While there is a time and place for freeze-dried ready meals, camping doesn’t have to mean a whole week’s worth of dehydrated packets for dinner each night.
To supplement your cottage pie in a pouch, we bring you the definitive list of real-food staples that will get you across the line in terms of cooking up a gourmet storm in the camp kitchen.
Coffee
First things first, coffee is a mainstay of what to bring along to kickstart your day. And quickly brings us to the second thing on your campsite shopping list:
Milk
Fresh milk is great if you have access to a fridge, otherwise the long-life or powdered stuff will do the trick nicely.
Milk is not only an addition to your morning cuppa, but will keep you from eating dry cereal for breakfast. It’s also a must-have for the pre-bedtime hot chocolate.
Eggs
What can’t you do with eggs? Fry them, scramble them or stick them in an omelette and you’ve got either breakfast, lunch and/or dinner. They work brilliantly on their own, or can be a vehicle for chopped tomatoes, ham and cheese.
Speaking of which…
Cheese
Useful in so many ways, you can add cheese to almost anything savoury to make it better; even a packet of dehydrated camp food. Lay a slice in your sandwich or melt some over microwave nachos. Cheese will level-up whatever you have on the backburner.
Fresh fruit
It’s no good coming home from the camp site with a bout of scurvy because you subsisted on chips the whole time.
Bringing some fresh fruit adds a healthy kick of sweetness to your day and ensures you keep your vitamin levels up while away.
Choose hardy fruits like apples and pears and mix them up with some local seasonal varieties like pomegranate and guavas.
Tinned beans
While they aren’t usually an exciting ingredient, beans are the unsung hero of the camp site. Filling, cheap and versatile, you can stuff some in a tortilla for a quick burrito, or just cook up a batch over the camp stove with some chopped veggies and tinned tomatoes as a main or side.
Bread/ tortillas
When talking staples, it’s hard to go past a loaf of bread and packet of tortillas.
Whether you’re making sandwiches, toast or quesadillas, these two carb-kings are a satisfying way to wrap your mind around whatever fillings you have lying around.
Butter/ oil
If you bring bread, it’s a good idea to bring some butter. Because dry bread is sad.
Both butter and oil are also necessary for any pan cooking to make sure you can flip your omelette with ease.
Salt and Pepper
These two seasonings will cover you off for all of your campsite cooking, making sure whatever you make over the campfire is nice and tasty. Put it this way- you will definitely notice if you don’t bring any seasoning.
Chocolate
No explanation needed her really. Whether in the form of a family-size block, chocolate biscuits or powdered for liquid gold, this food of the gods will pick you up at any time of the day, even while you’re cooped up in a tent during a torrential downpour.
Marshmallows
No camp food list is complete without the mainstay of why people go camping in the first place.
Don’t forget the skewers so you can toast your sticky, sweet marshies to cindered crispiness on the outside and gooey molten lava goodness within.
With this list at the ready, you'll be ready to unleash in the kitchen Jamie Oliver-style.
Let us know if there's anything else you keep in your camp kitchen arsenal down in the comments box below.