How I Meal Plan For Family Camping Trips

One of my favourite parts of camping is the food. There’s just something about eating outside after a day spent exploring that can make even the simplest meals taste better.

That said, trying to figure out what to cook at the campsite every day can quickly become overwhelming. Between limited cooler space, trying to keep kids occupied while cooking, and forgetting ingredients, it’s easy to end up wishing you could just grab fast food instead.

After years of camping (and plenty of trial and error!), I’ve found that spending a little time meal planning before the trip can make the whole trip more enjoyable! We waste less food, spend less money, and get to spend more time making memories together instead of wondering what to make for dinner.

In this post I’ll walk you through exactly how I plan our meals, make our grocery list, and prep ahead of time so mealtime at the campsite is as simple and Stress-free as possible!

Why Meal Planning Makes Camping So Much Easier

If your family is anything like ours, you try to cram as much adventure into each day as you possibly can, and there’s nothing worse than coming back to camp after working up an appetite and having to spend forever deciding what to make, and even more time prepping it. All while entertaining kids (or hearing “I’m hungry” every two minutes )

By planning ahead you can have delicious food (no you don’t have to each just eat hotdogs and hamburgers the whole trip!) for every meal, avoid food waste, save money, and have more time to spend together hiking, paddling or exploring.

Making Your Camping Menu

The first step when planning out your meals is to figure out how many meals you need. Break it up into breakfasts, lunches and dinners (we’ll cover snacks later).

Below is an example of what that may look like for a three night trip. Yours may look different depending on your families preferences.

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Thursday	Eat before leaving	Sandwiches	Burgers and Potato Salad
Friday	Bacon and Eggs	Chicken Wraps	Steak and Vegetable Packets
Saturday	Pancakes and Eggs	Walking Tacos	Foil Packets
Sunday	Cereal and Fruit	Leftovers	Eat on the way Home

My Best Meal Planning Tips:

• Keep meals simple on set up and take down days. You don’t want to have to decide if you’d rather cook or set up camp in the dark if you run out of light
• Think about what will last longer in the cooler and eat those meals last
• keep your itinerary in mind. If you have a super busy day of hiking and exploring you may want to pick a simple and portable lunch that you can have prepped ahead of time
• If you are freezing any food ahead of time think about how long it may take to thaw in your cooler (some good quality coolers can keep things frozen for days!)

Prep as Much as You Can Before You Leave

Prepping your camping meals at home is the step that will save you the most time. Spending an hour or two at home means less cooking, less dishes and more time for family adventures. If all your veggies are chopped before you go it can save you from washing a cutting board and pre mixing pancake batter will save you a mixing bowl! We try to prep something for almost every meal before we leave.

Here’s some things you can do at home:

• Marinate meats
• Pre cook and freeze beef for walking tacos
• assemble foil packet meals
• crack eggs into a plastic bottle (no soggy cartons or broken eggs!)
• premix pancake batter
• chop vegetables
• assemble wraps or breakfast sandwiches
• Prepare sides like macaroni and cheese or spinach dip

Bonus tip: pour your mixed pancake batter in an empty (and washed) ketchup squeeze bottle for mess free pancakes! This can make it easier for kids to help with breakfast too!

Make Your Grocery List

Going into the grocery store with a good list and sticking to it ensures you don’t forget something important or over buy and have things go to waste! I like to make a master list of everything I need for my meal plan as well as snacks (you will want to pack a little more than what your kids will eat at home, adventuring can work up an appetite!) and from there I will split it into two lists, what I need for everything I plan to prep, and what doesn’t require any prep. I will shop the first list a few days we leave to give myself time to prep everything, and the second one the day before, or even on the way if time permits. This helps ensure that things like breads or fruit will stay fresher longer, super handy for longer trips!

Bonus tip: split your list up by grocery store section for a smoother shopping trip

Camping Snack ideas for kids:

• Fruits
• String cheese
• Muffins
• Trail mix
• Apple sauce pouches
• Yogurt tubes
• Cheese and Crackers
• Granola Bars
• Veggies and Dip

Don’t Forget The Camp Kitchen Basics

There’s nothing worse than going to cook a meal and realizing you’ve forgotten something you need for it! I find it helpful to go over my Camping Menu and make a list of the kitchen gear I will need in order to cook it so I can double check that it gets packed.

Here is a list of things that are commonly forgotten:

• Salt and pepper
• Garbage bags
• Tongs
• Can Opener
• Spatula
• Cooking Oil
• Aluminum foil
• Dish Soap
• Dish Towel
• Dishwashing Bin
• Paper Towels
• Lighter

Our Go-To Camping Meals

Once you have a few camping trips under your belt with your family you will have a list of your own favorites! But if you need some ideas to get you started here’s some of the meals we plan for nearly every trip!

My Favourite Camping Meals:

• Pancakes
• Bacon and Eggs
• Breakfast Buritos
• French Toast
• Hot Ham and Cheese Croissants
• Pie Iron Grilled Cheese
• Steak and Baked Potatos
• Foil packets with sausage, potato and veg
• Walking Tacos
• Campfire Nachos

Bonus Tip: instead of large chip bags for walking tacos, buy a box of snack size bags. You can mix your tacos in the bag and save some dishes!

My Biggest Camping Meal Planning Mistakes

Over many years of camping I’ve learned a lot of these tips through trial and error and made lots of mistakes. The good news is: I made those mistakes so you don’t have to!

Here’s some of the biggest mistakes:

Planning meals that take too long: baked potatoes cooked over coals might sound like a camping staple but the truth is they take forever cooked that way! On one trip we had eaten the rest of our meal and were ready for bed long before the potatoes were ready. If you have your heart set on something that takes a long time to cook, plan it around a rest day at camp.

Packing too much fresh food: it sounds nice to have lots of fresh bread and fruit for your whole trip, but these things don’t keep for days on end in a cooler. To avoid having to race to eat things before they go bad, and then run out for the end of your trip, make sure you consider bringing things that will last the whole trip and only enough fresh things for the first few days.

Freezing everything: this sounded like a genius way to save on ice, but what actually happened is everything was too frozen to cook for the first few days of our trip. Only freeze the meals you plan to eat later on in your trip!

Over packing: it’s easy to worry you don’t have enough and add just a little more of this and that. But with busy days of adventure you won’t be spending a ton of time sitting around snacking. As long as you have your meals covered and a few snacks for each day, you will have enough. This will save you wasting food and money throwing out things that have gone bad, or having to unpack and put away bags and bags of snacks!

Planning your camping meals doesn’t have to be complicated or stressful, it’s simply a way to make camping feel more relaxing and leave more time for what’s important: making memories together as a family.

I’d love to here from you! Let me know down below which meal is your favourite camping staple!

Planning a trip with a baby? Don’t forget to check out Camping with a Baby: Your Ultimate Guide!