Long term camping food options
If you are heading away from civilisation for some time, you need camping food options that last a long time whilst still tasting decent, being relatively healthy and nutritious.
For us, we’ve built a setup that allows us to be away from everyone for long periods of time, and as a result we need food options and ideas that match it, or we’d be back in town every few days buying bread and milk!
We carry 350L of water, an 82L freezer (plus 6L in our Upright Fridge) and an 79L Fridge, and love to get away from the hordes of people as much as possible, but the one thing that keeps us coming back is food, as its quite hard to stay off grid for extended periods without growing your own.
That said, here’s some ideas for long term camping food that we have found works well.
Keen for more camp cooking posts? We’ve got heaps to make cooking when away from the big smoke easier.
Wraps
In terms of sandwich style lunches, you can’t go wrong with wraps. We almost always have 3 – 4 packs of wraps with us, and they go down really well. We’ll eat the bread first, but wraps are pretty commonly eaten for lunch by us.
Tuna, Baked Beans and Spaghetti
You can keep canned food for months, and we love the above. I don’t always feel like it, but its nice knowing its there and when you do feel like eating it we usually jump on them pretty quickly.
Corn Crackers
If you want something tasty, easy to eat and super light weight, you can’t go past corn crackers. For lunch, I’ll sometimes have 5 or 6 of these, and you can put a variety of toppings that taste really good. Smoked salmon and creamed cheese is a favourite, but I’ll often eat them with tomato, or tuna too.
Salami
Salami keeps incredibly well, and unlike ham and chicken meat that is pre packed into plastic containers that take up a heap of room, its compact, easy to use and quite tasty.
Sprouts
Lettuce never seems to last very long in our fridge, and we’ve found that using pea sprouts is a pretty good alternative. These are nice to have in sandwiches or wraps, and last for a really long time in the fridge. They also don’t get squashed or weigh too much, which is great.
Potatoes in a can
You might laugh, but these are supposed to be pretty tasty. We’ve had a can in the camper for a few months now, and have been meaning to try them out. We love potatoes, and whilst normal potatoes can keep well if you care for them, having a few cans of potatoes is certainly a winner.
Frozen Bread
If you have a freezer and eat a lot of bread, you can’t go past a few loaves frozen. We’ll easily go through a loaf in a couple of days if we all eat some, and having some in the freezer is great.
I tend not to eat it defrosted and prefer to just put it in the toaster as it doesn’t always defrost nicely, but its a good long term camping option.
Cabbage
Some vegetables keep really well when you are camping, and we’ve had cabbage in our fridge for weeks before we used it. You can eat it raw in a salad, or cook it up with a roast which is delicious.
Powdered Milk
We used to take a heap of long life milk with us, but eventually moved over to powdered milk. We need it for hot drinks and cereal for the kids, and with a heap of water on board you can’t go too wrong. Mixing it is a bit of a pain, but we have a decent bottle and have gotten used to it now.
Pasta
I love Pasta, and the kids do as well. Sarah not so much, but it still gets cooked often because she knows everyone will eat it. You can do some pretty easy pastas with minimal ingredients. We often do spaghetti bolognaise, or chicken avocado, or a kransky sausage pasta.
Frozen corn
If you cook some frozen corn kernels up with a bit of butter, they are delicious. We often do this as a side, or Sarah will add it to fried potato, carrot and asparagus to give it some additional flavour. If you don’t have frozen corn in your freezer, you’ve been missing out
Rice and Cous Cous
If ever there was an easy camping food, rice or Cous Cous takes the cake. We use this all the time for a base, and have satay chicken, sweet and sour chicken (or sausages), or just have it as a side. It lasts forever, is easy to store and fills you up!
Custard
If you have powdered milk, you can make custard really easily, with no refrigerated items. This is perfect for dessert, or we sometimes have it for breakfast with fruit in a jar, which is a nice change.
We love long lasting camping food
For us, buying food that will last long term is of huge importance. We often spend weeks away from shops, and running out mid way (or scrounging around for random bits of food) isn’t much fun at all.
What do you do for long term camping food?
