Camping Food Hacks: 9 Smart Hacks

We know that camping trips and campfire food should be more than just marshmallows and baked beans (although we love both of these things!) so we got our team together to brainstorm their top camping meals and camping food hacks for your next outdoor adventure.

These quick recipes for camping meals take minimal prep time, are easy to cook, and are downright delicious. For these hacks, all you need is a campfire or portable gas stove, and a cooking device of your choosing, be it a frying pan, cast iron skillet, or perhaps a camping Dutch oven for those one-pot extravaganzas. So, get that camping grocery list together, and let's get creative.

Storage Hacks

#1 Portable Spices

This first hack will give you the opportunity to enjoy all your meals with all the spices you love!

That's right, you can bring along all your spices (and salt) along with you, even if you don't have tons of space.

Pack your spices into stackable pillboxes. They sit on top of each and other and don't take up much room at all. Make sure you pack only the spices you're going to need. You can label them with stickers and different color pens.

#2 Portable Food

When you're camping, the last thing you want to do is pack all your cooking paraphernalia into the car with you. Think about all the things you'll need: a cooking board, mixing bowls, knives. And when you're done cooking and eating, you have to find a wash station with clean water so that you can clean and dry it all.

Instead, pre-prepare all your meals and put the food in mason jars. This means you can pre-season everything before you leave the house. Mason jars are also air tight so there's no reason the food will spoil or spill.

#3 Portable Coffee

For many campers, coffee can be just as important as breakfast. But for coffee connoisseurs, instant coffee or single-serve coffee packets just won't cut it. If you love your filter coffee, then you will love this hack.

For this one, tie up your favorite filter coffee in the filters you normally use in your machine at home.

In the morning, boil up some water in a pot, throw in the tied-up filter, and let it brew slowly while you enjoy the outdoors.

Snack Hacks

#1 Swirly, Skewered, Sugary, Cinnamon Rolls

You don't need to leave behind your sweet treats either, because it's surprisingly simple to add cinnamon rolls to the menu for your camp meals. You can even prepare them at your campsite.

Bring along plenty of dough and cinnamon sugar. Combine the two together, then wrap the cinnamon-dough around a skewer. Hold the skewer over the flames until your freshly prepared swirly, skewered, sugary, cinnamony, sweet rolls are cooked to perfection!

#2 Campfire Bananas

Bananas make for a tasty, healthy snack when you're out camping and they are packed full of energy too. To liven them up though, it's easy to turn your plain old banana into a campfire banana.

Just unpeel the banana, wrap it in tin foil, and place them in some hot coals. You'll get a soft, gooey banana to enjoy. You can liven it up even more by cutting the banana lengthways down the middle and filling it with chocolate, marshmallow, or any other sweet treats you love (just remember you'll be making them a little less healthy!).

#3 Bread and veggies

For hassle-free camping meals or an easy camping breakfast, bring along a loaf of bread and loads of fresh veggies. Avo is another food to bring camping. A healthy sandwich full of vegetables doesn't require any equipment and makes for one of the most satisfying camping meals out there.

Foil Hacks

Camping food hacks aren't limited to a great breakfast or delicious sweet treats. In fact, we've got some masterful healthy camping meals that will make your camp cooking restaurant-worthy!

#1 Gourmet Tin Foil Sausages

Campfire sausages are a classic addition to any camp outing. If you are looking to be a little more adventurous than just skewering some meat over the fire, these easy gourmet sausages can be ready in no time. 

This is where you can get creative. We like to wrap our sausages up in tin foil, smothered in onions and cheese. You could even add some pre-made chili to cook inside the foil or wap the sausages in bacon.

Bring a few brioche buns along and you could have gourmet hot dogs.

#2 Tinfoil Veggies

Tinfoil is essential to all the best camping food hacks on any camping trip. It's not just great for cooking sausages and bananas, but it's great for cooking up delicious vegetarian camping food too.

Take your vegetables of choice, chop them up, season them and wrap them up in tin foil. You can even prepare this one at home before you leave to save time.

This is a great recipe that's guaranteed to cook perfectly every time.

If you are looking to add a little more spice to your life, make some spicy fajita veggies with peppers, chilis, onions, mushrooms, and some hot Mexican-style spices.

#3 Tinfoil potatoes

Rub butter all over the potatoes, punch holes into them with a fork, wrap them in tinfoil and throw them on the fire. They take a little while to cook but they are utterly delicious for any meal.

Dutch Oven Stew Hack

A Dutch oven is a great piece of cooking equipment to bring along camping. Portable and easy to use, they can add a new dimension to your camp cooking game.

When camping, Dutch Oven Stews are our favorite. Prepare some vegetables, spices, and meat as you like. Get your stock ready, throw everything into the Dutch oven, and slowly simmer the stew over the campfire until it's ready.

This is one hack where you can make the most of the ingredients you have lying around the campsite and while it cooks slowly you can kick back in your favorite camp chair and just watch the fire!

Step Up Your Camp Menu

There are so many tasty, yet easy meals to cook up when you're out in the woods camping!

Cooking when you're camping is a wonderful way to get creative with your family and friends, and you'll be amazed at the complicated-looking yet easy-to-make camp food you can quickly whip up on a weekend getaway.

Breakfast anyone?

We've covered a lot of snack options and the stew in this article. So here's an idea for breakfast. Crack open some eggs into a bottle before you leave and bring along some milk with you. This way you won't need to worry about eggs breaking on the trip, and you'll be able to have scrambled eggs or omelets for your first meal of the day. Also, you can check out our article for more dutch oven breakfast ideas.

The last word on camping hacks

The best thing about all of the camping hacks we have included is the fact that you need very little cookware to bring your camping meals to life.

Simply put together your camping food list, and you're sorted.

With these fantastic camping food hacks, your next camping adventure is going to be so much more enjoyable. Take along those portable scrambled camping eggs, be creative with the tin foil, and never leave your favorite cinnamony desserts at home, ever again!