9 Tips for Prepping Your Camp Food, What Are Yours?
Before going to camp, there are many things you need to consider and plan ahead for. One very important thing to plan for is food.
Camping requires energy. Not eating enough food or quality food may have an adverse effect on your experience. Camping on an empty stomach is not a very pleasant experience. Besides, meals can be a point of social interaction in a camp as people often come together during meal times.
Food preparation should start before you leave your home. Everything you need is at home and there are likely to be limited or even nonexistent sources of food at the camp. Here are nine things you need to do when you are preparing.
1. Write a Meal Schedule
Before you go off to camp, one of the key plans you need to make is a schedule of all the meals you will eat throughout the duration of the camp. Your plan should make provisions for breakfast, lunch, and supper.
Having a meal schedule that has been prepared in advance will save you the time of choosing what to prepare, and it will also help you plan the number of groceries, ingredients, or canned food you need to bring along.
2. Bring Enough Utensils
The food schedule should give you an idea of the utensils you will need. Do you plan to make coffee? Then be sure to bring cups or mugs. You should also bring plates, spoons, forks, knives, bowls, and any other utensils necessary for both preparing your meals and also eating them.
3. Cook At Home
Cooking at home before you leave can be a lifesaver. You will have the opportunity to spend time preparing other things on your first night at the camp without having to bother about preparing food.
Besides, cooking in advance may help to reduce the amount of food preparation you need to do at the camp. You can simply cook food in bulk and serve it at meal time.
4. Freeze Your Food
When you cook food in bulk, you need to preserve it so that it doesn’t go bad. A good way to do this is to freeze it. While you may not have to freeze all the food you’re going to have for meals, freezing some parts and then simply adding different ingredients to it later can make the food preparation process easy, convenient, and fast.
5. Bring a Camp Stove
While the campfire is often used to cook meals while camping, preparing a fire in the morning or afternoon might be quite a drag. There might also be rain, which would rule out the possibility of making a good fire.
It might be a good idea to bring a camp stove, which you can easily use to cook all your meals. Make sure you bring enough fuel to last throughout your stay. Remember to bring lighters or matches too.
6. Organize the Food
Having all your food and ingredients organized in different containers can really be helpful. Have your food and ingredients in separate coolers with different purposes.
You can carry ice, meat, perishable food, oils, fresh ingredients, and many other foodstuffs in different coolers and containers. You know in which containers you have kept the different things you need; this will help keep things organized, neat, and easy to use.
7. Think About Washing
You will have to wash your utensils after every meal, so you need to prepare for that. Confirm whether or not there is a source of water in the camp area. If there isn’t, you might want to bring a container of water that will be reserved for washing all the dirty utensils. You should also bring a sponge, detergent, and possibly a bowl you can wash in.
8. Prepare Light Food for Lunch
It is really advisable that light food should be eaten for lunch, as heavy food might leave you feeling drowsy and wanting to take a nap.
Camping is a fun experience, and sleeping throughout your stay in the camp would make you miss out on most of the fun. So, after having a sizeable breakfast, you may want to enjoy a light to medium lunch. Sandwiches, toast, bread, noodles, fruits, etc. will do perfectly.
9. Bring Snacks
Snacks are great for munching between meals. All the activities in the camp can get you hungry pretty quickly. Make sure you plan some snacks and munchies into your meal plans.
These are just a few important tips for preparing food at camp. The goal of camping is to have as much fun as possible. Whichever way you decide to prepare for camping, always remember to have fun!