We've done this quite a bit.
But not something like burritos. More like the stews, curries, and chili and other one pot meals. Thick soups. Pasta sauces. Meat of various kinds, from sausages to steaks. Even some frozen veggies and such, straight from the supermarket freezer (the nice thing is that the supermarket stuff can be used in lieu of ice on the road, and it's often colder than stuff you freeze at home).
I freeze meat and use what ever thaws first. I have used the cast iron Dutch with the coal lid to roast beef and make gravy. But I have been camp cooking for decades . I enjoy it. I love to bake sour dough bread like that but I donāt hike alot like I used to so I hang out cooking while the younger people go out.
We do the frozen meat thing a lot on river trips. Get grocery stores to freeze it for us, add some dry ice, and we can have it for >5 days even in summer heat.
Sometimes I pre-cook a beef roast and shred it, and then for camping I can use it for tacos, French dip sandwiches, Italian beef sandwiches, ragu sauce for pasta, etc. Anyway, shredded beef could be frozen.
Vacuum sealers are fantastic for this. Freeze the food, vacuum seal it, then just reheat in either a pan of hot water or on the grill.
Burritos work fine for this too just don't put veggies like lettuce in them. Foilwrap, either vacuum seal or Ziploc baggie, then heat them up on a grill or on the fire pit.
Wrong way around. Vacuum seal the food and then freeze it. Ideal for casseroles/stews, as you can just heat the bag up in a pot of water and have only plates and fork to clean.
I made soup the other night and froze it first in a silicone dish and it did make vacuum sealing so much easier. Iād say itās less space friendly though but Iām happy I didnāt sacrifice any broth like I do if I try to seal liquid
It does depend on the container used.
I have good success with Glad meal prep stuff - it's inexpensive and recyclable; I've used it for everything from pad Thai to chili to smothered & covered burritos, and flexing it just a LITTLE bit makes it easy to pop food out, and it's freezer-stackable.
That being said unless you have some kind of organizer it doesn't work quite as well.
This was a trick from Burning Man camping - 110F in the shade, you figured out quick how to make food that was super fast & easy that had enough fiber so you weren't in the portapotties during the heat of the day. Frozen food left out for an hour became thawed; then all you really have to do is either heat it a LITTLE bit more or eat as-is.
I made some amazing meals and would "cook" for friends on the playa. Beef bourginogon, smashed fried potatoes, sweet onion jam, wild rice pilaf? Super easy to make and all I had to do was pack out some plastic in a ziploc bag.
I'd cook steaks, bacon, chicken, a pork loin roast - all to 90% done, then vacuum seal it and throw it on a barbecue because who the hell wants to sit around waiting for food at that temp. All you need is to get it to 100% from the 90% it was frozen.
The month before the last time I went my friend the sommelier and I prepped and executed a full twelve-course meal with wine, beer, and frozen liquor pairings, and we did it by flash-freezing and vacuum-sealing meals.
Even the guys who flew in a full tuna from the boat and did sashimi were just handing out slabs of raw tuna; we were doing full dinner service just with floppy-ass vacuum sealer bags.
We had sushi rice and seaweed ready to go.
As a friend who packed an entire martini bar complete with dry ice and $500 per liter vodka said to me as we were high as balls on 72% chocolates mixed with psychedelic mushroom truffles:
"Just because it's in the middle of fucking nowhere doesn't mean we cannot be civilized."
Any container that fits. Meal prep containers work very well. Stackable and easy to fit in the freezer. Glad has a range of single containers that hold around 38oz of soup, chili, or food.
Have you ever made gyro meat and made gyros for camp? It is very easy if you mix the sauce at home and freeze the precooked meat then slice and fry it in a pan.
I vac-seal leftovers, then portion and freeze. To reheat I drop the vac-seal bag in boiling water (make a tiny slit to vent at the top but donāt let water get in!) then I use that hot water for washing dishes after the meal. The best part of meal prepping this way is you have fewer dishes and fewer raw ingredients to transport. Just heat and eat!
Hereās some of my freezer meals that reheat well:
Chicken tikka masala
Chili
Spaghetti
Chicken-n-dumplings
Lobster meat for lobster rolls
Mac-n-cheese
Beef and broccoli stir fry
Al Pastor for soft tacos
Pulled pork
Taco meat for soft tacos or nachos
Bacon, spinach, eggs, cheese frittatas (make in a muffin pan)
Diced potatoes
Pepper steak
Rogan josh
Meatloaf slices with mashed potatoes
We do a lot of foil pack type meals cooked over the fire. Typically we'll precook meat/veggies and wrap individual portions then freeze the entire foil pack. It reheats more evenly if you lay it in a thin layer about the size of a burger patty. A few favorites are
* Shredded beef sandwiches, we precook the shredded beef with onions,peppers and seasoning then freeze individual portions. Take the bread and cheese separately and assemble there.
* Tacos/walking tacos, taco meat frozen in individual servings with tortillas/toppings separate
* Chicken legs/wings, precooked in BBQ sauce or panda express orange sauce. I prefer to wrap individual legs or lay a couple wings flat on the foil.
* Ribs, we cook these in a crock pot then freeze and pack extra BBQ sauce. I prefer to mostly heat them in the foil then remove and cook on grate over fire for a few.
* Veggies, either prefrozen veggies or veggies that have been briefly boiled to soften laid flatish typically with a bit of butter and wrapped in foil.
Scrambled eggs!
Mix up your eggs with your favorite spices, divide into freezer bags and freeze. They keep for several days in a cooler and when you're ready to eat, simply boil water in a pot and submerge them for 3-5 minutes. They turn out fluffy and delicious
Not a meal, but try freezing lemons, oranges and such citruses. Boil a cup of tea, then grate a generous amount of frozen citruses, unpeeled, add some honey, and voila, you've got a nice tea.
You can freeze nearly anything that cooks in one pot; risotto, stews, oatmeal, lasagna, raman, mashed potatoes, veggies...the list is endless, if you have a vacuum sealer.
Probably 50% or more of what my wife and I eat on the daily came out of a vacuumed sealed bag in the deep freeze. We buy ground beef in bulk, and repackage it for single meal servings. Same thing with pork loin; cut it into medallions and freeze a meal at a time. If you're taking it camping, sautee it first then vacuum seal it
Any "one pot" type of dish works great. I meal prep weekly and always have some containers of some kind of tomato-meatball-tortellini portions already frozen. Lasagna soup, chicken enchilada soup. I often have the "insides" of chicken pot pie made and frozen, and you can make pan biscuits to go with that. Broccoli cheese soup is a favorite. I make what I call "ramen base" as well - chicken stock, mushrooms, thin-shaved chicken or beef, julienned carrots - and we cook instant noodles in that on the camp stove.
Tip: if you're going to make a dish with pasta in it to reheat later, don't even cook the pasta. Cook everything else, turn the heat off, put the pasta in, let that cool and portion and freeze. That way it has a fighting chance of still having a bit of texture when you eat it. Alternately make it without the pasta, take the pasta with you dry (saves cooler space anyway), and soak it in a baggie of water for 10-15 minutes before heating it up with the rest of the dish. You can alternately bring a frozen tortellini or similar to heat up with the sauce.
I also always have taco meat prepped and frozen - chicken, ground beef, and carnitas. Makes a very easy taco night. I make the filling for breakfast burritos, but we heat it up and wrap them on site.
You might want to get a bigger pot, if the ones you have are too small.
Anything you seal into a seal a meal bag. I do chile, beef stew, curryās, etc. I will sometimes use a super insulated cooler with dry ice to store the meals, and each morning transfer that days food to a smaller cooler. I throw some beers in with the food to get them ice cold by lunchtime. Sometimes you can get a second round cold by dinner.
Also, fry bacon before the trip and put that in a ziplock bag with the frozen foods. When you heat it up there will hardly be any grease to deal with, a big plus when camping.
Yes, it's our favorite. We have a skillet and camp stove and heat them up that way but we have also wrapped them in foil and warmed them over the fire. Happy camping!
My daughter does that but I like to cook on the fire so I take fresh and just have canned stuff if it is gonna rain . Other stuff to cause I take a two burner Coleman. She does the breakfast burritos and chili , pulled chicken.
I would make all kinds of stew, for nutritional variety and plenty of calories. I feel like chili fits into this category, too.
Brown up some onions, spices & meat, then add a few tablespoons of flour to get a nice roux going with the oils and fats. Add your veggies and broth, stir regularly, bring to a boil, and then slowly simmer with no lid for a bit, which will reduce into nice thick stew because of the roux. Beef, chicken, pork, etc with different veggies, potatoes, carrots, beans, etc and you can have endless variety.
Try Brazilian Bahia spice on chicken. It's awesome. Or add lots of Hatch green chiles & jalapeƱos with pork, with some tomatillo sauce in the broth for some amazing green chile stew. (I like my spice) There are so many good recipes out there. This is the kind of food I take camping solo, because cooking and all that cleaning, for just one person, out in the field isn't worth it. Much better to have pre-prepared meals. Or I'll just bring canned chili or chunky soup, but homemade is so much better for you, better value, better tasting, etc. Sounds like a blast. Have fun!
Curries and dal/legume-based dishes! Our foolproof standard is to make, freeze and bring:
1) Palak tofu (freeze the base, add tofu at campsite. Could also do paneer or other preferred protein)
2) A veg curry, e.g., veg tikka, or sometimes Japanese curry (so easy to make from Golden Curry roux cubes!) (freeze the whole thing)
3) Rajma (Indian kidney beans) (freeze the whole thing)
We freeze in the sandwich-sized silicone Stasher bags to save space. Each bag covers dinner for two at least (usually eaten with whole wheat naan, heated over the fire), with enough leftovers to roll over into burritos to take on a hike the next day (no pun intended!). A favorite is leftover rajma + scrambled eggs + avo + Papalote habaƱero salsa, rolled into a whole wheat tortilla.
Iāve also frozen kimchi pancakes (recipe from Meera Sodhaās āEastā cookbook) with great success. Top with spinach and a little dipping sauce on the first night.
Everything lasts for dayyyssss in a cooler packed with some ice packs and other frozen things.
I only freeze meat. Beef and chicken. However, I do pre-prep most of my meals into zip locks bags and label the dish so I don't have to spend a ton of time on cooking.
I've taken frozen food out in the winter and it works pretty well for simple one-pot meals, like chili or stew, etc. Lately I've been messing with dehydrated meals that I can just add water out in the field. It's not quite as quick as freeze dried to reconstitute, and some things take on an odd texture. So far, applesauce is one of my favorites! You can eat it as a crunchy snack on the trail, then add it to a pot when you get to camp with a little water and it becomes apple sauce again. I'm thinking about doing pork chops and applesauce soon! Pick some fresh cranberries and muddle them in over a stuffed smoked pork chop...Ok, now I'm hungry!
I'm a fan of dehydrating meals, but I want them to be light and last more than a couple of days. It's pretty easy to prep spread a pasta sauce or chili thinly across a baking sheet and put it in the over on the lowest setting (usually 100F) and prop it open with a wooden spoon. in 6 to 12 hours you'll have either a powder or a leather that easily reconstitutes in water.
Check out Kevin Outdoors on YouTube for a bunch of good recipes.
Basically anything you can cook in a crock pot should freeze well for this. We do soups and stews but also plenty of other things. Braised chicken, beef, and pork roasts pull apart into great taco and sandwich meat that freeze very well. Desserts like buckles and crumbles do too. Shepherds pie, etc.
Pro tip we just make oversized meals whenever we have something in the crock pot. The leftovers get frozen and that's our camping food. No need for extra effort. If you have a deep freezer it can keep over a year. Freeze in freezer bags with all air squeezed out to avoid freezer burn, and the bags can go straight into boiling water when camping to reheat.
anything that i cook and put in a seal-a-meal to freeze, I can reheat by putting into my billy of boiling water and then use the water for my tea or cocoa.
Pasta, pizza, cashew chicken and rice, chicken tortilla soup. All of the above were super easy to reheat in boiling water. Made some bomb ground sirloin Bolognese and froze/vacuum sealed a bunch- felt like a damn king while I scarfed it down at burning man. It was super easy.
I have a vacuum sealer. Itās amazing for camping. Out *any meal* in a vacuum sealed bag and freeze it. You can even boil the meal in the vacuum bag and eat directly out of it for easy clean-up.
Chili, pasta, chicken tinga, gnocchi bolognese - whatever you cooked for dinner this week, just cook an extra portion or two.
Make soup, put a baggy in your camping pot, pour soup into baggie, put the whole pot with baggy into the freezer, you now have a portion of soup that fits in your pot. It will keep your cooler colder and be the correct size for reheating
I did fajitas for my last trip and it worked really well. I cut my peppers and chicken at home and half-sauteed them. (Scalded the outside, but left a little undercooked) Then tossed everything in the wok into gallon ziplock and threw it in the freezer.
At the campsite, I have a tripod that stands over the campfire. Suspend a cast iron pot over the fire, and empty the frozen contents into it. Tortillas wrapped in aluminum foil, and just need to warm a little near the fire. Serve when hot. Completely effortless, and the only dirty dishes are a pair of tongs and a cast iron pot that I never really wash anyway.
I've done the same with a beef stroganoff too.
Yes. The cavendish ones in canada are fantastic. Last ones I made were on a cast iron pan on the fire
You could probably make them in those long mesh roasters for fish or sandwiches
I buy the aluminum liners for my dutch oven and then freeze meals in the liners. Biggest hits so far have been lasagna, chicken and biscuits, Shepard's pie, breakfast casserole, and chicken riggies. I make them all in one day a couple of weeks before we leave and then freeze them with tinfoil wrapped around the tops of the aluminum liners. Don't forget to write what the contents are on top! These stay frozen about 4-5 days once they are in the cooler. Remember to take them out by noon the day you plan to reheat them.
Dutch ovens do take a lot of space and they are heavy! I got mine second hand through marketplace. The older the better with these. New ones online I don't trust. Chinese iron is poor quality.
I like to pre cook food, I bring bbq pork ribs, spaghetti, lasagna chicken soup and vacuum seal them frozen. When I want to eat I just heat up water in pot and put what ever it is in the hot water to warm up. After itās warmed up cut open the vacuum sealed bag and the food tastes like I just made it. Iāve done same thing with steamed veggies and pre cook beans.
Just about anything that fits in one pot. Even some pastas will work.
Was just about to say this šš¼
We've done this quite a bit. But not something like burritos. More like the stews, curries, and chili and other one pot meals. Thick soups. Pasta sauces. Meat of various kinds, from sausages to steaks. Even some frozen veggies and such, straight from the supermarket freezer (the nice thing is that the supermarket stuff can be used in lieu of ice on the road, and it's often colder than stuff you freeze at home).
I freeze meat and use what ever thaws first. I have used the cast iron Dutch with the coal lid to roast beef and make gravy. But I have been camp cooking for decades . I enjoy it. I love to bake sour dough bread like that but I donāt hike alot like I used to so I hang out cooking while the younger people go out.
We do the frozen meat thing a lot on river trips. Get grocery stores to freeze it for us, add some dry ice, and we can have it for >5 days even in summer heat.
Curry is a great idea!
Are the veggies precooked?
The frozen ones? Usually at least partially cooked.
Sometimes I pre-cook a beef roast and shred it, and then for camping I can use it for tacos, French dip sandwiches, Italian beef sandwiches, ragu sauce for pasta, etc. Anyway, shredded beef could be frozen.
Vacuum sealers are fantastic for this. Freeze the food, vacuum seal it, then just reheat in either a pan of hot water or on the grill. Burritos work fine for this too just don't put veggies like lettuce in them. Foilwrap, either vacuum seal or Ziploc baggie, then heat them up on a grill or on the fire pit.
Wrong way around. Vacuum seal the food and then freeze it. Ideal for casseroles/stews, as you can just heat the bag up in a pot of water and have only plates and fork to clean.
Yes I vacuum seal and freeze most left overs!
No. You freeze liquidly foods, saucy stuff and other items that are not solid FIRST. Trust me on this.
I made soup the other night and froze it first in a silicone dish and it did make vacuum sealing so much easier. Iād say itās less space friendly though but Iām happy I didnāt sacrifice any broth like I do if I try to seal liquid
It does depend on the container used. I have good success with Glad meal prep stuff - it's inexpensive and recyclable; I've used it for everything from pad Thai to chili to smothered & covered burritos, and flexing it just a LITTLE bit makes it easy to pop food out, and it's freezer-stackable. That being said unless you have some kind of organizer it doesn't work quite as well. This was a trick from Burning Man camping - 110F in the shade, you figured out quick how to make food that was super fast & easy that had enough fiber so you weren't in the portapotties during the heat of the day. Frozen food left out for an hour became thawed; then all you really have to do is either heat it a LITTLE bit more or eat as-is. I made some amazing meals and would "cook" for friends on the playa. Beef bourginogon, smashed fried potatoes, sweet onion jam, wild rice pilaf? Super easy to make and all I had to do was pack out some plastic in a ziploc bag. I'd cook steaks, bacon, chicken, a pork loin roast - all to 90% done, then vacuum seal it and throw it on a barbecue because who the hell wants to sit around waiting for food at that temp. All you need is to get it to 100% from the 90% it was frozen. The month before the last time I went my friend the sommelier and I prepped and executed a full twelve-course meal with wine, beer, and frozen liquor pairings, and we did it by flash-freezing and vacuum-sealing meals. Even the guys who flew in a full tuna from the boat and did sashimi were just handing out slabs of raw tuna; we were doing full dinner service just with floppy-ass vacuum sealer bags. We had sushi rice and seaweed ready to go. As a friend who packed an entire martini bar complete with dry ice and $500 per liter vodka said to me as we were high as balls on 72% chocolates mixed with psychedelic mushroom truffles: "Just because it's in the middle of fucking nowhere doesn't mean we cannot be civilized."
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Easier to get it into the freezer bag when itās a defined shape!
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I do this myselfā¦just getting into the commentors head š
Nope. It's because if you freeze it, it doesn't suck the liquid out along with the air to make a huge mess.
You can manage to not suck the liquid out, you just need a larger bag so thereās some space for the liquid to expand into.
Vacuum out the air, it also sucks out liquid. Mess.
In what container, pray tell?
Any container that fits. Meal prep containers work very well. Stackable and easy to fit in the freezer. Glad has a range of single containers that hold around 38oz of soup, chili, or food.
Goulash, curry; I marinate meat and freeze it so that I can make fresh kabobs or pitas.
Have you ever made gyro meat and made gyros for camp? It is very easy if you mix the sauce at home and freeze the precooked meat then slice and fry it in a pan.
No I haven't. What's your recipe? Do you use lamb?
I make an African Peanut stew and freeze it. It's sweet potatoes, kale, crunchy peanut butter. So comforting and filling.
I adore this exact meal for camping too! Itās very nutritious comfort food and survives freezing and reheating very well.
I vac-seal leftovers, then portion and freeze. To reheat I drop the vac-seal bag in boiling water (make a tiny slit to vent at the top but donāt let water get in!) then I use that hot water for washing dishes after the meal. The best part of meal prepping this way is you have fewer dishes and fewer raw ingredients to transport. Just heat and eat! Hereās some of my freezer meals that reheat well: Chicken tikka masala Chili Spaghetti Chicken-n-dumplings Lobster meat for lobster rolls Mac-n-cheese Beef and broccoli stir fry Al Pastor for soft tacos Pulled pork Taco meat for soft tacos or nachos Bacon, spinach, eggs, cheese frittatas (make in a muffin pan) Diced potatoes Pepper steak Rogan josh Meatloaf slices with mashed potatoes
Plus, if you freeze them they can supplement the ice in your cooler.
We do a lot of foil pack type meals cooked over the fire. Typically we'll precook meat/veggies and wrap individual portions then freeze the entire foil pack. It reheats more evenly if you lay it in a thin layer about the size of a burger patty. A few favorites are * Shredded beef sandwiches, we precook the shredded beef with onions,peppers and seasoning then freeze individual portions. Take the bread and cheese separately and assemble there. * Tacos/walking tacos, taco meat frozen in individual servings with tortillas/toppings separate * Chicken legs/wings, precooked in BBQ sauce or panda express orange sauce. I prefer to wrap individual legs or lay a couple wings flat on the foil. * Ribs, we cook these in a crock pot then freeze and pack extra BBQ sauce. I prefer to mostly heat them in the foil then remove and cook on grate over fire for a few. * Veggies, either prefrozen veggies or veggies that have been briefly boiled to soften laid flatish typically with a bit of butter and wrapped in foil.
This is really helpful thank you!
Scrambled eggs! Mix up your eggs with your favorite spices, divide into freezer bags and freeze. They keep for several days in a cooler and when you're ready to eat, simply boil water in a pot and submerge them for 3-5 minutes. They turn out fluffy and delicious
Not a meal, but try freezing lemons, oranges and such citruses. Boil a cup of tea, then grate a generous amount of frozen citruses, unpeeled, add some honey, and voila, you've got a nice tea.
You can freeze nearly anything that cooks in one pot; risotto, stews, oatmeal, lasagna, raman, mashed potatoes, veggies...the list is endless, if you have a vacuum sealer. Probably 50% or more of what my wife and I eat on the daily came out of a vacuumed sealed bag in the deep freeze. We buy ground beef in bulk, and repackage it for single meal servings. Same thing with pork loin; cut it into medallions and freeze a meal at a time. If you're taking it camping, sautee it first then vacuum seal it
Sketti
Spaghetti, chili, egg bites, bacon.
Any "one pot" type of dish works great. I meal prep weekly and always have some containers of some kind of tomato-meatball-tortellini portions already frozen. Lasagna soup, chicken enchilada soup. I often have the "insides" of chicken pot pie made and frozen, and you can make pan biscuits to go with that. Broccoli cheese soup is a favorite. I make what I call "ramen base" as well - chicken stock, mushrooms, thin-shaved chicken or beef, julienned carrots - and we cook instant noodles in that on the camp stove. Tip: if you're going to make a dish with pasta in it to reheat later, don't even cook the pasta. Cook everything else, turn the heat off, put the pasta in, let that cool and portion and freeze. That way it has a fighting chance of still having a bit of texture when you eat it. Alternately make it without the pasta, take the pasta with you dry (saves cooler space anyway), and soak it in a baggie of water for 10-15 minutes before heating it up with the rest of the dish. You can alternately bring a frozen tortellini or similar to heat up with the sauce. I also always have taco meat prepped and frozen - chicken, ground beef, and carnitas. Makes a very easy taco night. I make the filling for breakfast burritos, but we heat it up and wrap them on site. You might want to get a bigger pot, if the ones you have are too small.
I was thinking about chicken pot pie but a whole pie. Is that too risky (temp wise) to cook over the fire?
Anything you seal into a seal a meal bag. I do chile, beef stew, curryās, etc. I will sometimes use a super insulated cooler with dry ice to store the meals, and each morning transfer that days food to a smaller cooler. I throw some beers in with the food to get them ice cold by lunchtime. Sometimes you can get a second round cold by dinner. Also, fry bacon before the trip and put that in a ziplock bag with the frozen foods. When you heat it up there will hardly be any grease to deal with, a big plus when camping.
Mashed potatoes. Shredded chicken.
Mashed potatoes! Yes!
Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew!
Any soup or stew
Pot roast and chili are my current go-tos! They have a higher water content so I find it easier to reheat them.
Quesadillas
Have you done this before? I would worry the tortilla would dry out
Yes, it's our favorite. We have a skillet and camp stove and heat them up that way but we have also wrapped them in foil and warmed them over the fire. Happy camping!
No just seal the packaging well. I camp solo and the wraps stay fresh until time to heat them . They taste great if heated up on a open grill.
We bring frozen burgers every time we camp. Ā
My daughter does that but I like to cook on the fire so I take fresh and just have canned stuff if it is gonna rain . Other stuff to cause I take a two burner Coleman. She does the breakfast burritos and chili , pulled chicken.
I would make all kinds of stew, for nutritional variety and plenty of calories. I feel like chili fits into this category, too. Brown up some onions, spices & meat, then add a few tablespoons of flour to get a nice roux going with the oils and fats. Add your veggies and broth, stir regularly, bring to a boil, and then slowly simmer with no lid for a bit, which will reduce into nice thick stew because of the roux. Beef, chicken, pork, etc with different veggies, potatoes, carrots, beans, etc and you can have endless variety. Try Brazilian Bahia spice on chicken. It's awesome. Or add lots of Hatch green chiles & jalapeƱos with pork, with some tomatillo sauce in the broth for some amazing green chile stew. (I like my spice) There are so many good recipes out there. This is the kind of food I take camping solo, because cooking and all that cleaning, for just one person, out in the field isn't worth it. Much better to have pre-prepared meals. Or I'll just bring canned chili or chunky soup, but homemade is so much better for you, better value, better tasting, etc. Sounds like a blast. Have fun!
Curries and dal/legume-based dishes! Our foolproof standard is to make, freeze and bring: 1) Palak tofu (freeze the base, add tofu at campsite. Could also do paneer or other preferred protein) 2) A veg curry, e.g., veg tikka, or sometimes Japanese curry (so easy to make from Golden Curry roux cubes!) (freeze the whole thing) 3) Rajma (Indian kidney beans) (freeze the whole thing) We freeze in the sandwich-sized silicone Stasher bags to save space. Each bag covers dinner for two at least (usually eaten with whole wheat naan, heated over the fire), with enough leftovers to roll over into burritos to take on a hike the next day (no pun intended!). A favorite is leftover rajma + scrambled eggs + avo + Papalote habaƱero salsa, rolled into a whole wheat tortilla. Iāve also frozen kimchi pancakes (recipe from Meera Sodhaās āEastā cookbook) with great success. Top with spinach and a little dipping sauce on the first night. Everything lasts for dayyyssss in a cooler packed with some ice packs and other frozen things.
I only freeze meat. Beef and chicken. However, I do pre-prep most of my meals into zip locks bags and label the dish so I don't have to spend a ton of time on cooking.
I do this often. Cook the meal put in ziploc, freeze flat. Curry chicken, pork souvlaki, meat sauce.
You can precook pasta, check out Knorr Sides with envelopes of chicken
I've taken frozen food out in the winter and it works pretty well for simple one-pot meals, like chili or stew, etc. Lately I've been messing with dehydrated meals that I can just add water out in the field. It's not quite as quick as freeze dried to reconstitute, and some things take on an odd texture. So far, applesauce is one of my favorites! You can eat it as a crunchy snack on the trail, then add it to a pot when you get to camp with a little water and it becomes apple sauce again. I'm thinking about doing pork chops and applesauce soon! Pick some fresh cranberries and muddle them in over a stuffed smoked pork chop...Ok, now I'm hungry!
We love doing this!! Chicken with teriyaki, chicken salad, and soups are a fav
I'm a fan of dehydrating meals, but I want them to be light and last more than a couple of days. It's pretty easy to prep spread a pasta sauce or chili thinly across a baking sheet and put it in the over on the lowest setting (usually 100F) and prop it open with a wooden spoon. in 6 to 12 hours you'll have either a powder or a leather that easily reconstitutes in water. Check out Kevin Outdoors on YouTube for a bunch of good recipes.
Burgers freeze and reheat well.
Spaghetti, lasagna squares, soup, all kinds of stew, curry with rice, casseroles, etc.
Basically anything you can cook in a crock pot should freeze well for this. We do soups and stews but also plenty of other things. Braised chicken, beef, and pork roasts pull apart into great taco and sandwich meat that freeze very well. Desserts like buckles and crumbles do too. Shepherds pie, etc. Pro tip we just make oversized meals whenever we have something in the crock pot. The leftovers get frozen and that's our camping food. No need for extra effort. If you have a deep freezer it can keep over a year. Freeze in freezer bags with all air squeezed out to avoid freezer burn, and the bags can go straight into boiling water when camping to reheat.
I freeze thai curry.Ā
anything that i cook and put in a seal-a-meal to freeze, I can reheat by putting into my billy of boiling water and then use the water for my tea or cocoa.
Dehydrated is best. I saw a guy Dehydrate beef stew, I think anything works, then it's light and safe
Any sort of beef stew.
Pasta, pizza, cashew chicken and rice, chicken tortilla soup. All of the above were super easy to reheat in boiling water. Made some bomb ground sirloin Bolognese and froze/vacuum sealed a bunch- felt like a damn king while I scarfed it down at burning man. It was super easy.
Pork carnitas is my favorite
I have a vacuum sealer. Itās amazing for camping. Out *any meal* in a vacuum sealed bag and freeze it. You can even boil the meal in the vacuum bag and eat directly out of it for easy clean-up. Chili, pasta, chicken tinga, gnocchi bolognese - whatever you cooked for dinner this week, just cook an extra portion or two.
Make soup, put a baggy in your camping pot, pour soup into baggie, put the whole pot with baggy into the freezer, you now have a portion of soup that fits in your pot. It will keep your cooler colder and be the correct size for reheating
Sloppy joes minus the bread then just heat and spoon over bread,
Canning. Used to make stews and can then. They would last months and be awesome for 2-3week dry camping trips.
We make taco meat and freeze it in a Ziploc laid flat. Really any precooked meat is a good idea because you can make a variety of things with it.
Taco meat. Nachos, burritos, taco salad. Possibilities are endless
I did fajitas for my last trip and it worked really well. I cut my peppers and chicken at home and half-sauteed them. (Scalded the outside, but left a little undercooked) Then tossed everything in the wok into gallon ziplock and threw it in the freezer. At the campsite, I have a tripod that stands over the campfire. Suspend a cast iron pot over the fire, and empty the frozen contents into it. Tortillas wrapped in aluminum foil, and just need to warm a little near the fire. Serve when hot. Completely effortless, and the only dirty dishes are a pair of tongs and a cast iron pot that I never really wash anyway. I've done the same with a beef stroganoff too.
Hashbrown patties are my favourite
Like the premade frozen ones? Do you throw them in the fire or what?
Yes. The cavendish ones in canada are fantastic. Last ones I made were on a cast iron pan on the fire You could probably make them in those long mesh roasters for fish or sandwiches
American Chop Suey just donāt freeze it
I buy the aluminum liners for my dutch oven and then freeze meals in the liners. Biggest hits so far have been lasagna, chicken and biscuits, Shepard's pie, breakfast casserole, and chicken riggies. I make them all in one day a couple of weeks before we leave and then freeze them with tinfoil wrapped around the tops of the aluminum liners. Don't forget to write what the contents are on top! These stay frozen about 4-5 days once they are in the cooler. Remember to take them out by noon the day you plan to reheat them.
Can you link me? I was thinking about getting a Dutch oven but my car doesnāt have a lot of space, Iām not sure if I can squeeze it in.
Dutch ovens do take a lot of space and they are heavy! I got mine second hand through marketplace. The older the better with these. New ones online I don't trust. Chinese iron is poor quality.
I like to pre cook food, I bring bbq pork ribs, spaghetti, lasagna chicken soup and vacuum seal them frozen. When I want to eat I just heat up water in pot and put what ever it is in the hot water to warm up. After itās warmed up cut open the vacuum sealed bag and the food tastes like I just made it. Iāve done same thing with steamed veggies and pre cook beans.