Camping Cooking Basics

One of my favorite things to do while camping is cooking over a campfire. When I first started out I used mostly sticks and foil to cook all of my food. I quickly learned there are other ways you can cook while camping including cooking with portable gas stoves. But even though there is a lot of high speed equipment out there, I would still rather cook on an open campfire. There might be some differences between cooking at home and outdoors but the basics are still the same.

Types of Camping Cooking

Camping Cooking can generally be lumped into two different categories. Cooking at an establish campsite where your car and all the equipment you can carry are readily accessible and back country cooking such as when you are backpacking and you have to carry all the food and cooking equipment on your back .

You can cook basically the same foods at an established campsite as you do at home and you have many different options of how you can cook food. You can use a gas stove, dutch oven, grill with store bought charcoal or right over an open campfire. There are usually stores close by where you can buy other ingredients you didn't bring from home.

While backpacking though you have to rely on a backpackers stove or a campfire and light weight cooking equipment. The most common way people cook while backpacking is to bring dehydrated foods to keep down the weight they carry. Then all you have to do is add water to the dehydrated foods in a backpacking cooking pot and rehydrate them.

What Type Of Foods To Bring Camping

No matter what type of camping you are doing you want to base the types of foods on what camping activities you are going to participate in. If you are going to be sitting around fishing or just enjoying conversation regular types of food will do just fine. But if you are going to be hiking or climbing you want to make sure your food choices are high in fat and carbohydrates to fuel your activities.

Preparing some of the ingredients of your camping meals at home will save you time and hassle out at the campsite. At a permanent campsite it is best to eat fresh foods. But if you are going to be camping out in the wilderness you might want to buy some prepackaged freeze-dried foods. You can get individual ingredients or full meals from a variety of specialty companies. You can also buy, from your local supermarket, dried goods like oatmeal, instant rice, soups and pastas or no refrigeration required precooked meals in foil and plastic packaging.

Water

You also have to consider your water source. At an established campsite water is usually readily available and comes from clean sources. But if you are backpacking or the water quality at your established campsite is poor then you want to use techniques to purify your water. Boiling your water is the best way to get rid of all of the nasties but you can also use chlorine or iodine based purifying methods although they are not as effective. You can also use a water purifier. You can buy a large one for an established campground or a small one for backpacking.

Conclusion

I think camping cooking tastes better then home cooking. Every time I go camping I can't wait to start up a fire. Cooking at your campsite doesn't have to be complicated just focus on the basics. It doesn't get any better than this. Learn the basics of camping cooking and your next camping trip will be a phenomenal success.

Go to our Camping Equipment section for more information on the camping cooking equipment mentioned in this article.

Next article in the family camping course: Planning Your Camping Trip