Camping Trip Meal Plan
In this post we take you through our camping trip meal plan.
For all our trips we do up a camping trip meal plan, long or short. Shorter trips we do not go into this sort of detail, but we know what we are going to cook and prepare accordingly. For longer trips such as our recent Simpson Desert and Outback Australia adventure we take the time to plan the meals we will likely cook and as a result the ingredients we will need. Having a detailed meal plan makes shopping and packing so much easier.
We find that it is a lot easier to choose meals that are simple, have common ingredients and ingredients that are easy to store and keep well over a period, especially for longer trips. In this post we will show you how we planned our meals for this trip. We have also attached a spreadsheet template to assist you with your meal planning. This is the same spreadsheet we use to list all meals and ingredients and then summarise by type of ingredient to use as a shopping and packing list.
Key Tips
Here is a summary of the key things you should consider when doing a camping trip meal plan.
- List the meals you plan to cook.
- Work out the ingredients needed for each meal.
- Use a spreadsheet to list meals and ingredients by type of ingredient (dry, cold, canned etc).
- Summarise your ingredients by type and quantities needed.
- Use the summarised list of ingredients by type as a shopping and packing list.
- Choose vegetables that are hard and easy to store dry as well as long lasting.
- Try and use lots of canned ingredients that are easy to store and last for long periods of time.
- Prepare your meat into the correct portion sizes for each meal.
- Vacuum seal your meat in the correct portion size and freeze before you leave.
Meal List
The first part of your camping trip meal plan is to list all the meals you intend on having. This includes breakfast, lunch and dinner. Throw in your snacks as well if you wish. The below list are the meals we chose to have on our recent Simpson Desert and Outback Australia trip.
Breakfasts:
- Cereal
- Fruit
- Egg and bacon wraps
Lunches:
-
Salami, cheese and lettuce wraps
-
Pies
-
Two-minute noodles
Dinners:
-
Corned beef fried rice x 2
-
Spaghetti Bolognese x 2
-
Beef Indian curry x 2
-
Beef stew x 2
-
Beer damper bread x 1
-
BBQ’s x 3
Breakfast
We usually keep breakfast simple.
Most mornings we will have a bowl of cereal and some fruit. Every other morning, we will do a fry up and have bacon and egg wraps. We will always have a couple of coffees as well. Cereal is quick and easy for those mornings when you do not have a lot of time and want to get an early start.
For those other mornings where we are not in much of a rush, a good fry up is our go to breakfast. We always find that using wraps is the best option, carrying bread we find is a real pain as it is easy to squash if not packed well and doesn’t last as well. Wraps on the other hand, are super easy to store and they last a lot better than bread. Wraps are also super versatile and can be used for all your other meals. Another great advantage of using wraps is you don’t need to use a plate so less washing up required and you save your water.
Lunch
For our lunches we again try and keep these meals simple. We like to have lunches that are easy to prepare while on the road and don’t take a lot of time to get ready. Our go to lunch is a wrap. So quick to make out the back of the Cruiser and can be made anywhere. We usually have a salami, cheese, lettuce and peri-peri mayo wrap, but choose whatever ingredients you like here. On this Simpson trip, Rick our mate who travelled with us had a 12V oven in his Cruiser, so we also had pies for lunch. Having a 12V oven is pretty cool (not sure if we will ever put one in our setup), stop and turn on the oven to preheat for about 15-30 minutes, and then throw the pies in and your lunch is ready in another 30 minutes. Great idea if you have one in your setup. We also carry two-minute noodles as this is another quick and easy meal. Boil your water in a jet cooker and then you are ready to go.
Dinner
We put all our energy into dinner. This is one of our favourite parts of travelling and camping. You also usually have more time to get dinner going, so we find this is the best meal of the day.
You can see from the above list we chose to cook some of the meals on more than one occasion as well as having a few BBQ’s for some of those evenings when we arrived into camp a bit later. We knew we would also have a few pup dinners on the trip, so we had planned for this but also carried ingredients to cook a few of the meals twice if plans did not go as intended.
Once we had decided on the meals we would cook, we then list the ingredients in a spreadsheet (see spreadsheet download at the bottom of this post), the quantities required for each meal, how many of each meal we would cook and then summarised this by ingredient. This makes it easy when buying you ingredients ensuring you don’t miss anything.
Here is a list of each dinner and the ingredients. Where we have a recipe for the meal, we have included the link below. The below list of ingredients was to cook meals for four men, we had no leftovers and each meal was the perfect amount for the four of us. You can adjust the ingredients based on the number of people. Carry one or two empty lockable plastic containers for any leftovers that you can have for lunch or dinner the following day.
Corned Beef Fried Rice
Ingredients:
- 1 x can of corned beef
- 1 x cup rice
- 2 x cloves of garlic
- 2 x eggs
- Tablespoon or two of soy sauce
- Tablespoon or two of fish sauce
- 1 x brown onion
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
- 1 x chilli
- 1 x can of peas (frozen peas if you have the freezer space)
For a detailed post on this particular recipe check it out here.
Beef Indian Curry (Korma)
Ingredients:
-
Approximately half a jar of korma curry paste
-
1 x brown onion
-
1cm cube of ginger root
-
500-650 grams x diced chuck beef steak
-
1 x can of coconut milk
-
Water
-
Olive oil
-
2 x normal potatoes
-
1 x sweet potato
-
2-3 x carrots
For a detailed post on this particular recipe check it out here.
Spaghetti Bolognese
Ingredients:
-
400-500 grams x your choice of pasta
-
250 grams x beef mince
-
250 grams x pork mince
-
1 x brown onion
-
2 x cloves of garlic
-
1 x chilli
-
1 x can of diced tomatoes
-
Couple of tablespoons of tomato paste
-
Mix of herbs such as oregano
-
1 x carrot grated or chopped finely
-
Couple of rashers of bacon if you have any but optional
Beef Stew
Ingredients:
-
500-650 grams x diced chuck beef steak
-
Salt and pepper
-
Olive oil
-
1 x brown onion
-
2 x cloves of garlic
-
Couple of tablespoons of tomato paste
-
Couple of tablespoons of flour (we use self-raising as this is what we take for beer damper)
-
Couple of tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
-
1-2 small boxes of beef stock
-
Water
-
1 x bay leaf
-
2-3 x carrots
-
2 x normal potatoes
-
1 x sweet potato
-
Mix of herbs such as oregano, basil etc.
For a detailed post on this particular recipe check it out here.
BBQs
A variety of different BBQ meals, but these are the different ones we chose to do on this trip:
- Butterfly chicken
- Chicken skewers
- Sausages
- Serve with salad and beer damper bread
- If you can have fires you can do baked potatoes in aluminium foil.
Beer Damper Bread
Ingredients:
-
Self-raising flour
-
Baking powder
-
Butter
-
Beer
-
Salt
For a detailed post on this particular recipe check it out here.
You can see from the above ingredient list that most ingredients are super easy to store and last well. Choosing meals that use a lot of canned and dry ingredients frees up fridge space. Taking hard vegetables such as onions, potatoes and carrots as your main vegetables is also another great option as they can be stored dry and last for a long time.
Shopping & Packing List
See the below screenshot of the spreadsheet we created in order to make shopping for our meals super easy – we have also attached the spreadsheet we use, with instructions for you to download.
We basically use an Excel spreadsheet to list all the meals and food we need, the type of ingredient and the quantities for each meal. We also then add a column to enter the number of meals. In Excel we then summarise this table using a Pivot Table to summarise by type of ingredient. This is a great option as Excel will then total all the ingredients needed for each meal and make you a simple shopping list. Use the spreadsheet below to assist with your meal plans, let us know if you have any issues or questions with it. We have provided a “How to Use” sheet as well that explains how to use this spreadsheet.
Vacuum Seal Your Food
Once we purchase all the ingredients the first thing, we do is separate the meat into the correct portion sizes, vacuum seal and then freeze. It may seem like a lot of work, but it is worth it in the end. By doing this you ensure that you do not waste any space by packing meat as you would get it from the supermarket. The way they prepack meat wastes a lot of space. Doing this also allows you to buy your meat in bulk from a butcher and save a few dollars. For example, we buy chuck beef steak in steaks, we then pre chop the meat, weigh and vacuum seal in the correct portions. When out adventuring, you simply grab the meat you want out of the fridge in the morning from the bottom of the fridge and store somewhere outside of the fridge to let defrost. If you forget to do this, by vacuum sealing properly you can then soak in boiled water to defrost quickly. If you must defrost your meat in water, you can reuse this water to either cook your pasta, rice or even for washing up. We prefer to defrost during the day of travels so that we are not wasting any water.
You can buy a vacuum sealer cheaply these days. We purchased a Kings one from 4WD Supa Centre and it has worked well for us for more than 12 months.
Pre-Cooked Meals
Another good option is making a few pre-cooked meals, vacuum sealing and freezing. This is great if you have the time to do this before a trip. We do this now and again, but we do prefer to cook our meals when we are out camping. Precooked meals can take up a bit more space in your fridge depending on the type of meal. So be aware of this before you choose to precook any dinners.
Final Thoughts
Remember the key points we raised at the start of this post about creating a camping trip meal plan:
- List the meals you plan to cook.
- Work out the ingredients needed for each meal.
- Use a spreadsheet to list meals and ingredients by type of ingredient (dry, cold, canned etc).
- Summarise your ingredients by type and quantities needed.
- Use the summarised list of ingredients by type as a shopping and packing list.
- Choose vegetables that are hard and easy to store dry as well as long lasting.
- Try and use lots of canned ingredients that are easy to store and last for long periods of time.
- Prepare your meat into the correct portion sizes for each meal.
- Vacuum seal your meat in the correct portion size and freeze before you leave.
The spreadsheet we use it attached below at the bottom of this post. Let us know if you have any issues or questions using it. Make sure you read the “How to Use” sheet first, as this will explain how it all works.
Here are some of our recipe posts for the meals we listed above:
- Beef stew in the camp oven.
- Korma beef curry in the camp oven.
- Corned beef fried rice.
- Beer damper in the camp oven.
Thanks for reading this post on our camping trip meal plan. We hope it was helpful.
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The thoughts of Peter
