Cooking Fun Meals While Camping Is So Much Easier With This Versatile Kitchen Staple

Ask most seasoned campers and they'll tell you that food just tastes better outdoors. Hot dogs roasted over an open fire and crispy marshmallows devoured straight off the stick become gourmet delicacies in the right setting. But after a while, charred sausages with a side of sweet sugar get old, and you begin to crave a proper meal. The problem is, it often feels like you need to pack your entire kitchen (and the sink to wash up after) to make it happen.

Experienced campers, however, know that's not the case, and the secret ingredient to upgrading your campsite meals is probably sitting in a drawer in your kitchen as you read this. We're talking about aluminum foil, every camper's best friend. With a single roll, you've got yourself a grill, a pan, a lid, and even a plate, making cooking while camping infinitely easier. From French toast for breakfast to hearty stew for dinner and even bananas Foster for dessert, aluminum foil can take you from sunup to sundown.

You can use aluminum foil in two main ways when cooking: on the grill or to create foil pockets. Laying a sheet on the grill means less clean-up after dinner, as the foil catches stray bits of food and grease, and prevents food from welding itself to the grill racks. You can even create a grill pan by folding up the edges of strong foil. Using foil also means you can cook smaller items of food on the grill, like shrimp and chopped vegetables, without worrying they're going to slip through into the flames.

Foil pockets (food wrapped entirely in foil) have similar benefits when it comes to saving on cleaning time. On top of that, they lock in moisture, so they're a good way to cook juicy meat or tender fish. Salmon is a big hit among the foil pocket-loving camping community, and steaming it over the fire in an aluminum pocket can be delicious. Another bonus of using individual foil pockets is that you can allow each person to customize their own. Kids have suddenly decided tomatoes are the enemy? No problem, you can still enjoy them.

Being able to prep ingredients can be a game-changer while camping, and foil pockets allow you to prep entire meals while at home. Just wrap them up and pop them in a cooler until it's time to throw them on the grill. And if you're worried about knowing when the food inside is done, take along an internal thermometer and stick it into the largest piece of meat to check.

We'll start with some simple but delicious breakfasts. Sausage, eggs, and potatoes are a classic combo that cooks in around 15 to 20 minutes, provided you chop your potatoes into small pieces. To kick it up a notch, try your hand at French toast. This recipe from Fresh Off The Grid suggests chopping up a loaf of bread, soaking it in an egg mixture, and baking it over the fire for a big-batch meal. Or for something really fancy, look into this blueberry-cinnamon campfire bread from Taste of Home.

Dinner is where cooking with aluminum foil really comes into its own. Commenters in Reddit's r/camping forum love making stew in their foil pockets: meat, potatoes, veggies, and a generous amount of seasoning, slow-cooked in liquid inside the foil. Sausages and vegetables are another hit among Redditors. Some campers even go gourmet, with Cajun boils, Philly cheesesteaks, and even chicken cordon bleu. Aluminum foil makes the food world your oyster. (Would oysters work? It's perfectly possible.)

Let's round this out with some desserts. Bananas Foster is popular, presumably minus the ice cream, unless you have a great cooler. Other campers go for bananas topped with berries, chocolate chips, and other sweet toppings for an easy but delicious treat. The one we're most interested in trying was suggested by user MasteringTheFlames on Reddit: Ice cream cones stuffed with marshmallow fluff, chocolate, and any other sweet stuff that takes your fancy. It's a mess-free way to make s'mores!