Quick and Easy Camping Meal Ideas

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I love a good camping trip–especially camping with family and friends. We camp with some families who prepare the most gourmet feasts while camping. While I appreciate their effort (and even more so when I benefit from it), I am all about focusing on easy camping meals so that I have more time to explore or relax.

I have some easy camping dinners that I stick with for most of our camping trips, unless we plan a potluck night with multiple families (which is always fun too). These meals might not be the most gourmet, but they won’t involve hours of prep work or hours of dishes either.

Especially if you are camping while it’s hot, the last thing you need is to spend hours in front of a cooktop. Plus the ingredients are all straight forward–and won’t take up too much space in your cooler. All of these easy camping meals can be prepared using basic camping kitchen gear as well, so you don’t need to buy anything fancy.

Helpful Tips

If you are tent camping, make sure you check out my tips on how to make ice last longer in your cooler. This is vital for making sure your food stays cold enough, but without you having to rush out to buy more ice every day. I also have this list of everything you need in your camping kitchen. These recipes don’t require anything special–again, I’m all about easy.

To make your life even easier, you can use Amazon Fresh to order your groceries and have them shipped directly to you. Packing for a camping trip is stressful enough, so saving time (and money) by shopping on Amazon is something I often do.

Group Potluck Ideas

If you’re looking to go group camping with multiple families, you might want to consider doing one potluck style dinner. There are many ways you can do this.

Bring Your Own Meat Potluck

One idea is that each family cooks their own main dish (hot dogs, hamburgers, steak, etc.), and provides one side item that is shareable. Then you meet at one central campsite with all the other families, and you have a great variety of side items to go with your meal.

Traditional Pot Luck

Another idea is a simple potluck. It can be something like nachos or tacos that involve tons of toppings, so you’re all in charge of bringing something that goes on the main dish. Or it can be something like hamburgers and hotdogs–if there are enough families, two can be in charge of the hamburger patties, one in charge of hotdogs, one in charge of all the buns and then everybody else brings a side dish.

Theme Night

We’ve done different “themes” such as a soup night or Italian night, where each family makes a different main dish that fits within that theme and then we have a group potluck.

Again, there are many different ways to plan a night that everyone eats together, and I encourage you to try it out. The kids always seem to want to eat everyone else’s food anyways, so you might as well make it official!

Easy Camping Meals: Dinners

Campfire Tacos

A twist on nachos, these campfire tacos can be made in a ton of different ways, but I’ll provide the easiest recipe here. It’s a great first night dinner because you don’t need to thaw any meat that might be frozen, or a last night’s dinner so you don’t need to worry about keeping meat cold.

• Chips
• Canned chili
• Cheese
• Green onion and/or jalapenos
• Sour cream, salsa, guacamole, or any other toppings you might want.

Chicken Skewers

If you go to Costco, you can find chicken skewers that are already cooked and just need to be reheated on the BBQ. You can find them at other grocery stores as well, but sometimes they can be pricier.

• Chicken skewers
• Baked Beans
• Corn on the Cob, Creamed corn, or Salad

Chili Dogs

I’m not sure if it’s just the way I grew up, but chili dogs just feel like camping food to me. It’s a cheap and easy idea that doesn’t take a lot of time at all.

• Canned chili
• Hotdogs
• Buns
• Raw onion
• Mustard
• Cheese
• Side ideas: pasta salad, macaroni salad, green salad, pasta roni

Spaghetti

I know it’s so basic, but spaghetti is a great camping meal for a variety of reasons. Not only is it cheap and easy (and filling), but if you bring jarred pasta sauce, you don’t need to keep any of the main ingredients cold, so this is usually our go-to meal on our last night.

• Noodles
• Sauce (jarred to make it even easier)
• Hawaiian rolls
• Green salad
• Butter (for the rolls and so the noodles don’t stick)
• Parmesan cheese
• Crushed red pepper

Chicken Fried Rice – An easy camping meal you may not have thought of

This is a camping meal you might not have thought of, but trust me–it’s easy! We make the white rice before we ever leave to go camping (although you can definitely make it at the campground). Then we bring the stuff to mix in it. And there are so many options when it comes to what you can put in it. Bonus: my husband makes a ton so that we have leftovers for lunches as well.

• White rice
• Veggies (we buy the mix of carrots, peas, corn and green beans in a can)
• Eggs
• Chicken (optional)
• Bacon (optional)
• Green Onion
• Sesame Oil
• Soy Sauce

BBQ Chicken Sandwiches

For another easy camping dinner, I like to buy tubs of already-cooked BBQ chicken that I can re-heat over a stove and then spoon into hamburger buns. My only complaint is that I often have to buy multiple tubs for my ravenous eaters, so it doesn’t always seem the most reasonable cost-wise for what it is. They can also take up a lot of space in your cooler, making this is a good first-night meal.

• Pre-cooked and shredded BBQ chicken
• Buns
• Side items: corn on the cob, pasta salad, potato salad, macaroni salad, green salad

Campfire Pizza – One of our favorite easy camping dishes

Assemble your pizza on foil, then cook over the fire or on a camping stove. Everyone can customize their own! Sometimes I do small English muffin pizzas instead for an easy lunch idea. Simply cut the bread in half, add the sauce, cheese and toppings, and then cook on a camping stove.

• Pre-made pizza dough (or English muffins),
• Marinara sauce
• Mozzarella cheese
• Toppings

Other Easy Camping Meals

• Hamburgers
• Steak & Potatoes (instant potatoes, of course)
• Sloppy Joes
• Tacos

Easy Camping Meals: Lunches

Lunches are my least favorite camping meal. I feel like they always get in the way of the fun we’re having. If we’re beach camping, we need to leave the beach to go make lunch. If we’re out hiking, we need to plan ahead and bring something with us. That’s why these easy camping meal ideas for lunch are as simple as can be.

Whenever we get a desire to make something “fancy” for lunch–this is what we make:

Pesto Chicken Sandwishes

• Canned chicken
• Jar of pesto
• Provolone cheese
• Mayo
• Salt and pepper

To make: mix the canned chicken with a little bit of mayo and pesto. Season with salt and pepper. Now you have two options: put it onto the bread, add a slice of cheese and enjoy, or throw it on a griddle and crisp up the chicken. We just started doing it this way, and it’s sooooo delicious. Butter the bread and throw it on the griddle as well, then add a slice of cheese on the bread so it melts a little, add the cooked chicken and wah-lah!

Other Easy Camping Lunch Ideas

• Uncrustables (easy to throw in a hiking backpack or small cooler so they’re ready when the kids are)
• Lunchables (not always worth the price for hungrier eaters, but still easy)
• Sandwiches (deli meat, bread, condiments)
• Spaghetti-Os, Raviolis or other canned option
• Ramen Noodles
• Hot dogs
• English Muffin Pizzas (from the dinner idea above)

Easy Camping Meals: Breakfasts

We usually have a big breakfast on one or two of the mornings and then we have easy options for the other mornings.

Scrambled Eggs, Bacon, Sausage & Potatoes

• Eggs (cook them any way you’d like)
• Bacon
• Sausage
• Hash brown patties
• Add in a roll, bagel or toast for a breakfast sandwich

Breakfast Burritos

• Tortillas
• Scrambled eggs
• Chorizo (we cook the eggs and chorizo together, but you can do sausage, bacon or no meat if you prefer)
• Cheese
• Salsa, sour cream, avocado or any other fixins’

Other Easy Camping Breakfasts

• Bagels & Cream Cheese
• Donuts
• Muffins
• Cereal & Milk
• Oatmeal

Bonus: Fun Dessert & Drinks

Waffle Cookies With Ice Cream

• Cookie dough tub
• Vanilla ice cream

Simply put a scoop of cookie dough on your heated small waffle maker. It took us a few tries to get it down, but we found about 90 seconds to 2 minutes was a good amount of time. Take the cookie off and top it with ice cream. A fun switch up from s’mores!

Check out this complete list of my favorite camping desserts for even more ideas!

Patriotic Champagne Drinks

• Champagne
• Rocket pops
• Optional: blueberries, strawberries…

I can’t list easy camping meals without an easy camping drink as well. Simply pour yourself some champagne in one of these adorable plastic champagne flutes, and then add a rocket pop popsicle. It’s festive and delicious! If you’re tent camping, dry ice in your cooler can keep these popsicles cool enough for a day or so.

More Ideas

Because this post has gotten so much praise, I went ahead and created another one someeasy one pot dishes for camping. You can never have too many ideas for easy camping meals!

Places to Camp

If you’re looking for a fun place to camp, check out some of my tried and true favorite family campgrounds in California.

• San Elijo State Beach Campground
• Yucaipa Regional Park Campground
• Spring Cove Campground at Bass Lake
• Oh Ridge Campground at June Lake
• Meeks Bay Campground at Lake Tahoe
• Pinecrest Campground
• Agua Caliente Campground
• Hurkey Creek Campground near Idylwild
• Potrero County Park Campground

And for more camping resources, check out my other blog posts, like Camping for Newbies: Camping Basics, Camping Supplies List: What to Bring Tent Camping and How to Have an Outdoor Movie Night While Camping.

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