Our Camping Food Menu While Touring for Two Weeks
In this post we show you what meals we cooked while touring Australia camping and touring for just over two weeks. Good camp cooking does not need to be difficult, all you need is a little bit of planning and pre-trip preparation to keep it as easy possible while touring Australia.
Below we give you an example of the camp cooking menu we recently had while touring Australia for just over two weeks in outback Australia covering 6,000 kilometres.
Meal Preparation is Key to Keeping it Easy
We did share a story a while ago discussing this point as well as sharing a simple camp cooking planner spreadsheet that we use to summarise the ingredients we need for all our food before a trip. To keep things simple, we have shared the camp cooking planner spreadsheet again below.
There are apps out there that do the same thing and might be easier to use for some. For example, Aaron on Instagram told me about an app called MealBoard that does all of this but on another level, so check it out if you prefer something with more functionality. The above camp cooking planner spreadsheet is rather simple to use, and we have included instructions. Basically, this camp cooking planner spreadsheet lets you list all the meals you are going to cook and the ingredients you need. You can then apply a type to each ingredient. The camp cooking planner spreadsheet will then summarise the total ingredients based on this type. Therefore, if you need potatoes in most meals, it will summarise the total number of potatoes you need to buy. This can then be used as a shopping and packing list to make sure you are only taking with you what you really need. The list of meals can then be used when you are while touring Australia to plan what you are cooking and when.
We use this camp cooking planner spreadsheet to also assist with portions. For example, we can separate and weigh up our meat portions for each meal, then vacuum-sealed portions, and freeze a week or so before we leave. By the time we are ready to pack, all our meat is frozen and already in the correct portion sizes. While touring Australia, we decide what we will cook tomorrow night, or in the morning if we forget, take this out of the freezer and let it defrost. If we forget and do this in the morning, we leave the meat out of the fridge for the morning to let it defrost quicker. This is far cleaner and easier way to store your meat as well as keeping it fresh.
One other advantage of camp meal planning and organising your food into the correct portion size is minimal leftovers. Some people might like leftovers for lunch the following day, or another meal. We don’t unless it is campfire barbequed meat that can be thrown on a wrap. We just find storing leftovers to be a hassle. So having your food in the right portion sizes makes it far easier.
Precooked Meals Are Highly Recommended
It is always a good idea to take a few pre-cooked camp meals to save time, especially for those days where you are arriving late at camp. Or, for those days where you just can’t be bothered cooking, there will be some of those I promise.
Cook these meals at home, then vacuum-sealed portions and freeze. I like to vacuum-sealed portions, as it does allow you to soak the meal in warm water to defrost if you forget to remove it from the freezer. I also find it is easier to pack vacuum-sealed portioned food rather than food in containers, but this will depend on your fridge size, and containers. You can also precook some of the meal rather than all of it. A perfect example is spaghetti bolognaise. Precook the mince and sauce but cook your pasta fresh as it is simple to do and only takes 15 to 20 minutes.
Fresh Damper Breads Are a Great Option
If you are on a low carb diet, then this won’t be for you. We find that damper style breads are a great option while touring Australia as flour does not take up much room and it lasts for a long period of time. We never carry bread loaves as it always seems to get squashed and it is a pain to pack, plus it goes stale and can get mouldy in more humid climates quite quickly. The only thing close to bread that we pack is wraps.
Therefore, we prefer to carry a few containers of self-raising flour, butter, and salt. Damper bread is easy to make, but if you want something even easier, you can make damper bread rolls or fire bread. We make these all the time and they are a great side to any campfire barbeque meats with some canned vegetables. You can find our damper bread roll recipe here.
The Right Canned Foods Can be Great
Canned foods are not for everyone, we used to be in this boat however, there are a few long-life canned foods that are rather good. If you are touring Australia for a while and you won’t be passing many grocery stores, canned vegetables, fruit, and some other foods are a good option. They store easy, do not need to be kept in the fridge, can take a beating, and last for a long time.
These are the canned foods that are usually packed for a long trip:
- Mushrooms
- Corn kernels
- Carrots
- Potatoes
- Capsicum
- Baked beans
- Corned beef
- Tomatoes
- Coconut cream / milk
- All fruit especially guavas if you can find them.
One canned vegetable that we do carry sometimes but do not really like is canned peas, they just always look and taste average in our opinion. Canned mushrooms, potatoes, and carrots are great for stews and curries. Canned carrots and corned kernels are a great side to any campfire barbeque meat especially when you add in damper bread rolls recipe. Also extremely easy to heat up in the can beside a fire. Corned beef can be used in camp-style fried rice, we have a decent recipe that you can read here. Baked beans are great for breakfast and emergency food. Canned fruit can be used as a desert to add a little 5-stars to your trip.
Our Menu for Two Weeks on the Road
In our most recent outback adventure this is the camp cooking menu we served up for the two weeks.
- Pub dinners for 2 nights.
- Barbeques for 5 nights: sausages (boerewors), steaks, and lamb chops, with damper bread rolls, damper bread, baked potatoes, and canned vegetables.
- Precooked meals for 4 nights.
- Beef casserole (recipe coming soon).
- Beef stew.
- Chicken casserole.
- Beef Indian curry.
- Desert chilli (spicy mince with eggs).
From the above camp cooking menu, you can see that it was not fancy at all, but the food was fantastic. We always plan for a few outback pub meals as well, this does break up some of the cooking, and who does not love a good outback pub meal! Plus, it is a great way to support the small businesses out west that need as much patronage as possible.
Barbeques are a great option to mix it up a bit and get someone else cooking if you usually do most of the cooking. Three out of the five campfire barbeques had fresh bread being either damper bread recipe rolls or damper in the camp oven. The other two campfire barbeques had baked potatoes by the fire. We cooked all our campfire barbeques on a compact grill over coals or charcoal, so we did not need to carry a barbeque. We do sometimes carry our folding firepit that does give us another cooking option if needed.
The two casseroles, stew, and curry were all cooked in the camp oven. Meal prep was done over our gas cooker and then thrown on to hot coals to slow cook for a couple of hours. We usually buy beef chuck or brisket as it is cheap and if cooked for a couple hours comes out tender and has plenty of flavour. Most of our camp oven cooking meals are usually beef. You can find our chicken casserole recipe, beef stew recipe, beef casserole recipe, and camp oven cooking curry recipes by clicking on the links in the list of meals above.
Our Desert Chilli campfire recipe, which is basically a spicy mince with fried eggs, was the highlight meal of the trip for everyone that travelled with us. It might have been that we were in the middle of the Simpson Desert that added to the taste, but it did go down a treat. We have shared this recipe here if you want to give this one a crack. You will enjoy it, so please do check it out.
Planning Makes All the Difference
Planning makes all the difference when you are on the road for a while touring Australia. It can seem a little tedious initially, but you will be happy you made the effort when you are exploring. Packing becomes easier, as you know exactly what you need to take with less chance of forgetting to pack something. There is minimal waste with far less rubbish to carry. You have a list of all the ingredients you need when you are cooking, so everything gets used. Plus, you know exactly what you are going to need to restock as you progress on your journey.
To top all of this off, you will have amazing food which makes any adventure that much better.
For more camp cooking recipes, you can find them all here. To keep up to date on our future stories, join the 4WD Adventurer Community here. For more regular updates, follow us on Instagram.
Thanks for reading our story on our food menu while camping and touring in outback Australia.
The thoughts of Peter.
