There are multiple options for cooking while camping however options may be limited to your storage capabilities and what you are able to bring with you in your RV or travel trailer. Options discussed in more detail below are open fire cooking, standard grilling, and slow cooker meals.
Cooking Methods
1. Open Fire Cooking
Isn’t open fire cooking one of the reasons you want to go camping? It is for us. Even back in the days of the cave men, people have been cooking over open fire. We should not deny ourselves that natural instinct. Who doesn’t like building a fire? In the 2 years we have been camping in our RV, we have yet to use the Stove or Microwave/Convection oven. In order to cook over an open fire, typically with provided fire rings at campground, you will need some type of cooking grate to go over the fire unless you create a lot of coals and put a cast iron Dutch oven directly on the coals.
There are multiple grates available. We started with an Adjust-a-Grill. This is a grate that has a single stake that you hammer in the ground near your fire. It has adjustability with the grate up and down. This is a nice starter grate but it has its downfalls. First of all, you are dependent on having decent ground in order to hammer the stake in. If you are near trees you will encounter roots and if it is very dry, the ground will be hard to penetrate the stake. Also, one stake doesn’t make it the sturdiest grate and does not do well with heavy items such as cast iron skillets. It is great though for skewers, foil packs, or just cooking some hot dogs and hamburgers.
We designed and fabricated a home-made cooking grate. Our grate may be on the little bigger size at 24”W x 30”L x 17”H, however it fits over most fire rings provided at campsites. Another bonus is you can feed a large party with this grate. The largest negative is you have to find a storage place to carry the grate. We made the grate foldable so it does consolidate, but pending the size of your RV, it may not fit into outside storage bins. A picture of the grate is shown below (prior to cleaning up and seasoning with oil). We’ll post specifics on how to build this in a separate article in the near future.
2. Grilling
The days that you don’t have the time to build a fire, cook your meals, and then make sure the fire is out before leaving the campsite for the day, we utilize a portable propane grill. We carry a Coleman Roadtrip LXE Grill which we set up specifically for these types of days. We really like the modular design that either uses grill grates, griddle plates, ‘stove top’ plates, or a combination thereof.
With the right equipment you can utilize the RV propane tank for external propane appliances (like a grill). I added an Extend-a-Stay adapter between my propane tank and the RVs onboard propane regulator. I don’t have to worry about running out of small propane bottles or carrying extra bottles of propane which would be an additional hazard. I did have to add an additional appliance hose so I can run my propane line under the RV and reach to the grill.
3. Slow Cooker Cooking
Although not my top cooking method while out camping however it is inevitable that mother nature will have an impact on the ability to cook over an open fire or even grilling. Don’t let rain keep you from having a nice meal. Break out the slow cooker and let it do the cooking. The downside about slow cooker is it will take up valuable space but hopefully you have storage in your RV or camper. We use a round 4 quart slow cooker so it doesn’t take up too much of our minimal storage space.
4. Stove Top/Oven/Convection Oven
Nearly every RV and trailer trailer comes equipped with a stove top range and/or microwave/convection oven. Admittedly, we have never used our indoor stove top range as we prefer to cook outside. We have used our microwave for quick reheating.
Other Necessary Items
Before we hit the road to our camping destination, in order start cooking with any of these cooking methods we need to make sure that our campers are stocked with basic utensils, barbeque tools, and cooking ware.
1. Basic Utensils
Silverware – Standard, plastic, or both? Standard silverware is more sturdy in nature but will require washing, and the plastic ware can just be tossed in the trash. We carry both but utilize plastic more often then the standard silverware. Don’t forget couple of good sharp kitchen knives these are handy for cutting and dicing of our foods and needed when you cook that delicious T-Bone.
2. Standard plates or paper plates?
We tend to use paper plates more often then not, however we do have a basic microwaveable set of bowls and plates in our RV in case they are needed. Try to find ‘unbreakable’ versions due to the shakes, rattles, and rolls that occur while driving.
3. BBQ Tools
Spatula, tongs, and skewers are tools needed when cooking over open fire or grilling. We have this set of BBQ tools in our RV.
One of the best BBQ tools in our toolset is a set of BBQ Grill Gloves. They allow us to handle almost all of the hot objects that are around or over the open fire. The gloves protect us from burns and from the heat that comes off from the fire and surrounding coal. We also use these gloves when handling any of our cast iron skillets, flipping corn on cob while roasting over the fire, or just to simply flip over foil packs that we have cooking. We have a dedicated set that stays in the RV.
4. Pots and Pans
You will also need various pots and pans to do your cooking. We carry a few small sauce pans to cook various things. We also have a dedicated set of cast iron cookware which is perfect for cooking on either the grill or over the open fire. We also carry a cast iron dutch oven to allow us to bake things on the fire. The downfall to these pans is the extra weight that you have to carry.
Also, useful when utilizing cast iron skillets are handle covers. They add an extra measure of protection when picking up pots and pans.
Pre-Trip Food Preparation
Now that we have the basic cooking utensils all set up in the RV/Camper, before we head out we should determine what meals we will be making while camping. We like to complete as much prepping with ahead of time so we can enjoy more camping, relaxing, activities versus preparing dinners. Generally, we measure out portion sizes and cut/chop/dice vegetables as needed. As we prepare our ingredients, we utilize our vacuum sealer in order to keep our food fresher longer. Now if you are a full-timer, prepping will be part of the daily routine.
Meal Ideas
Here are some of our favorite meals in no particular order:
1. Lunch/Dinners
Basic Hamburgers and hot dogs – quick and easy, great for travel days. We generally carry some frozen hamburger patties in the freezer and keep a pack of hot dogs in the fridge.
BBQ Chicken – simple and healthy – grill boneless chicken breasts or bone-in chicken pieces over cooking grate and baste with your favorite barbeque sauce.
Steak and Potatoes – every man’s favorite – Select your favorite cut of meat from a local grocery or butcher and season with your favorite seasoning (we personally like Montreal Seasoning). The key to a well cooked steak is being able to sear it over high heat. With high heat it won’t take long for the steaks to cook, 3-5 minutes for each side depending on the thickness and how you like your steak cooked (Rare, Medium Rare, Medium, Medium-Well, or Well). I would recommend having an Instant Digital Meat Thermometer in your kitchen utensils to assist in determining the doneness. Great sides to go along with steaks are baked potatoes and/or fire roasted corn on the cob (cooked in the husk).
Dutch Oven Chili with Skillet Corn Bread – take your favorite chili recipe, add to Dutch Oven and let it cook away be careful not to let it burn. We get a good fire going and place our Dutch Oven on top of our cooking grate. We found that we may have to move the Dutch Oven around to where the right temperature is but that is the adventure and challenge to cooking on an open fire.
For skillet cornbread, use your favorite cornbread mix or recipe to create your cornbread batter. We use Krusteaz mix and place the mixture in our cast iron skillet. I like my food spicy so I’ll slice up some jalapeno peppers and place over some of the cornbread batter. I then cook over the fire (covered with a lid) making sure to rotate the pan often until a toothpick inserted in the bread comes out clean.
2. Foil Packets
Foil packs are a great easy meal solutions. Be creative in selected your protein and veggies. Season and/or marinate your protein and vegetables, then put into serving size foil packets and cook over your open fire. Here are a few of our favorites.
Shrimp with some fresh Summer Vegetables – be careful not to over cook the shrimp. You may want to cook the shrimp in a separate pack since they don’t take as long to cook. Some summer vegetables may include yellow squash, zucchini, or green beans. A simple marinade for the shrimp and the veggies could easily be Italian dressing or Goya Mojo Marinade. Your options are endless.
Pierogies with Italian Sausage and fresh Veggies – We use thawed frozen pierogies and add squash, zucchini, mushrooms, onions, and peppers. Place everything together in foil packets and put on the grate over the fire turning occasionally until cooked.
Pineapple Chicken – Dice some chicken into bite size pieces. Then take a can of diced pineapples – reserving the juice. Mix a couple Tablespoons of the reserved pineapple juice with your favorite approximately ¼ cup BBQ sauce and toss on the chicken pieces. Add chicken and pineapple chunks to foil pack. Once you have your packs filled up, put them on the grate and turn frequently. Once the protein and vegetables are at desired doneness pull the packets off the grate and allow to cool for about 5 minutes. Then open and enjoy. Foil packs make for a quick and easy clean up.
3. Slow Cooker Meals
Pulled Pork – Pork butt and root beer (Great recipe as it is 2 ingredients- not much extra to bring) put your pork in the slow cooker and then put in can of root beer. Let cook 8-10 hours on low. Pull pork out of slow cooker when done and let cool for a bit. Once cooled to be able to touch, take 2 forks and pull the meat apart. Put pulled pork on a Kaiser or Hamburger Roll with your favorite BBQ sauce and enjoy. This may even make left overs which can be used for breakfasts or lunches.
Meatball Subs – Frozen Meatballs with Marinara Sauce – put meatballs in slow cooker along with a jar of marinara sauce – 2-4 hours on high. Once meatballs are cooked spook into Club or Steak Rolls along with your favorite cheese.
4. Breakfast
We prefer to typically cook on our gas grill for breakfast as we typically want to eat and then get to our days activities. We utilize our Coleman Roadtrip Grill with griddle plates and that is because we already had this grill from other activities. Another very popular griddle option that we highly recommend is the Blackstone Grill. A camping buddy of our has this and it is awesome for breakfast foods.
We typically stick to the basics for breakfast to fuel our day.
Bacon, eggs, and home fried potatoes – For the potatoes, we go the easy route and purchase frozen diced potatoes (we like potatoes O’brien if you can find them as they include onion and peppers already). We will heat up a small cast iron skillet with bacon grease if made bacon up but you can substitute oil on the griddle of the propane grill. Then we add the amount of potatoes we will eat and then season with dried parsley, old bay, garlic salt. Yum!!!
Pancakes – we use complete ‘just add water’ pancake mix while camping and cook over preheated griddle plates on our Coleman Roadtrip Grill. Easy, Peesy!
Waffles – We happen to have a waffle maker and we will take this on occasion and we will make up some waffles using pancake/waffle mix.
Cinnamon Roll Waffle – This is a new favorite of ours that we found on Pinterest. Simply take canned Cinnamon rolls and cook in waffle maker. Then add icing after you take out of waffle iron. Eat and enjoy! Yum!!
Cereal – Super easy, especially if you need to go out. Just add milk!
These suggestions are far from exhaustive. Just go camping, have fun, be adventurous, and try new types of meals with family and friends.