Need ideas for camping food..

Walking tacos......Little bags of either fritos or dorritos.....Put cooked hamburger meat, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, etc.. in the bag, grab a spoon and eat!

Wow, you are adventurous!

I always like to cook a big traditional breakfast - bacon or sausage, pancakes or French toast, eggs, oj. That's all pretty easy to pack and cook. You could also do breakfast burritos one morning.

Something that is a camping staple for me is French bread. It's so versatile for French toast, sandwich buns, garlic bread, and it travels better than regular bread.

You can't go wrong with spaghetti, chili, burgers, or hotdogs for main dishes, baked potatoes or corn for side dishes. It might be worthwhile to brush up on Dutch oven cooking before you go. You can make easy desserts just by dumping cake mix and pie filling together. There are lots of recipes out there. And don't forget s'mores, which have gone gourmet with all kinds of variations.

Take your drill sergeant whistle and assign KP duties to those restless teenagers so you'll have some time to relax.

We like walking tacos too! So good and so easy to clean up. We also like to do hotdogs, kids love to cook them over the fire. For breakfast we always do breakfast burritos at least once, but with a big group I would be tempted to do cereal or bagels.

One thing I would suggest is to do as much prep at home before you go. Cook your taco meat, make your spaghetti sauce, cut up your veggies, etc. I also allow myself to not worry about recycling while I'm camping. I faithfully recycle 360 days a year, I'm okay with throwing away a can when I'm camping.

Also check Pinterest.  I've seen camping hints and recipes there.

YOu have a lot of good suggestions here. My biggest suggestion would be to do as much prep as you can in advance. You may be surprised at the things that you can cook, or mostly cook, ahead of time. My family loves a big breakfast while camping, such as bacon or sausage, eggs, etc. I have learned to pre-cook both bacon and sausage -- cook them about 3/4 of the way through, pack into Ziplocs bags in the cooler. Then at the campsite, you can quickly finish them in a skillet, scramble some eggs, and you're good. We often stuff everything into flour tortillas while camping because there isn't a good way to make toast. For dinners, too, think of everything you can do ahead of time. For instance, I will brown ground beef and drain, then put it in a Ziploc and label what meal it's for. Same with diced chicken or anything for meals I'm making on the camp stove. Stuff you're going to cook in or on the fire (burgers, hot dogs, etc.) is obviously different.

2 of my kids favorties, pita pizzas. Get pita pockets and fill with your favorite pizza toppings, wrap in foil and lay on a fire grate. Easy and yummy. We also do sausage and potato pockets. slice potato's onions and beef sausage put on foil with a little butter and salt and pepper and cook over the fire for about 20 min. We do eggs and bacon and pancakes for bfast. I always crack the eggs and put in a bowl or container before we go so I don't have to worry about that mess.

Veteran camper here and assistant Scoutmaster. If you don't have experience with outdoor cooking, I would stick with the walking tacos and the other suggestions noted above. I agree with doing as much prepping ahead of time as you can. Our scouts still do that (chop things, pre-cook the meat, etc.). There is no where to dump the grease.  The Scouts plan, shop, prepare, prep, cook, and clean up for each meal, but I get that your 4H group doesn't camp that often. The adult leaders plan our own meals (oh, good stuff like grilled salmon with herb butter, yummy,).

I agree with the suggestion that once you are on the campsite, the kids should be doing the cleaning and the cooking, for each meal, do a duty roster, if you cook, then you don't clean. If you clean, then you don't cook for that meal. You can do smores for a snack around the campfire, each kid assembles them after dinner and wraps them in squares of heavy duty foil. Each kid lays their smore packet around the campfire until the marshmallow melts.

Actually, our troop is going on a weekend camping trip this weekend with an all day hike through the Hocking Hills in Ohio, it's beautiful there. We have 20 Scouts and 4 adult leaders. We are having a "mountain man" breakfast done in a dutch oven, on the trail lunch, and a low country shrimp boil for dinner. I like to check out the recipes by Johnny Nix (yall eat yet) and he has a cable show on rural TV. For the morning you are leaving, make the breakfast simple, apples and cinnamon instant oatmeal, bagels, banana, apples.

countrypeagirl - I seem to be having difficulty creating a link, so let me try it this way. This is a thread from a while back that might have something of interest to you. Good luck with all those teenagers and have a great time!

2peasrefugees.boards.net/thread/485/food-ideas-camping-grill-campfire

we do that for Frito pie ! Put some chili and cheese in the bag and its so good!

I dont have anything to add to the recommendations here but I hope you have fun!

We cook a lot of food in a large dutch oven when we camp with girl scouts. The girls love the breakfast casseroles from the dutch oven, soups, and of course, dump cake.

You can also have each person make his/her own foil packet meal with tater tots, frozen veggies, and a meat or beans with seasonings that you cook on the fire, or you can make large communal foil packet meals. We often do chicken and rice with veggies (and a separate vegetarian version - I'd do all vegetarian cooking, but some of my campers complain). Baby carrots with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper cooked in a foil pack always gets raves, even from the kids who say they'll never eat veggies. Burrito soup (canned refried beans, canned chiles, salsa, cumin, chili powder cooked in a dutch oven and served with shredded cheese and crumbled nacho chips went over very well and was super simple to make.

Keep lunches simple - bring sandwich makings and have everyone make their own sandwich.


There are some excellent cookbooks for simple outdoor cooking for a large crowd (and even just a couple of teenagers can count as a "large crowd" with the way they eat, particularly after a busy day of outdoor activities.)

I would also suggest involving the teens in the cooking and food prep as much as possible. Teach them fire safety, how to use the camp stove, light the fire, start charcoal and cook over the fire. It's good for them to learn those skills and they'll better appreciate all you are doing.