This collection of easy make ahead camping recipes can be prepared before your trip. When it’s time to make breakfast, lunch or dinner, simply pull these meals out of the fridge or cooler, heat them up, and enjoy.
Going camping is all about enjoying nature and relaxing. But let’s be honest, figuring out what to eat while camping can be a headache, especially for a family or large group. That’s where make-ahead meals come in! They’re the secret to stress-free cooking outdoors so you can spend less time cooking and more time playing.
In this post, you’ll find 40 easy camping meals that you can prepare in advance for breakfast, lunch and dinner. These meals will save you time and effort, so you can simplify your camping trip and spend more time enjoying it in the great outdoors!
Make Ahead Breakfast Camping Recipes
Breakfast meals are my favorite meals to prepare before a camping trip. It makes mornings so much easier AND everyone still gets a filling, delicious breakfast. Of course, cereal is also a completely viable option as well to make breakfast as easy as possible.
Either way, there’s no skipping out on the most important meal of the day (and my personal favorite meal)! All of these breakfast recipes are sure to be the perfect way to start the day.
08-11 More breakfast recipes
- Baked Oatmeal Casserole – Make this in a large aluminum pan before your trip and reheat the entire pan while camping or divide it into smaller portions and heat them up individually.
- Make Ahead Breakfast Casserole – This egg casserole filled with sausage and veggies is my favorite large egg bake to make before a camping trip.
- Sheet Pan Pancakes – Bake these thick, fluffy “pancakes” before your trip for the easiest breakfast ever. Or, pre-mix your pancake batter at home and store it in a jar to simply cook the pancakes at your campsite.
- Egg & Sausage Breakfast Sliders – Assemble the sandwiches in one large aluminum pan before your trip and then put them on a grill grate to reheat for a savory, hot breakfast while camping!
Make Ahead Camping Lunch Recipes
Personally, when my family camps, we rarely have a campfire going around lunch time. For this reason, I almost always plan sandwiches, salads or other cold foods to make at our campsite. You’ll find a few of my favorite cold foods to make before a camping trip below.
I also know plenty of people want to get the most out of their camping experience and love to cook over the campfire for every meal. You’ll also find recipes allow you to prepare multiple sandwiches at one time before your trip. Some can be eaten cold and others you can heat up over the fire or a grill. These delicious sandwich recipes will feed a crowd!
17-22 more lunch recipes
- Philly Cheesesteak Loaf Sandwiches – Fill a full loaf of bread with all the Philly cheesesteak fillings before your trip and simply heat it up over the open fire.
- Chicken Pasta Salad: A complete meal that can be prepped before your camping trip and eaten cold – no cooking required!
- Sheet Pan Quesadillas: Make a massive “quesadilla” before your trip, cut them up, and eat cold or hot for an easy lunch.
- Club Sandwich Pinwheels – These rolled up “club sandwiches” are a great way to pre-make multiple lunches at once.
- Whole Wheat Pretzel Dogs – Make these homemade pretzel hot dogs ahead of time and just heat them up for an easy lunch or dinner.
- Southwest Quinoa Salad – This cold salad is perfect to make before your trip because it stores really well in the fridge.
Make Ahead Camping Dinner Recipes
After a long day of hiking, swimming or exploring, spending a ton of time prepping dinner is the last thing I personally want to do. I usually bring at least one pre-made dinner with on every camping trip for the night that I know will be the hardest to make a full meal. Here are a bunch of delicious and easy camping meals perfect for dinner.
31-40 more dinner recipes
- White Chicken Chili – Combine everything in a freezer bag and then dump in a cast iron dutch oven to cook over the coals.
- Cauliflower Pizza Casserole -Another make ahead dutch oven recipe that puts a healthy twist on pizza while camping.
- Steak Fajita Foil Packets – Make these fajitas before your trip and wrap everything up in foil packets to throw in the campfire to heat through. Foil packet dinners are one of the easiest camping meals!
- Chicken Ranch Potato Foil Packets – Another easy tin foil dinner that cooks up in one delicious bundle!
- 3 Bean and Beef Chili – Cooking the ground beef at home makes this an easy recipe to dump in your dutch oven to heat up at your site.
- Beef Stroganoff – Add the ingredients to a gallon-sized plastic bag and then add to a cast iron dutch over to cook over the coals, or bring a crockpot with you!
- Chicken Broccoli Alfredo – Another easy freezer friendly meal that can be prepped and stored in a ziplock bag. You can serve this over egg noodles cooked on the camp stove.
- Beef Pot Roast – It’s an easy way to make pot roast while camping because everything can be cooked up in one pot over the campfire.
- Italian Meatball Subs – Pre-cook the meatballs in sauce and then heat them back up while camping for an easy dinner.
I hope these easy camping recipes inspire you to create the perfect meal plan for your next camping trip, especially one that doesn’t require you to be cooking the entire time!
