Cooking and eating food outside with friends and family, or even on your own, makes it taste even better, in our opinion. We love to get back to our primal instincts and sit around a fire, grilling up some delicious meals for everyone to eat. Here are our top 9 easy food ideas for camping in Australia. We’ve included meals with as few ingredients as possible to account for space in your cooler. Some require a gas camping stove and others can be chucked on the barbie or fire.
Top 9 Easy Camping Foods
1. Baked potato with cheese and baked beans.
Coming in at the number one spot is the timeless classic, a baked potato. This should be a staple in any camp kitchen because it’s the easiest dish to make with only three ingredients. It’s also super versatile. If you’re not keen on baked beans, have it with tuna or Mexican beef.
Clean the potato and prick it all over using a fork or knife. Dry the potato and smear butter all over it. Double wrap the potato in a heavy-duty aluminium foil and chuck it straight onto the hot coals of the fire.
The perfect spud with crispy skin and a soft, fluffy centre should be ready in 30-60 minutes. Whack your topping of choice on and enjoy!
2. Pancakes and bacon
We’ve added this one as it’s the perfect meal to pre-prepare for a camping trip. Make your batter up at home and pour it into a sealable bottle for easy transportation. Simply heat your frying pan and pour your ready-made batter in.
Throw some bacon into another pan and serve with the pancakes and a healthy glug of maple syrup.
3. Mexican beef and nachos
Any one-pot meal is perfect for camping, but Mexican beef, or Chilli Con Carne, is our all-time favourite. You can do away with the rice and serve it with nachos instead to make this meal extra simple but extra delicious.
Whether you choose meat or a vegetarian option, chilli is super filling and full of protein. This makes it a perfect camping meal.
4. Chicken and vegetable skewers!
Basically, anything that can be skewered and cooked on the BBQ is a fool-proof meal choice when camping in Australia. Some of our favourite things to skewer are:
- Chicken with different flavourings such as tikka or teriyaki
- Halloumi, brie
- Pork and pineapple (yes, together!)
- Capsicum, courgette, red onion
5. Simple sweet potato and chickpea curry
Another one-pot meal that will be the envy of your neighbours as the smell of Indian spices wafts their way. We love to make this super simple chickpea and sweet potato curry. You’ll only need chickpeas, sweet potato, garlic, curry powder, crushed tomatoes, coconut milk, spinach and a squeeze of lime.
Service with rice or naan bread for a more substantial meal.
6. Cajun chicken wings
Drizzle olive oil over chicken wings and rub in some salt, pepper and cajun spices. Place on the barbie, turning until crispy and cooked through. Make sure you have wet wipes to hand as this is a messy (but irresistible) one!
We always serve our cajun chicken wings with corn on the cob (also barbequed) and salad.
7. Steak flatbreads
Another suuuuper simple but to-die-for camping meal. Remove your steaks from the cooler for 10-20 minutes before cooking (depending on how hot it is outside!). You want your steaks to be ‘room-temperature’ i.e. not too hot not too cold. Rub with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and place on the BBQ. Grill for a few minutes each side, or until they’re cooked to your liking.
Chuck on a few flatbreads and lightly toast each side. Slice up the steak and place it on the flatbread with a dollop of dijon mustard and a handful of salad. Fold the flatbread around the steak to keep it all together.
8. The ultimate salad
There’s nothing better than a fresh salad being on the menu for a hot summer’s day. Disagree? You need to turbo your salads! Here’s how.
Grill up some deliciously flavoured chicken and chopped up chorizo. Place a capsicum on the BBQ, char all over and dice. Serve with mixed salad leaves, cucumber, cherry tomatoes and a crumbling of blue cheese.
9. Leftover sangas
Any leftovers from your previous meals? We’re talking leftover bacon from your bacon and pancakes, leftover capsicum from your skewers and leftover cheese from your baked potatoes. Anything goes with this meal! Heat the ingredients up in a frying pan and stick them in between two pieces of lightly grilled bread et voila, leftover sangas!
Generally, we live by the rule if you can cook it at home on a stove you can cook it at a campsite. We actually enjoy the challenge. We have made Pad Thai whilst camping next to Loch Ness in Scotland. We made boiled eggs and fish using the boiling shoreline of a lake in Iceland and we’ve made bacon and pancakes overlooking Jurien Bay. Safe to say these are the most memorable and best-tasting meals we have ever cooked up. Don’t let the lack of cooking utensils deter you from getting creative in the camp kitchen!
If you have any great camping food ideas, share them with us at hello@waadventurer.com. We would love to hear from you. 🙂
