tender on the inside, it’s everything you love about French toast – just a lot more of it!

This frittata is bursting with the summer flavors of ripe tomatoes and fresh basil and is topped with melty cheese. It cooks in one skillet right over your campfire or camp stove.

Make Ahead Camping Meals That'll Make You Say, Yum!

Crispy tortillas simmered in a spicy tomato sauce and topped with a few eggs. Chilaquiles takes less than 30 minutes to make, and are vegetarian, too!

A beloved happy hour classic, now being served at a campground near you. What better way to end the day outside than with a cold beer, warm campfire, and a big pot full of cheesy nachos?

Plump tortellini and spicy Italian sausage floating in a rich, luxurious broth, this quick and easy tortellini soup is one of the coziest one-pot camp meals you can make!

Steam Baked Campfire Muffins

Sweet, savory, crispy, and saucy, this Dutch oven recipe for Chicken Marbella delivers a “gourmet” campfire experience but without any of the work.

A plant-based twist on a summer classic, these red lentil sloppy joes pack in just as much flavor (and protein) as the original – but without all the funky extras.

Combining red lentil pasta with garlicky sauteed kale, this super easy one pot

Smart Backpacking Food Ideas