Camp food ideas?

[300WSMGUY]

Pork butt-- cook, shred and freeze! Can have it with canned beans, make it into tacos or 'carnitas' and will work with dang near any side you cook!!

Also- we used the instant Cous Cous this year in Colorado high county. Super lightweight, cooks up incredibly fast and is great for mixing things up a little bit! Made for a great side that didn't take long when we were exhausted back at camp in the evenings.

CousCous is a great side/mixer. We eat it at home quite often. Can't believe I never thought of using it. I'll use it this year with jambalaya and gumbo
Thanks for bringing it up!

 

[dblizzard]

So our group is headed to Wyoming soon to hunt elk. We are tent camping and plan to bring cooked meals to heat up. So far, we have thought of tacos, taco soup, chili, sloppy Joe's, spaghetti, cowboy stew, and hotdogs. We plan to cook most the meals, freeze them, and just reheat.

What other meal ideas have y'all done? Any good meals we can add?

Thanks,

DoubleG

Dried refried beans for bean burritos works for me. Tortillas & beans & cheese take little space or weight. The beans rehydrate in 15 min, & I take pre-measured packets of preferred spices. I usually build one extra for lunch the next day, carried close to my body, you can eat one handed while hiking or....

 

[John Klingenberg]

Being a chef of 35 years experience imo your only limited to what you can do in the bush by your own imagination, what equipment & how much time you have.

For me it depends on the trip duration & time of year to what we can use to cook on.
If its summer then there is usually a fire ban so cast iron Dutch oven cooking by fire is out & LPG gas over meals are prepped.

Most of the time if camp oven cooking I will do slow cooking style meal, like Moroccan lamb shoulder with cous cous or beef blade(or similar cut) with roast root vegetables.
I have even made pizza from scratch using a very hot fire & turned out pretty good
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If I am just going for 4 to 5 days I will usually do a combination of cooked meals that can be easily heated for when I don't want wait for something to eat & meals that I prepped & cook on the gas stove.
The food I take that is pre cooked is usually stuff that requires 2 or more hours of cooking to tenderize the meat.

In doing this a food vacuum machine is the best thing you can have at you disposal for the meals & prep plus also for when you bring your game home to.

Lunches are things like angus burgers, bbq pulled pork rolls with slaw & chipotle mayo, smoked salmon & potato frittata, sausages with beans & fried eggs.

Dinners are things like, gnocchi with pork ragout, tortellini with speck, mushroom, spinach & garlic cream sauce, thai chicken coconut curry with jasmin rice, Chinese style chicken with hokkien noodles & asian greens, beef & mushroom goulash with mash & green peas.

Like I was saying, nearly anything you can do at hame you can do out in the bush

Next time i plan a big hunt youre invited!

 

[aushunter1]

Next time i plan a big hunt youre invited!

No worries JK, next time Im in the USA I will look you up for a trip.

You will be in the bush but eat like your in a restaurant

I am liking most of what everyone is saying here.
Some things are good just to sustain you while on the move, I pack my own venison jerky and yes things like trail mix, nuts protein bars etc are great as well as fresh fruit(why not?).

But even if I wasn't at a base camp & was using a 'jet burner' or similar back pack burner on a day trip I would still try to eat as fresh as possible.

The biggest obstacle is keeping high risk food(mostly protein) at an appropriate safe handling temp which is 5 degrees Celsius or under.
Easy to overcome if you pack your protein frozen or even partially so when you need to use it it is still safe to eat.
Cold packs are very compact as well these days!

I have done events for up to 1000 people where its in a marque in the middle of no where, take everything in & everything out same day.

If you can plan your eating as well as the rest of your hunt then it your experience is so much better imo.

I will hike as far as needed but I want to sit down & eat at least one really good meal a day...……………...the rest of the day is just sustaining my energy levels.

Its just how important your food is to you really I guess!

 

[John Klingenberg]

No worries JK, next time Im in the USA I will look you up for a trip.

You will be in the bush but eat like your in a restaurant

I am liking most of what everyone is saying here.
Some things are good just to sustain you while on the move, I pack my own venison jerky and yes things like trail mix, nuts protein bars etc are great as well as fresh fruit(why not?).

But even if I wasn't at a base camp & was using a 'jet burner' or similar back pack burner on a day trip I would still try to eat as fresh as possible.

The biggest obstacle is keeping high risk food(mostly protein) at an appropriate safe handling temp which is 5 degrees Celsius or under.
Easy to overcome if you pack your protein frozen or even partially so when you need to use it it is still safe to eat.
Cold packs are very compact as well these days!

I have done events for up to 1000 people where its in a marque in the middle of no where, take everything in & everything out same day.

If you can plan your eating as well as the rest of your hunt then it your experience is so much better imo.

I will hike as far as needed but I want to sit down & eat at least one really good meal a day...……………...the rest of the day is just sustaining my energy levels.

Its just how important your food is to you really I guess!

Absolutely, i love to cook. A good solid meal adds a lot to a hunting camp. I really like it when someone tags out early so theres a nice meal ready to be cooked well. Nothing like a large ungulate thats been aged a day or two outside at about 38 degrees.

 

[merasmus]

We stay in a cabin at elk camp. I like to cook so no pre made frozen stuff for us. Make bbq ribs, chicken, chicken Parmesan, steaks, burgers, bacon, eggs etc. To me it's as much of a holiday/vacation. I'm there to enjoy myself. But I realize others may hunt way harder than we do and don't want to cook for 2-3 hrs every night. Dark in Alberta by basically 5-5:30 pm so lots of time to cook at the end of November.

 

[merasmus]

Alberta hunter also
We like to cook and have a long evening.we use fit h ovens and eat as good or better than at home.
Roasts, steak cobblers etc

 

[elk wallow]

i like to cook up a big breakfast scramble with bacon, sausage, peppers, potatoes or whatever you like then make breakfast burritos. I wrap them in tinfoil then heat them in the fire or on our portable grill. They're great anytime of day. Even cold.

Kevin