Camping season will be here soon! I’ve been camping many times over the last several years and I’ve learned a few things that make the prep work easier and your camping trip more enjoyable. I will also share some of my favorite recipes for camping meals, many of which you can make ahead of time.

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Things to bring with you and do beforehand

Ice cubes – If you will have a cooler for food, you can buy a bag of ice from the store as you are heading out on your trip. However, when we’re camping I don’t like reaching in the cooler and digging through ice when I’m looking for something. I also don’t like how the cooler fills with water as the ice starts melting. An easier, and cheaper, method is to make your own ice bags beforehand. A day or two before your trip, start filling gallon sized ziplock bags with ice from the ice maker in your freezer. I usually do about 2 bags per cooler. Another nice thing about doing it this way is that as the ice melts, the water will stay in the ziplock bags and not make a watery mess in your cooler. I also recommend having a separate cooler for drinks. That way your food items will stay cold longer if you don’t have people opening and closing it all day to grab a water bottle or can of soda.

Dish soap – You will want to bring dish soap for washing dishes, but you don’t need to bring your big bottle of dish soap along. Just pour a small amount into a small container. A small plastic container, a baby food jar, or a small squeeze bottle are items that work great for this.

Paper towels – Paper towels are a definite necessity for camping. They are great for quick and easy clean up. I also just bring paper towels instead of napkins. Paper towels themselves work fine for napkins, especially the kind that you can just tear off half a sheet. You can find a spot to anchor down the paper towel roll, everyone can tear off a sheet as needed and your stack of napkins won’t be blowing away in the wind.

Blankets – If you will be sleeping on an air mattress in a tent, I highly recommend bringing blankets to put under your air mattress and also to wrap your air mattress with. When it gets cold at night, the air mattress just sucks in that cold air and that does not make for some comfortable sleeping. Wrapping your air mattress in blankets provides a nice barrier and helps protect it from that cold air.

Shower shoes – I always bring a specific pair of flip flops that can go in the shower when camping. The shower floors are usually dirty and I also don’t want to risk getting some sort of fungus on my feet from stepping on them.

Pop-up canopy – A pop-up canopy is handy to have to protect you from rain and sun. You never know when a surprise rain shower can come up. Believe me it’s happened, and having a covering has saved us from having drenched and ruined supplies and food. If it’s going to be sunny and hot with no shade where you’re camping, a canopy is a lifesaver too. Even when we’ve camped in a travel trailer we brought our canopy for extra coverage.

Don’t forget to check your supplies – If you are taking supplies like a camping cook stove or propane lanterns, don’t forget to make sure you have enough full propane tanks. Nothing is worse than arriving at your campsite and realizing that your little propane tanks are empty or you don’t have enough to get you through the weekend. This also applies to making sure you having working lighters for lighting your cook stove or campfire and also making sure you have extra batteries for lanterns, etc.

Food and meals to prep

One of the things I look forward to most about camping is the food we are going to eat. I don’t want to spend a lot of time preparing and cooking the meals while we are camping, so I try to do as much of the prep work as I can at home before we go. Here is a list of my favorite foods and meals for camping.

Breakfast

Breakfast burritos – These are easy to assemble and you can actually do it ahead of time and put them in the freezer. Basically all you need to do is cook up some scrambled eggs, breakfast sausage and hash brown potatoes. Mix these together with shredded cheese and diced peppers. Then put a little bit in a tortilla and wrap it up like a burrito. I will usually make a big batch of them, wrap each one in aluminum foil and put them in the freezer. When you’re camping you can reheat them over the cook stove or campfire.

Omelets in a bag – These are kind of a fun way to make omelets using ziplock bags and a pot of boiling water. You crack a couple of eggs into a ziplock bag, add whatever other ingredients you like (cheese, ham, peppers, etc), make sure the bag is tightly closed and set the bag into a pot of boiling water for a few minutes until the omelets are cooked. Everyone can customize their own omelet how they like and you can boil a few bags at the same time. I highly recommend using freezer quart size bags for this. The bags are a little thicker and have less chance of melting.
Breakfast Hash – My hubby makes a delicious breakfast hash that tastes especially good when you’re camping. All you need are eggs, hash brown potatoes, cooked bacon and/or breakfast sausage, diced peppers, diced onion, shredded cheese and some seasoning salt. Ok, that is a long list of ingredients, but it is quite the hearty meal all cooked together. My hubby usually cooks this in his cast iron skillet, but it can also be done on a griddle or in a frying pan. He usually starts cooking the potatoes first since they take the longest to cook. Sprinkle them with seasoning salt for added flavor. Then add the veggies and meats and let those cook for a few minutes, crack the eggs over top and let them cook, and finally top with shredded cheese and cook until it melts. The amount of each ingredient depends on how many people you are cooking for. You can make this for just a few people or enough for a big crowd.
Muffins – I love having muffins on hand to bring on a camping trip. They are great to include with an egg breakfast or just to have as a snack. You can also make them ahead of time and put them in the freezer. One of my favorite muffin recipes is Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins. You can find the recipe here.

Lunch

Easy chicken quesadillas – These make a great lunch or dinner camping meal. They are quick and easy to put together and you can have most of the ingredients prepped ahead of time. You can either use canned chicken or leftover chicken from another dinner you made. You can find the recipe here.

Sandwiches – You can make these as easy or extravagant as you’d like, but sandwiches are an easy camping lunch. I like bringing a couple of different lunch meats and all the sandwich fixings – lettuce, tomato, cheese and condiments. Sometimes I will buy sandwich rolls to have something special and different. Then everyone can customize their own sandwich to their liking. Another thing I like to do is make a batch of chicken salad for chicken salad sandwiches. If you want to take your sandwiches to the next level, make these BLTA Sandwiches. They are one of our favorites.

Dinner

Teriyaki chicken – We usually bring along a small bbq grill to cook some of our meals on. We grill burgers, hot dogs and some sort of marinated chicken. My favorite is Teriyaki Chicken. I buy frozen chicken tenders from Costco and the day before we leave on our trip I will put the frozen tenders in a bag with the teriyaki marinade. Then the next day they are thawed out and ready to grill for dinner. Allrecipes.com has a recipe for a delicious teriyaki marinade. You can find the recipe here. Teriyaki chicken goes great with potato salad (I share a recipe below), corn on the cob, fruit, or any of your favorite sides.
Hamburgers – We can’t go camping and not have burgers for one of our meals. They are a staple. To prepare ahead of time, you can either buy a package of frozen pre-made patties or you can make your own hamburger patties at home. My husband likes to add his own spices to the hamburger patty mix. He will do that and then I will form the patties and put them in a ziplock bag so they are ready to go.
Chicken kabobs – These are easy to prep and then throw on the grill when camping. We like to use teriyaki chicken, but you can use any meat you’d like. We also like chunks of bell pepper and pineapple. Word of advice – soak your kabob sticks in water ahead of time. That way they won’t burn or char during grilling.

Snacks and sides

Fruit – I love snacking on fresh fruit and also including it as a side to a few of our meals. I will slice or dice the watermelon ahead of time since I don’t want to spend time doing that while camping. I also like bringing grapes to go along with our lunches.

Potato salad – this is a great side for any lunch or dinner meal and I have a delicious recipe for it here. I make it the day before we leave so it’s ready to go.

Things to roast over the campfire – It’s always a special treat to roast things over the campfire at night, but this doesn’t have to include just marshmallows. We also like to bring l’il smokies sausages and different candies. Surprisingly the peach ring gummies are really good roasted over the fire.

Are you ready to go camping yet? It is a lot of work to prepare for a camping trip, but the more you can do ahead of time the more relaxing your trip will be.

If the idea of roughing it in a tent does not sound exciting to you, check out my post on how easy it is to rent a trailer for your next camping trip.

The cheap and easy way to rent an RV