8 Best Campfire Cooking Recipes

Camping food can be a lot of fun or a pain in the behind.

Sure if you’re camping by yourself you can make whatever you want but if you’re taking your family or friends - you’re going to want to impress them with some amazing campfire cooking recipes.

Outdoor cooking is something that takes time to master but with the right campfire recipes, you can work wonders out there.

So with camping season on the horizon, I’m giving you my 8 favorite campfire cooking recipes for you to use this season!

1. Roasted Cinnamon Rolls

I know what you’re thinking - this isn’t camping food. Oh but it is and this is one of the sweetest campfire recipes you can make!

Campfire Cooking Recipes - Cinnamon Rolls:

Ingredients:

• Prepared Can of Cinnamon Rolls
• Optional: Freeze Dried Fruit of Choice

Directions:

1. Unwrap and place on a stick like you would a marshmallow
2. Cook over the fire until the dough is to your liking
3. Add frosting
4. Bonus: Throw on some freeze dried fruit onto your cinnamon rolls to give them an even more sweet flavor!

This campfire recipe is a great alternative to roasting marshmallows on a stick.

All you need to do is go to the store and get a can of prepped cinnamon roll dough.

Then simply wrap it around the stick.

The dough will gently roast over the flames and make an amazingly delicious treat for you and your campmates and show off your campfire cooking skills.

2. Baked Salmon with Ginger and Onions

Time to show off your gourmet campfire recipes! Technically, any fatty fish that provides a thick filet can be used in this simple recipe.

Campfire Cooking Recipes - Baked Salmon 

Ingredients:

• 1lb. Salmon cut into 2-3 pieces
• 1 piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
• 5 garlic cloves: peeled and chopped (can be swapped out with canned garlic)
• 1 ½ tablespoon of soy sauce
• ½ tablespoon of oyster sauce
• 1 tablespoon of honey
• 1 teaspoon of sesame oil
• Salt and pepper for flavor

Directions:

1. Rinse your salmon before leaving for your trip
2. Add the ginger and garlic and other ingredients to the salmon and rub it gently into the meat.
3. Pack the salmon in your cold box allowing it to marinate inside
4. Once at the campfire, place the salmon on your skillet and allow to cook until the salmon is pink and reached an internal temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit.

As a bonus, cook some of our Sweet and Sour Asian Rice to make this a complete meal.

This campfire cooking recipe has a very Asian flavor to it already which our rice will just enhance the flavor of one of the most amazing campfire cooking recipes.

3. Beef Stew

Pro Tip - When cooking camping food, combine long term food storage supplies with fresh ingredients for the best of both worlds.

This is easiest prepared in a cast-iron Dutch Over so make sure you have that handy with your other camping food supplies.

Campfire Cooking Recipes - Beef Stew

Ingredients:

• Freeze Dried Beef
• 1 tablespoon of oil
• 1 onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• Salt and pepper for taste
• Water as needed
• Freeze Dried Vegetables of Choice
• 2 cans of condensed beef broth

Instructions:

1. Heat the oil in your Dutch Oven while adding the beef until it is heated
2. Add your freeze dried vegetables and do the same
3. Assemble your onions, garlic, and other spices and beef broth while stirring the entire contents
4. Cook until to your liking (typically I cook it for 20 minutes to really let the beef stew take flavor).

While beef stew isn’t the most flashy of the campfire recipes, this will fill all of your needs and then some.

4. Green Beans and Bacon

Next on the list of my favorite campfire recipes is green beans and bacon.

I love bacon, I could eat for hours and odds are everyone you’re camping with will too!

This a relatively easy camping food recipe that you can make in less than 25 minutes!

Campfire Cooking Recipes: Green Beans and Bacon

Ingredients:

• 4 strips of bacon strips, chopped
• 8 cups of fresh greens beans, trimmed
• Water
• ½ cup of onion, chopped
• Salt and Pepper for flavor as needed

Directions:

1. Place your beans in your Dutch Oven and cover them in water bringing them to a boil.
2. Cook your green beans to your liking and then drain the water from them.
3. Add your bacon in with your other ingredients and 3 tablespoons of water and mix all together.
4. Allow to stew for 5 minutes and serve!

This hearty meal is high in protein and high in flavor and is sure to show off your cooking abilities and become one of your favorites campfire recipes.

5. Grilled Wild Asparagus

For experienced campers, foraging edible plants can also lead to some wonderful campfire food.

Remember not every wild meal has to come from game or fish!

Wild Asparagus isn’t really wild; it was introduced to the US a few hundred years ago and has spread throughout the country on its own.

Lucky for us, the spread of asparagus has been large and gives you and me another great option for camping food.

Campfire Cooking Recipes - Grilled Wild Asparagus

Ingredients:

• 4-6 ounces of asparagus
• Olive Oil
• Salt and Pepper for flavor

Directions:

1. Make sure to clean the asparagus with water to get rid of any critters that may be inside.
2. Cover the asparagus in olive oil and place on your grill or cast-iron skillet
3. Season the asparagus as it cooks and you flip it
4. Cook the asparagus for 6-8 minutes or until it’s to your liking!

You can add some freeze dried meat to this recipe as well and cook it with it.

My favorite is to pair freeze dried sausage with this recipe as the flavors complement each other really well.

This is one of my favorite campfire recipes and it’s always been a surprise to my friends I have cooked it for!

6. Hearty Mushroom Stew

This is one of the campfire recipes that takes a little bit of prepping before you’re out in the wild but, it’s so worth it on a cold night when you’re looking for something warm and hearty.

Campfire Cooking Recipes - Hearty Mushroom Stew

Ingredients:

• 1 yellow onion (diced)
• 1 carrot (diced)
• 1 cup Freeze Dried Corn
• ⅓ cup Vegetable Broth
• 8 oz. of Baby Bella Mushrooms
• 8 oz. White Button Mushrooms
• 2 cups Freeze Dried Potato Dices
• Seasonings for flavor: thyme, rubbed sage, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, soy sauce, salt, and pepper

Directions:

1. In your Dutch Oven, sauté your onions and carrots in the vegetable broth until softened and lightly browned.
2. Add your mushrooms, freeze dried potatoes, and corn bringing the soup to a boil. Add seasoning as needed and continue to stir until cooked through.
3. Allow simmering for 5-10 minutes adding salt and pepper as needed.

If you want to take this recipe to the next level, you can try getting edible wild mushrooms and using them instead of ones gotten at the grocery store.

If you want to use this, be extremely careful - some wild mushrooms are extremely poisonous and can lead to serious injury.

None of these campfire recipes are worth risking your life - when in doubt, practice safe cooking of your camping food.

7. Pigs in a Blanket

This is a twist on an old-school camping food classic - weenies on a stick. This is probably one of the easiest campfire cooking recipes on this list making it a perfect camping food recipe for you to use.

Campfire Cooking Recipes - Pigs in a Blanket

Ingredients:

• 1 pack of hot dogs (could be more if you need to feed a lot of people)
• 1 can of crescent dough
• 2 tbsp. Mustard

Directions:

1. Separate teg dough into triangles for each hot dog that you plan to cook.
2. Spread a thin layer of mustard over each piece of dough
3. Place the hot dog on top of each piece of dough and roll the dough around it
4. Cook over the campfire on a stick to your liking. (I like to get that golden brown look on the dough)

This camping food will surprise your fellow campers and allow you to be the hero of campfire recipes.

Just remember - with great power, comes great responsibility.

8. Grilled Pizza

Now for the ultimate camping food experience - Campfire Pizza.

You might be thinking this is the one campfire recipe that is too good to be true. But, you’re wrong! I’ve used it myself and I have been asked by tons of my outdoor friends how I have perfected this recipe.

Campfire Cooking Recipes - Grilled Pizza

Ingredients:

• 1 personal Pizza Dough
• Olive Oil
• Pizza Sauce of choice
• Toppings of choice (this can include whatever you like but I personally like to go with pepperoni, cheese and sausage.)

Directions:

1. Coat the bottom of your cast iron skillet with olive oil and place the pizza dough in the skillet without the toppings.
2. Cook the dough to your liking and then flip to get the other side cooked as well.
3. While cooking the other side of the dough, place all your toppings on top of the dough and then cover with a lid.
4. Cook until the cheese is melted and let cool for 5 minutes and enjoy!

What makes this one of the trickiest campfire recipes to cook is the dough.

The worst thing you’d want to happen is for the dough to be mushy and uncooked under the pizza and you wouldn’t know until you take a bite.

This is why it’s critical to cook the dough first and flip it without the toppings.

Trust me - I’ve tested this more than all of the other campfire recipes and it works.

Just be very careful not to burn the dough (unless you like your curst on the crispier side).

Conclusion - 8 Campfire Cooking Recipes

Camping food doesn’t have to be scary or boring.

These campfire recipes are proof that you don’t have to just cook the same old hot dogs and marshmallows on a stick.

Another great benefit of these campfire recipes is that it will make more of your fiends want to go camping if they’re not into it.

I had a few buddies that didn’t want to go but as soon as I showed them the amazing camping food I was eating, they were hooked and wanted to come on my next trip.

Valley Food Storage is here to help supplement all of your campfire cooking recipes with a wide variety of freeze dried meat and freeze dried veggies and long term food storage options.

From full dinners to individual meats, vegetables and fruits, we have everything you need to cook the best camping food possible!

On top of that, all of our food lasts for 25 years so you’ll never have to worry about not being able to make one of these campfire cooking recipes because you’ll always have the essentials.

Click here to check out our long term survival food buckets now!