Camping food around here has one main requirement: I don’t want to spend our camping trip cooking.

Don’t get me wrong, we eat well. We meal plan the entire trip, pack our groceries before we leave, and usually cook breakfast and dinner at the trailer. But the whole point of camping is to be outside enjoying our family, not standing in the trailer kitchen wondering why I planned a dinner with 17 ingredients. 😂

Over the years we’ve figured out a pretty good collection of meals that are easy, flexible and worth repeating.

So if you’re looking for elaborate Pinterest-worthy camping food, this probably isn’t that list.

This is what we actually eat.

Breakfast: Simple, Hot and Ready When Everyone Wakes Up

We cook breakfast most mornings we’re camping, with departure day being the usual exception.

Eggs and breakfast meat are easy staples. We cook them right on the stovetop using our griddle pan.

Pancakes are another favorite, especially because everyone doesn’t have to wake up at the same time to enjoy them.

I can make a batch and put them in the Tortilla Warmer to keep them warm for the sleepyheads who eventually wander out looking for breakfast. It also works great for reheating them.

No cold pancake punishment for sleeping in. 😂

Lunch: More of a Plan-ish

Lunch is the meal where I intentionally leave us some flexibility.

We usually eat at the trailer, but if we’re heading out for the day, we’ll pack something to take with us.

Brett is perfectly happy making himself some brats. The rest of us lean toward sandwiches, fruit, veggies and other snacky lunch foods.

I plan and shop for several lunch options before the trip rather than assigning a specific lunch to every day. Then we can decide based on what we’re doing, how hungry everyone is and whether we’re staying at camp or heading somewhere.

It gives me the security of knowing we have food without making vacation lunch another schedule we have to follow.

Pressure Cooker Spaghetti: The One-Pot Camping Dinner

This one has earned repeat status.

We use Kitchn’s pressure cooker spaghetti recipe, and what makes it such a good camping meal isn’t necessarily that spaghetti is difficult to make.

It’s that everything happens in one pot.

The meat, sauce and pasta all cook together. I’m not boiling a separate pot of water, babysitting noodles, draining pasta and dirtying extra dishes.

When you’re cooking in a trailer, fewer dishes automatically makes a meal more appealing.

I also measure the seasonings together at home before we leave. Instead of packing several seasoning bottles that I’m only going to use for one recipe, I bring exactly what I need already combined.

It’s a tiny bit of prep at home that makes dinner at the campsite even easier.

Sous Vide Steak: Our “Who Knows When We’ll Eat?” Dinner

Sous vide steak has become one of my favorite camping tricks, particularly for tournament weekends.

Those weekends are unpredictable. We may leave the trailer in the morning without knowing exactly when games will finish or when we’ll actually make it back for dinner.

So before we leave, we get the steaks going sous vide.

Then we go.

When we finally make it back to camp, our steaks are cooked just the way we want them. All that’s left is a quick sear on each side and dinner is ready.

No rushing back to start dinner. No trying to predict exactly what time we’ll eat.

And after spending the day running around for games, coming back to steak that is basically waiting for us feels pretty fancy for camping.

We usually keep the rest of steak night simple too: potatoes and vegetables on the grill, easy mashed potatoes for the kids, or corn on the cob.

The Rest of Our Dinner Rotation

Not every camping dinner needs its own recipe.

Some of our most repeated meals are exactly the kinds of things you’d expect:

Burgers are usually on the menu one night.

Brats and hot dogs make another easy dinner that everyone will eat.

Taco night is easy to prep for and lets everyone build what they like.

BBQ chicken gives us another simple dinner without requiring a pile of ingredients.

And then we usually have our steak night and spaghetti night somewhere in the trip too.

The sides aren’t complicated either. Pasta salad might accompany one meal. Another night it’s chips and fruit. We’ll grill potatoes and vegetables, make easy mashed potatoes for the kids, or throw corn on the cob alongside whatever we’re cooking.

Nothing revolutionary.

That’s kind of the point.

The Prep I Do at Home Is What Makes Camping Meals Easier

I’ve learned that a little bit of work before we pull out of the driveway makes a big difference once we’re camping.

I’ll cook meat ahead when it makes sense, premeasure seasonings for specific recipes, prep vegetables and dips, and wash our fruit before we leave.

Our groceries are packed before the trip, and I’ve already meal planned our dinners.

That doesn’t mean every meal is assigned to a specific day. I like having enough flexibility to look at the weather, our activities and everyone’s mood and decide which dinner makes the most sense.

The goal isn’t to follow the meal plan perfectly.

The goal is to know I already have everything we need.

The Appliances That Have Earned Their Camper Space

Camper storage is valuable, so something has to be genuinely useful to earn permanent real estate.

Our Multi Cooker lives in the trailer because we use it for easy, hands-off meals like the spaghetti.

The air fryer lives there too.

We also use Brett’s Traeger regularly, and our Cool & Serve pieces are perfect for keeping things like dips and cut vegetables cold.

I don’t bring kitchen tools camping just because I might use them. I want the things that make cooking easier so we can spend less time dealing with food and more time outside.

And Obviously, We Need a Camping Treat

Every family needs one of these, right?

Ours is the s’mores clusters from Costco.

We only buy them for camping, so the kids know that when we’re stocking up for a trip, s’mores clusters are coming too.

At this point they’re less of a snack and more of a camping tradition.

And I kind of love that.

My Camping Food Philosophy

I meal plan because I don’t want to think about food all day while we’re camping.

Our dinners are planned. The groceries are purchased and packed. Most of the prep that makes sense to do at home is already done.

Then I give us some flexibility.

Lunch depends on what we’re doing. Dinner can move around based on the day. Breakfast waits for the sleepyheads.

We eat good food, but I intentionally keep it simple.

Because I’d much rather be sitting outside with my family, watching the kids play, heading to the water or enjoying wherever we’ve traveled than spending half the trip cooking and cleaning.

For me, that’s what a good camping meal plan does.

It doesn’t make camping food impressive.

It makes feeding everybody easier so we can get back to the reason we went camping in the first place.