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31 Clever Camping Food Hacks | Easy Ideas, Cool Gadgets, Meal Prep

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A Frying Pan with Two Slices of Steak on Campfire | Camping Food Hacks | Featured

Before you head out for camping, there’s one thing you must not forget to bring–food. However, planning and preparing your food for camping can be harder than you think.

Check out these camping food hacks that’ll make your outdoor cooking a breeze.

RELATED: 10 Quick & Easy Camping Food Ideas For Anytime of Day

31 Camping Food Hacks for Your Next Trip

Camping Food Hacks | Packing Ideas

1. Use Pill Dispensers for Your Seasonings

Close-up Shot of a Person Putting Medicines in a Pillbox | Camping Food Hacks

Spices can add flavors to your meals. They can make bland and boring foods mouthwatering and tasteful.

Store your herbs and spices in a pill organizer so the flavors won’t mix up. However, be sure to bring ingredients that’ll go well with your meals.

2. Put Labels on Packaging

Clear Glass Bottle | Camping Food Hacks

Labels are essential, especially if you’re bringing lots of bags and bottles. They can help you identify what’s inside each pouch or container.

You can either write the labels, use stickers, or have them printed.

3. Store Your Food in Mason Jars

Six Fruit Cereals in Clear Glass Mason Jars on White Surface | Camping Food Hacks

Perhaps one of the most time-consuming parts of food preparation is cutting the ingredients one by one.

What you can do is prepare all your food before leaving, then keep them in mason jars. This way, you don’t have to worry about bringing your knives and cooking boards to camping.

4. Freeze Your Meals in Plastic Bags

Collection of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables on White Table | Camping Food Hacks

To conserve space and preserve the quality of your camping food, place them inside plastic bags. What’s more, you can reuse these plastic bags as trash bags if there are no garbage bins available at the campsite.

Camping Food Hacks | Meal Prep

5. Reuse a Tin Can for Your Coffee

Tin Can on Gravel Surface | Camping Food Hacks

Can’t start the day without coffee? Don’t panic. You can still make your own coffee while outdoors!

Simply mix pre-made coffee with milk in a tin can, then add hot water.

6. Freeze Water Bottles

Clear Disposable Bottle on Black Surface | Camping Food Hacks

Instead of buying and bringing packs of ice cubes, you may freeze small water bottles. They won’t only serve as your cooling agents, you may also directly drink from them as they melt.

7. Bring Hard-to-Crush Fresh Fruits and Vegetables

Assorted Vegetables | Camping Food Hacks

You don’t want to feed your body with processed foods all throughout your camping journey.

Bring fruits and vegetables that don’t get crushed easily in your bag, such as:

  • Apples
  • Cucumber
  • Carrots

Don’t forget to wash and slice them in advance so they’ll be ready to use.

8. Pre Crack Eggs And Store In Ziplocks

Six Brown Eggs with Tray | Camping Food Hacks

Eggs are multi-purpose and incredibly nutritious. You can fry, poach, or boil them.

Alternatively, you can scramble them or make an omelette. Crack, whisk, then pour them into a ziplock bag or bottle for easy transportation.

9. Cook Couscous

Green Bell Pepper Stuffed with Couscous | Camping Food Hacks

Instead of having rice or pasta when camping, eat couscous.

Couscous is fast to cook, makes you feel full, and doesn’t need much water. It’s not only a healthier option, it’s also more efficient.

10. Buy Takeaway Food

Female Buying Tasty Burger in Food Truck | Camping Food Hacks

Your camping doesn’t have to be all about cooking. It’s totally fine to enjoy some takeaway food. Besides, you may already be too tired to cook, especially on your first night, after setting up your tent.

11. Make Foil Packs Your Best Friend

Person in White Long Sleeve Shirt Holding Brown Bread | Camping Food Hacks

Making foil meals is probably one of the easiest camping food hacks.

For a no-fuss, no-mess meal, wrap your ingredients in a foil pack, then cook them over a campfire grill or hot coals.

Bring and use tongs to prevent burns.

12. Prepare Quick Snacks

Biscuits Cookies Cooking Delicious | Camping Food Hacks

When you go camping, you may do other recreational activities, such as kayaking, fishing, and hiking. As a result, you might get hungry every now and then.

However, you don’t want to cook food from time to time. So, taking quick and easy snacks with you, like biscuits, can help you stay active all throughout the activities.

What’s good about biscuits is that you don’t have to store them in a cool place. You can also use them to make desserts, like s’mores.

13. Pack Snacks That Double As Energy Food

Variety of Brown Nuts on Brown Wooden Panel | Camping Food Hacks

Your body digests fats more slowly than carbs. They help you feel full longer and more energetic, which is perfect if you’re up for a whole day of hiking and trekking.

Bring along some healthy fats, such as:

  • Cashews
  • Nuts
  • Avocados
  • Almonds
  • Dark chocolate

14. Open Cans with a Rock

Person in Blue Denim Jeans and Brown Boots Holding Can | Camping Food Hacks

Bringing canned foods to camping sounds like a good idea, but what if you forgot to bring a can opener?

Worry not. Simply scrape the can’s base off a rock for a minute. Then, wait for the can to pop open. And voila! You’ve already opened your can the old-fashioned way.

15. Keep Your Camping Food in the Ground

Pineapple Fruit Beside Backpack on White Sand | Camping Food Hacks

No electricity? No fridge? No cooler? No problem!

Try a new way to keep your food fresh. Look for a tree (which you won’t have any problems with since campsites are filled with trees). Dig a hole in the ground, around one meter deep, then place your food items in there.

The ground gets colder as you go deeper, so you can make it your storage area.

Tip: You may want to bring a shovel so you can dig faster.

16. Pre-Wash Your Fruits and Vegetables

Person Washing a Fruit from a Faucet | Camping Food Hacks

When camping, clean water may be scarce. You can save time looking for pristine water outdoors by pre-washing your fruits and vegetables before you leave home. This way, they’ll be ready to cook as soon as you get to the campsite.

RELATED: 21 Refreshing Redneck Recipes And Camping Food Ideas

Camping Food Hacks | Gear

17. Use Camp Ovens

Folding Camping Oven Placed in Forest in Sunlight | Camping Food Hacks

If you want to enjoy delectable, home-cooked meals while camping, then this portable oven is a must.

Camp ovens can make it possible for you to cook almost anything outdoors. With this, you can prepare meals as if you’re in your own kitchen.

18. Drive with a Travel Kettle

Couple Preparing Pour-Over Coffee During Picnic | Camping Food Hacks

This portable kettle may just become one of your favorite camping food hacks.

With this item, you can enjoy hot meals or drinks along the way, without stopping over at a restaurant or gas station. This is helpful, especially if there’s a long journey ahead of you.

Simply connect it to your car’s cigarette lighter or power outlet, and it can boil water for a few minutes while you’re driving.

19. Camp with a Transportable Frying Pan

Man Frying Eggs on Skillet | Camping Food Hacks

A transportable frying pan is a great addition to your camping cookware. It’s foldable, which makes it compact when you store it in your bag.

Plus, you can choose from multiple shapes of pans–rectangular, square, and round–depending on your needs.

Tip: Opt for a non-stick coating for easy cleaning.

20. Clean with Shop Towels

Waitress Wiping Table with Piece of Cloth | Camping Food Hacks

When cleaning your camping gear, you need a durable and multi-purpose material that’s up to any task. This is where shop towels come in.

Like paper towels, shop towels are disposable, yet stronger and more absorbent. They’re your quick and easy cleaning aid to any camping mess, including liquids and oils.

21. Preserve Food Longer with a Cooler

Hands Holding Neon Green Cooler | Camping Food Hacks

When camping, it may be a bit of a pain to carry gear as bulky and heavy as a cooler. However, if you’re going out for several days, you need to be able to keep things cool longer.

Choose a cooler with good insulation. This can preserve cold temperature, so you can enjoy a cold bottle of beer after a day of walking and hiking.

22. Cook on Top of an Open Fire

People Holding Stick with Sausages | Camping Food Hacks

What’s camping without building a campfire and experimenting with it?

Use an over-fire grill and do some grilling experiments. This camping equipment is designed to resist the heat from an open fire pit.

Simply place this cooking accessory on top of your campfire and start preparing your outdoor feasts.

23. Bring a Portable Camping Griddle

Woman Near Portable Bbq in Countryside | Camping Food Hacks

Another versatile gear that you can bring to camping is a griddle. You may use it to cook almost anything–even steak–on an open fire or a camp stove.

Some griddles have their own heat source, so it won’t be a problem if there’s no stove or fire in the campsite.

24. Use Thermometer to Make Sure Food is Still Edible

Thermometer and Hydrometer in Golden Frame | Camping Food Hacks

When you’ve already been outside for a couple of days, you’d want to check the temperature of your cooler. This is to make sure that your food supply inside is still cold and safe to consume.

Don’t take chances with food safety, don’t take chances with your health. Use a thermometer and place it inside your cooler to check if the temperature’s still safe for food storage.

25. Enjoy a Camping Fridge

Fridge with Different Vegetables | Camping Food Hacks

Got access to electricity? What better way to keep your food and drinks frosty than storing them inside a fridge?

Even when camping, it’s still possible to bring a camping fridge if there’s electricity at the campsite. A camping fridge helps maintain the quality of your food. It also avoids that watery mess that comes with other cooling camping gears.

Camping Food Hacks | Recipe Ideas

26. Transform an Orange into a Scented Candle

Peeled Fresh Juicy Ripe Slices of Mandarin | Camping Food Hacks

Candles can provide warm, natural light when you’re outdoors.

Take an ordinary candle to the next level with the help of an orange! Simply cut it in half. Then, consume the middle portion. Make sure that the stem-like part in the center won’t be broken since you’ll use this as your wick.

Pour some cooking oil into the core-like shaped orange peel, then light the stem. Your campsite will surely smell fresh and citrusy.

27. Pre Prepare Food

Food Plate Dinner Lunch | Camping Food Hacks

Who says you can’t have an Italian dish while camping?

You can pre-cook your pumpkin risotto at home, put it inside a bag, then freeze. Prepare the other spices as well, like the garlic and onion.

Then, you can mix and stir the ingredients together as soon as you arrive at the campsite.

28. Grill Some Corn

Selective Focus Photography of Grilled Corns | Camping Food Hacks

Camping won’t be complete without grilling some corns.

Begin by pulling down the husks to detach the covering from the corn, then bring the husks back up. Afterward, soak the corns in water for 15 minutes.

There are two ways to grill your corn. You may either place them on top of a grilling rack or wrap them in tin foil and grill in an open fire–the old-school way.

29. Make Campfire Potatoes

Carved Potatoes in a Ceramic Tray | Camping Food Hacks

Potatoes are easy to prepare, you can cook them on a grill or in an oven.

Simply place them in foil packets, then cook for 15-20 minutes.

30. Roll Up That Cinnamon

Bakery Baking Bread Chocolate | Camping Food Hacks

Skewers aren’t only great for barbecues. You can also experiment and use them for cinnamon roll-ups.

Just wrap the skewers with crescent dough, then add some cinnamon sugar.

31. Prepare an Energizing Breakfast Without Cooking

Yogurt with Granola and Mangoes | Camping Food Hacks

Can’t get out of bed but need to prepare breakfast for a long day ahead? You can still make an awesome breakfast without cooking!

These healthy foods are perfect for breakfast, plus they can give you the energy you need for the day:

  • Apples
  • Yogurt
  • Granola
  • Mangoes

Watch this video by TechZone to check out amazing camping inventions that you can add to your camping kit:

Your camping food preparation doesn’t have to be time-consuming and messy.

Whether you’re a beginner in camping who’s still learning the ropes, or an expert who’s looking to upgrade his camping skills, these camping food hacks will certainly make your trip relaxing and hassle-free.

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What are your ideas for breakfast, lunch, and dinner when camping? Share them with us in the comments section below! 

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