Camping Cooking For Large Groups

Cooking for a crowd can be intimidating even when you have the luxury of stoves, refrigerators, and electricity. Can you really cook a delicious, nutritious meal for a crowd while camping out? Absolutely! The key is to plan ahead: plan your menus, pack carefully, and pre-cook whatever you can. Then when you arrive, you can set up your kitchen and start cooking.

Plan Your Menus

Whether you’re cooking for 10 or 100, you need to plan your menus in advance. Ask yourself some basic questions:

• What meals will you be responsible for? Often at group campouts, everyone is responsible for their own lunch and you are only in charge of dinner and breakfast.
• How many people will be eating?
• What is the budget?
• What facilities are available? Will you be cooking over a campfire or a propane stove? Will ice be available to keep food cold.

As you plan your menu, keep food safety in mind and choose as many shelf-stable items as possible. For example, you may be planning hamburgers and hotdogs as your main dish. For a side dish, choose potato chips rather than potato salad, which you have to keep chilled. Applesauce makes a great side dish and comes in a can or plastic jar. For breakfast, you can provide cereal, sweet rolls, fresh fruit, and breakfast bars. For snacks, how about crackers, fruit, and trail mix?

You can also choose menus that require “audience participation.” Maybe your group would enjoy roasting their own hot dogs over the fire or cooking baked potatoes in the coals. The more you can involve others in the food preparation, the easier your job will be – and everyone else will have fun too.

Pack Carefully

If you are lucky, you’ll work with a group that has a chuck box. If not, you will want to create your own. A chuck box keeps all your cooking items organized so you will know you have everything you need. A chuck box can be as elaborate as an entire trailer, or as simple as a cardboard box. Common items you should be sure you have in your chuck box include:

• Dining fly or shelter
• Portable tables
• Pot holders
• Paper towels
• Napkins
• Plastic trash bags
• Basic utensils such as knives, tongs, spoons, and spatulas
• Can opener
• Heavy duty aluminum foil
• Measuring cups
• Plastic silverware
• Paper plates and/or bowls
• Plastic cups
• Zipper-style bags
• Cutting board
• Pots and pans
• Skewers
• Biodegradable dish soap
• Dish pan
• Dish rags and towels
• Coffee pot
• Coffee
• Tea bags
• Hot chocolate mix
• Kool-aid mix
• Salt and pepper
• Herbs and spices
• Cooking oil
• Sugar and flour
• Condiments (preferably individual serving size packets that don’t require refrigeration)

In addition to these chuck box items, you will also need coolers to store perishable food; drink coolers for water, iced tea, and kool-aid; and camp stoves or Dutch ovens for cooking. If you’re using a camp stove, be sure you have enough fuel, and if you’re using a Dutch oven, be sure you have charcoal.

If you’re going to be cooking for a crowd regularly, you may want to invest in extra-large pots and pans. For example, the Big Daddy Skillet has a 20 1/2" cooking surface and weighs 12 pounds. It will hold six dozen eggs at one time.

In addition to the staples in the chuck box, you will also need to purchase and pack the specific food item you are preparing. Plan to allow one pound of cooked meat for every three people. For side dishes, you can figure one gallon per 10 people.

Pre-Cook Whatever You Can

Before you leave your house, do as much of the cooking as possible. For example, if you are going to prepare spaghetti, sloppy joes, or chili, you can at least brown the hamburger at home, put it in a freezer bag, and freeze it. Actually, you can even make the entire sauce at home if you want, and then just warm it up at camp.

You can also pre-cook your pasta. Cook the pasta until it is just getting soft. Then toss it with some vegetable oil and bag it in a freezer bag. When you get to the campsite, you can put the whole freezer bag in boiling water to finish cooking the pasta.

If you’re having burgers, pre-form the patties and layer them between pieces of wax paper. Make them thin so they will cook thoroughly.

If you’re more in the mood for ribs or poultry, try smoking your meat in advance at home.

Set Up Your Kitchen

When you get to the campsite, you will want to set up your kitchen. Look for an area that is flat, with lots of room but not isolated from the crowd – after all, you want to chat and have fun too. You also want to be downwind from the tents and far enough away so that you won’t pose a fire hazard.

Once you have your location selected, enlist some volunteers to help you set up the dining fly or shelter and the portable tables for your camp stoves. Then you can unload you cooking supplies and begin creating your meal!

If you are going to be doing any of your cooking with a Dutch oven, you will want to set up a separate cooking area away from the main campfire. This campfire will probably be made from wood, but Dutch oven cooking is easiest with charcoal.

Get Cooking

Your cooking time will go faster if you remember a few tips:

• Choose small, thin piece of meat or cut your meat into thin slices. Large, thick pieces of meat require more cooking time per pound
• If you are grilling, don’t crowd the food on your grate. Foods on a crowded cooking grate take longer to cook and may not cook evenly.
• Choose shallow baking pans for foods such as baked beans. They will cook more quickly than in a deep pot or casserole.

Eating Time

When the food is ready, you will want to set up a buffet serving line. Enlist some volunteers to serve the food, preferably right from the cooking pot so you will have fewer dishes to do later.

Cleaning Up

Clean up should be minimal, just the pots and pans you cooked in and the trash. Do not leave food trash around the campsite or you will attract animals. Seal all trash in plastic bags and either put the bags in a secure trashcan or in a vehicle.

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