CAMPING | Quick and Easy Recipes for Campers on the Go

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Getting out and about with your tent or campervan is a great way to spend the summer, and one of the biggest joys is perhaps cooking and dining outdoors.

camp kitchen essentials

Eating good food outside around your fire pit BBQ can really help make your camping break, so we’ve put together some meal ideas that you can easily put together whilst camping.

Healthier Breakfast Fry-Up

It might seem a bit of a mind-bender, but a fry-up doesn’t always have to be unhealthy. It is important to get your calories and some nutrient-rich food when out in the wild. Spinach, onion, mushroom and cherry tomatoes with some seasoning makes for a wonderfully tasty plate of food. Add some scrambled eggs for extra protein.

Ingredients required:

  • Butter
  • Button Mushrooms
  • A red onion
  • Cherry Tomatoes
  • Clove of garlic
  • Baby spinach
  • Free-range eggs
  • Salt and pepper for seasoning
  • A drizzle of lemon

Method:

  1. Heat the butter and sauté the mushrooms until brown; it should only take a few minutes.
  2. Mix your free-range eggs with a splash of mile and/or water and drop into one side of the same pan.
  3. Throw in the tomatoes, garlic, salt and pepper and cook for a further 2 minutes. Then, add your spinach.
  4. Serve with a drizzle of lemon juice and serve with crusty bread if you want to bulk your plate of food up a bit.

Quick Veggie Curry

When camping, you don’t have to limit yourself to the food of the barbeque. You can have some wonderful one-pot creations cooked over a fire. A veggie curry will be tasty, healthy, and a genuine crowd-pleaser. All you need to pull it off is some veg, tomatoes, curry powder and any other spices you like (think cumin, coriander, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, curry leaves etc).

Go one step further and prepare your own curry paste in advance at home and take it with you to save time, but achieve maximum flavour.

The vegetables you use are up to your personal taste and you can use quorn pieces or similar too should you wish to.

Ingredients:

  • Curry powder and preferred spices
  • Onion
  • Olive oil
  • Tin of chopped tomatoes or coconut milk to make your curry base
  • Quorn chicken or lentils
  • Any other veg you fancy

Method:

  1. Prepare the veg and fry them off in a little oil over the fire. You want them slightly softened.
  2. Add Quorn ‘chicken’ or similar should you wish to.
  3. Add curry powder and other spices.
  4. Add your tomato (alternatively, you can use a coconut milk base). Let simmer long enough for the flavours to fully infuse.
  5. Serve with rice, which you can cook while the curry is kept warm at the side of the fire.
Campsite cooking

Simple Chilli

Chili Con Carne was the fuel of the cowboys crossing America’s great plains, so you can surely have it on your campsite in the Cotswolds or the coast of Wales. While a real chilli takes some serious time and preparation, this simple chilli can be ready in half an hour.

Ingredients:

  • Olive oil
  • Beef mince or veggie mince
  • Onions
  • Garlic
  • Red chilli
  • Chilli powder
  • Tin of chopped tomatoes
  • Tin of kidney beans

Method:

  1. Heat the oil in a pan and throw in the beef mince, onions and garlic and allow to brown. Add in the chilli, chopped finely, and the chilli powder.
  2. Add in the tinned tomatoes and a cup of water and allow to boil and reduce for about 30 minutes.
  3. Add the kidney beans at the end and bring to a simmer.

You can serve this with whatever toppings take you fancy. Sour cream and cheese are a popular choice, and jalapeno chillies can be added for the brave.

Mushtoom Risotto

Risotto sounds a bit fancy for camping, but it can easily be done in one pan and over a fire. This risotto only has seven ingredients, some of which you will have packed for your breakfast.

Ingredients

  • Olive oil or butter
  • Shallot onions
  • Mushrooms
  • Risotto rice
  • Stock
  • White wine
  • Parsley
  • Parmesan cheese
  • Parsley

Method

  1. Heat the oil and sweat the onions, and then add the mushrooms.
  2. Stir in the rice and cook until the rice goes clear and the juices from the oil have been absorbed.
  3. Gradually add the stock. Put it in half a cup at a time and stir in between.
  4. Add cheese as a topping; parmesan works best.
  5. Garnish with black pepper and parsley.
Camping cooking

One-pan pasta

As you can tell, we are people who do not believe in slumming it when camping. This is the favourite of all the recipes that are easy to pull offer and pack some taste. You can keep it basic, and if you are in your camper van rather than your tent, you can up the ante a little.

Ingredients

  • Olive oil
  • Chicken breast
  • Garlic
  • Salt and pepper
  • Cream (use milk if you don’t have cream and increase the pesto you use)
  • Cheese
  • Pesto from a jar
  • Pasta
  • Cherry tomatoes
  • Parmesan cheese

Method

  1. Heat the oil in a pan and brown the garlic, chicken, and seasoning with salt and pepper. Stir in the pesto (with milk or cream) and some of the parmesan cheese.
  2. Bring the mix to a boil and allow it to simmer and reduce.
  3. While this is happening, you should be cooking your pasta, which can be tossed into the mix with some cherry tomatoes for some zing.
  4. Sprinkle some parmesan on top for garnish (normal cheese works if you live out of a tent!)

Halloumi Burgers

Does all this sound too fancy for words, and you need calories, nutrients, taste and quick? Then, you need to take some halloumi in your backpack.

Ingredients

  • Buns
  • Halloumi
  • Tomatoes

Method

  1. Heat your skillet until hot
  2. Place your sliced halloumi in the pan and flip after a couple of minutes
  3. Place in your bun with your tomatoes… and eat it right there by the fire.

Camping food on the go doesn’t have to be boring. Scan back through the list of recipes and notice how many of these meals need the same ingredients. With a quick shop and spreading the load between campers, you can eat like royalty even when you are on the move.

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Shell Robshaw-Bryan
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