Camping Food Ideas – Full Meal plan!

Much of camping PREPARATION is focused on camping food ideas. What if all the HARD WORK was done for you?

FAMILY CAMPING TRIPS ARE SO MUCH FUN! I LIKE TO KEEP THINGS AS ORGANISED AND LOW MAINTENANCE AS POSSIBLE. But we still gotta eat! Preparing meals and snacks ahead of time is so helpful in reducing the workload and dishes whilst camping. This blog post is a full list of healthy meals, easy snacks and budget friendly camping food ideas.

Camping Food considerations

The two biggest consideration when meal planning for camping is storage and you will actually cook the food. Depending on where you are camping either off grid or at a powered campground makes a big difference.

What food storage do you have and cooking appliances are you taking?

Also considering if you want to do a grocery run halfway your camping trip or completely stick it out with what you have will make a difference on your preparation. For me I like to have a variety of healthy snacks and meals prepared ahead so we don’t eat unhealthy for the whole trip, and to keep things as easy and quick as possible.

Camping Food Storage Ideas

Camping fridge/freezer

• our family has a WAECO 80 litre camping fridge/freeze that runs off a 12 volt car plug or off a regular electrical point. We keep about 30 litres as freezer and the rest as fridge space. We bought ours second hand off of Gumtree several years ago!

Large Plastic Tub

• Dry food is stored in a large plastic tub so we can seal it and keep things dry and organised.

Extra Bar Fridge

• We also sometimes use a small bar fridge when staying at a powered caravan park to keep drinks and non-essentials cold.

Alternative food storage

• Foam ice boxes are another great options to increase food storage that needs to be cool or cold. Stone fruits stored in styrofoam foam food boxes can be a great space saver. You can also use a regular esky. Be aware that you may need to replace the ice every few days to keep your food cool.

Camping Food space saving ideas

• Meal plan so you are not taking unnecessary food items.
• Freeze meals using ziplock bags flat packed to save room.
• Use tupperware or glass containers to store fresh fruits and veggies. This limits squashing food and takes up less room in your esky. It also makes so much easier to access what you need.
• Bring some canned veggies to reduce fridge space.
• Consider only bringing fresh veggies for the first week and doing a grocery store run if possible for the second half of your stay.
• Pack veggies into premade meals, and bulk out dinners with potatoes, corn chips, bread or noodles that don’t need to be stored in the fridge/freezer.

Camping utensils and cooking appliance Ideas

BBq with flat plate

• If you take nothing else, a BBQ with a flat plate is a great option, you can cook eggs, bacon, toast, whole roast, pizza, boil water and more on a BBQ. We love our Weber Q and have even done a turkey roast for Christmas in there.

Gas Stove or electric fry pan

• A gas stove top or electric fry pan is great to throw together your simple camping dinners.

Cooking Utensils and pans

• Bring one fry pan and one saucepan along with a metal spatula, wooden spoon and a pair of tongs.
• Large mixing bowl for salads, chips, fruit and whatever else we might need it for.
  • I like to make sure we have good quality utensils like a wooden spoon or metal spatula, this saves me wasting time trying to stir using a flimsy tool.

Camping Food Ideas – Meal Plan

The following meals will last your family 2 weeks approximately!

For my meal plan I like to choose a few delicious, healthy and simple dinners then repeat these several times through the holiday. This makes planning and groceries simple.

I will set the meal plan out according to breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks.

Next I will write out what needs to be prepared beforehand, what needs to be bought fresh and what can be bought in advance.

Camping Breakfast

1. Yoghurt & Granola (Natural greek or coconut yoghurt plus Trader Jo’s Granola from Costco. x2
2. Apple Cinnamon Nut Porridge – Jo Whitton Life Changing Food Cookbook x 2
3. Gluten Free Buckwheat pancakes with banana and cream x 2
4. Bacon and Eggs with Avocado with/without toast. x3
5. Toasted Bagels with butter or cream cheese x2
6. Breakfast wraps x 2
7. Toast, cereal or yoghurt x 1

Camping Lunch

1. Cheese and Crackers with Pate and cut veggies x 2 (Sunday)
2. Wraps with canned tuna, sauerkraut, veggies and DF Mayo x3
3. Wraps or buns with pulled pork and slaw x2
4. Quinoa cooked in stock with roast veggies topped with tuna, leftover meat or shredded chicken. Served with Avocado and veggies – x4 (Can be made into a wrap or taco bowl served with corn chips).
5. Sausages, Sauerkraut on bread, buns or plain. x 2
6. Pizza with leftover toppings x 1

Camping Dinner

1. Roast Beef, Veggies and Sauerkraut served with avocado x 2
2. Lasagne x 1
3. Burgers x 2
4. Taco Bowls x 2
5. Steak and Veggies x2
6. Pizza on BBQ x 2
7. Lamb and Veggies x1
8. Spaghetti x 1

Camping Snacks

1. Fresh cut veggies with hummus or pate
2. Fermented salsa with corn chips.
3. Raw slice
4. Fruit including watermelon and pineapple.
5. Nuts
6. Homemade Chocolate
7. Cheese and crackers.
8. Chips
9. Leftovers

Camping Food prepartion

For our camping trip I decided to prep as much as I could ahead of time so that I didn’t need to cook too much whilst on holidays.

Food preparation that is scheduled a few days or a week before leaving will help you to empty out the fridge of fresh food for the trip. On a whim I mades some fermented ( Kimchi Radish Salsa Sarah Wilson Recipe) with some radishes that needed to be used. It turned out delicious and was so nice to add to our taco bowls, wraps and just eat with corn chips.

So on that note, I want to add that although I did a lot of prep, I wasn’t necessarily planning to do this much. I did have a rough plan of what to make for the day but the food that ended up being made was also based on whatever was available in my fridge/freezer.

Camping food ideas – main meal prep

Roast Veggies and quinoa – sides and lunches

For lunches I wanted to have something easy that could be taken to the beach and still healthy. Roasted veggies with quinoa was a fantastic way to have a on the go lunch ready that can be changed to be a salad bowl, in a wrap or as a side with another meat dish.

Cut up a large batches of veggies (approx 4kg) season and roast.

Cook up 500g quinoa in meat stock.

Toss part of quinoa together with roast veggies and pack into 4x portioned ziplock bags. Freeze the rest in bulk bags of veggies and quinoa as sides or salads.

Camping food IDeas – DINNER

Spaghetti BOLOGNESE

Spaghetti sauce packed with veggies and beef mince is a great, easy dinner that can be stored in ziplock bags to save space. Also it is a one pot wonder so you don’t need to worry about cooking sides!

Pizza Dough

I made about 6 pizza bases. Two pizza bases were gluten free and four pizza bases were regular. This took about 5 min in the thermomix and freezed great. For toppings I had some homemade tomato sauce premade. Some coriander pesto (thermomix), haloumi, random veggies and I used some of the leftover roast meat, bacon and shredded chicken. The pizzas cook well on the BBQ and can be eaten for dinner, lunch or as a snack reheated.

Slow cooked Beef Roast

Cooking roast was an easy dinner that can extend as you need it to. Add in some roast veggies, potatoes, side salad, server over rice or with slaw on a bun. Super simple and versatile dinner to serve a large group.

Taco Bowls

For our holidays we planned out that each couple would cook for my extended family. So we did taco bowls served over rice or cauliflower rice. I pre-cooked a roast chicken and took about 800g of shredded chicken. I also cooked some pulled pork tex-mex style and had that ready to go. For our dinner we heated the meat, cooked the rice and made some homemade guacamole to go with it. I had a few radishes that needed eating so I made a fermented kimchi chilli radish salsa and it was delicious! Yes a mouthful I know!

Lasagne

You can buy these pre-made from Costco for our trip, but you can also prep this weeks in advance if you prefer. Delicious simple dinner which can be frozen and eaten at any time! Throw some salad or chopped veggies with it and you are good to go.

Camping food ideas Snack Prep

HOmemade Chocolate

This is a family favourite. Homemade chocolate serves as a special treat for dessert or on a platter. Homemade chocolate freezes well.

Fermented Salsa

Great on nachos or on wraps you can choose to make your own or take some with you. This means that their are also healthy probiotics in my salsa.

Raw slice

Taking some sort of baking like biscuits or slice is a great way to pull out an easy snack and make in bulk beforehand.

Pate’ or Dips

Make some homemade pate’ which is packed full of nutrients and is a delicious snack served with crackers or fresh veggies. Or take homemade dips or hummus for the same effect.

Camping food ideas – SHopping Ahead of time

Canned, Dried and long life

• Corn Chips
• Tortilla Wraps
• Canned Veggies
• Sauces
• Nuts
• Pasta
• Crackers
• Long Life Milk
• Juice or water
• All other drink items
• Any confectionary or chips you want to take along
• Granola
• Granola Bars

Buy the day of or the day before you leave – Fresh Food and Bakery

• Stone Fruit
• Melons
• Salad and Slaws
• Bakery items.
• Fresh Milk

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