One of the best things about a family camping trip is campfire recipes. These are flavors and experiences that are remembered for a lifetime, those you can only truly recreate under the open sky with a cheery natural wood fire. Children experience the wonder of their first s’more or campfire kebab, while adults often make yearly sojourns into the great outdoors just to reclaim these delicious memories.
Whether this is your first RV camping trip or you’re looking to round out your favorite campfire recipes, we have more than a few favorites to share. Let’s dive into some of the greatest foods for cooking on your campfire during your next RV adventure.
1. Burgers and Hotdogs
- Ground Beef or Burger Patties
- Pack of Hotdogs
- Hamburger and Hot Dog Buns
- Ketchup
- Mustard
- Relish (sweet or dill)
- Fixin’s of Choice
Of course, almost every flame-touched menu starts with burgers and hotdogs. If you have a grill top to throw over your fire, burgers can be a great way to celebrate the open road, and everyone can make their own burger to taste. But even if you only have a few skewers (or just sharpened sticks) anyone can roast a weenie over the fire. Hot dogs are a campfire classic exactly because they require almost no equipment to enjoy, and each hot dog can be individual to the camper.
Making burgers, be sure to cook each patty evenly on both sides until firm and cooked through. Hot dogs can be eaten cold in a pinch, so are also safe to skewer and let young campers learn for themselves the right amount of time and distance from the fire for toasting.
Hint: Scorch your dog? Just slice off the scorched bit and feed it to your faithful RV hound (or package with trash to keep safe from predators).
2. Camp Nachos
- Skillet or Pan
- Tin Foil
- Corn Chips
- Mexi-Blend Shredded Cheese
- Spiced Beef, Beans, Etc. of Choice
- Chopped Fresh Lettuce and Tomato
- Salsa
If you brought your camp skillet or fire-safe pan, then camp nachos are on the menu! Camp nachos are as easy to make over the campfire as they are in the oven. A simple camp nacho recipe starts with tin foil laid into your pan (saves you some cooked-on cheese cleanup), then layer with chips and hot toppings. Cover and set the pan over your fire or into the glowing coals of a low fire. When the cheese is melted and the chips are warm, add lettuce, tomato, and salsa to enjoy.
If you want fancy camp nachos, start with a smaller pan of spiced beef, chicken, and/or black beans. To skip the cook-up, grab a can of black or refried beans for those who want them as a warmed topping.
3. Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup
- Loaf of Bread
- Your Favorite Sandwich Cheese
- Butter or Cooking Oil
- Canned Tomato Soup
Grilled cheese is another campfire favorite, and you can even make your meal complete with easy tomato soup for dipping. There are tons of ways to make campfire grilled cheese. You can grill them in a skillet, or on a pan, or set them on an open-flame grill cover like hamburger patties. You can also use a traditional sandwich toaster, which is a bread-sized cage on the end of a long handle for holding your sandwich over the fire or making individual pieces of toast.
Start with a cheese sandwich, then butter or toast the outside of each piece of bread – the sides facing the fire. Grill in your method of choice until the outside is crispy and the inside is warm and gooey. As for the soup, simply mix with your preferred amount of water and warm in a camp-safe pot in the coals or set onto your grill surface until the tomato soup starts to bubble. You can serve individually or let everyone dip their toasties into the shared pot.
4. Personal Kebabs and Skewers
- Large Chunks of Meat
- Large-Chopped Veggies of Choice
- Skewers
- Spices to Taste
Kebabs are also easy and fun for everyone, and great for personalized campfire dinners. A kebab or skewer is essentially a layered meal on a stick. You alternate pieces of spiced meat with large chunks of vegetables that are tasty when grilled. Each family has their own sekwer blend that they prefer, whether you favor Lamb and Onion or Beef and Bell Pepper. Include other veggies like potato, carrot, sweet potato, mushrooms, zucchini, corn discs tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and so on.
We advise spicing/marinating your meats and cooking them most of the way before handing out skewers for the family to roast. This ensures that the meat is cooked all the way through by the time the skewer veggies are tender.
5. Loaded Baked Potatoes
- Tin Foil
- Large Potatoes
- Butter or oil
- Cheese and Fixin’s
There is nothing in this world easier – or potentially tastier – than a campfire baked potato. In fact, it might be one of mankind’s earliest recipes. To make a modern campfire-style loaded baked potato, start by poking each large potato with a fork several times evenly around the potato. Smear the potatoes with butter, then wrap each one in a double-layer of tin or aluminum foil.
Next, bury your potatoes in the glowing coals so they heat evenly on all sides. After about 30-60 minutes, the potatoes should be unburied and checked. They are done when crispy on the outside and fork-tender/fluffy on the inside. When your potatoes are done. slice them open and load up on fixin’s. Be careful not to get burned by the foil or the molten potato steam.
6. BBQ Chicken Packets
- Tin Foil
- Chicken Breasts or Thighs
- BBQ Sauce
There’s also one more excellent way to use tinfoil for delicious campfire cooking. Foil packets are a time-honored tradition for really great campfire foods because you can make little moist composite meals inside the foil – like a personal croc pot you can bury in the coals.
One of the best foil-packet campfire recipes is BBQ chicken. Give each person a piece of chicken and drown it in BBQ sauce. Smaller or shreded pieces cook more evenly.
Then fold it together into a sealed foil packet and bury each packet in the coals (you can also cook them over a fire). After 30-40 minutes until the chicken is fully cooked. Inside, you will find a deliciously tender BBQ chicken packet, perfect for eating with soft rolls or camp breads. However, you can use this method for just about any favorite oven-baked or saucy chicken recipe from roast chicken & veggies to cream of mushroom chicken.
Bonus: Spiral Breads
- Canned Bread Dough
- Skewers
For a fun bonus, we’d also like to make an honorable mention for spiral bread. Canned bread dough, like Pillsbury Croissants or even Cinnamin Roll dough can be wound around a skewer and baked over a campfire for a tasty and extremely easy campfire carbohydrate. Perfect for sides, snacks, and desserts, and safe for young family members to try for themselves.
Embrace Future Campfire Adventures with Avalon RV
If you are in the mood for adventure, Avalon RV can help you get on the road to reclaim your childhood campfire favorites or forge new memories in harmony with the great outdoors. Contact us today to find the right RV for your future travels, or for more fun camping tips and tricks.
