Camper Recipes, Meal Prep, and Tips

What do you cook in your RV? What are your favorite camper recipes? How do you to prep before your trips? These are many questions we see regularly. When you travel full time or you travel frequently enough, you may want your favorite cooking accessories from home. Some people love the extra time a camping trip affords, so they do a lot of cooking. We are usually busy working full time and exploring that we keep our meals simple. In addition, you may be coming off a long drive day and may not feel like cooking an extravagant meal.

When it comes to camper recipes, meals and meal planning, I follow a few basic rules.

Rules

1. Try to pre-cook and freeze as much as possible before hitting the road. Whether we go on a short trip or a long one, I try to pre-cook and fill the freezer with items to help make meals easier on the road. A fully stocked freezer also helps it perform efficiently. These are the items I generally cook and freeze ahead of time:
   1. BBQ (usually pork BBQ or brisket smoked and frozen in individual quart-sized bags) – great for sandwiches and quesadillas
   2. Ground beef, browned and packaged 1-1.5 pounds in each quart-sized bags
   3. Ground chicken, browned and packaged in quart-sized bags
   4. Smoked sausage links cut up and cooked, packaged in quart-sized bags
   5. Pulled chicken from a rotisserie chicken, split into two quart-sized bags
   6. Pre-formed patties for hamburgers and/or turkey burgers
   7. Marinated chicken breasts (often I cut them into small pieces or butterfly them) before marinating
2. Keep meals simple. When cooking in a small kitchen, I try to use only one or two pots/pans for a meal or try to grill something out on the grill while keeping sides simple. When possible, I will purchase fresh pasta, open a jar of sauce, or use pre-made mashed potatoes to minimize dishes and complexity.
3. Cook the smelly and messy stuff outdoors if at all possible. I love the smell of bacon, but I am afraid that the smell will never come out, so I always cook bacon outside. I also try not to cook onions or sausage inside, for much the same reason. Other than the smell, foods that splatter or are cooked in oil are challenging too, because grease gets everywhere and can damage some of the softer surfaces in the RV.
4. Remember fruits and veggies. It can be easy to forget fruits and veggies throughout the day when you’re on vacation or just camping for the weekend. When traveling more long-term (and even for a long weekend) your body will thank you for remembering to cut up an apple, have some carrots, or prepare a side salad.
5. Prepare snacks and lunches the night before a travel day. Travel days are stressful enough, so eliminate some of the stress by preparing items the night before. Our go-to items tend to include PB&J sandwiches, putting pretzels in a sandwich bags, putting dry cereal in sandwich bags, and packing our “snack bag” with granola bars, peanut butter crackers, carrot sticks, trail mix, etc. If we aren’t having a sandwich while driving, I’ll often prepare chicken salad or whatever quick item we can grab when we stop for lunch, which saves us from making an extended, unplanned stop. Sometimes Steve makes cold-brew coffee a couple days beforehand so he can save time brewing a fresh cup on a travel day. It also means he has refills ready to go when we stop for fuel, no heating needed.

Here are some of our regular camper meals when we’re on the road. I’m not including real camper recipes, because they’re very simple and with very few ingredients.

Camper Meals

• Beef tacos (thaw frozen pre-browned meat, add seasoning and water). If I have extra meat, we usually have taco salads the next day or sprinkle on some nachos.
• Chicken tacos (frozen ground chicken, can of diced tomatoes [Rotel], seasoning, corn, black beans) with your favorite toppings. Also great for taco salads or nachos if you have left overs.
• Spaghetti and meat sauce. We don’t do a lot of pasta, but on occasion it’s a nice easy meal. I usually make it more “fun” by using Rigatoni, Macaroni, or Penne noodles. I have tried preparing with pre-frozen meat-sauce, but I found it takes up a lot of space in the freezer and using a jar of sauce with pre-cooked meat is just as easy and tasty to us. Cold storage is usually more limited than dry storage, so it all depends on your setup and length of your trip. Convenience is all about finding the balance that works for you.
• Sausage, Alfredo sauce, peas, and Orecchiette pasta. Once the pre-cooked sausage is thawed, it’s simple for the rest to come together. Boil water for the pasta, throw the frozen peas in a few minutes behind the pasta, drain and add jarred Alfredo sauce and the sausage.
• BBQ sandwiches. Usually picnic style, sometimes with a side of macaroni or potato salad, chips, carrots, and fruit.
• BBQ quesadillas. BBQ brisket, chicken, or pork with cheese and BBQ sauce warmed in quesadillas/flour tortillas. Quick on the stove top or electric griddle.
• Grill burgers. I think we have burgers the first weekend of every trip. We love our grill and the extra flavor from the smoker tube. I usually have some bacon crumbles to add to the top with some melted cheese, which adds a delicious touch.
• Turkey burgers. They fall apart on the grill so I cook turkey burgers indoor or on a skillet outside. I add an egg, occasionally bread crumbs or cracker crumbs, Worcestershire sauce, and some seasonings (onion, garlic, season all, cumin), then pan-cook them in a little olive oil.
• Grill fresh piece of meat (strip steak, London broil, Tri tip, etc.)
• Grill marinated chicken. My go-to marinades are Italian salad dressing, fajita flavoring, and teriyaki.
• Kebabs. For some reason, meat on a stick tastes better than not. We usually stick to chicken, but steak, peppers, and veggies taste great grilled.
• Chili/Bean Casserole/White chili. I don’t cook a lot using my crockpot, but chilis and bean casserole are easy to put everything in and let it cook all day. They come together pretty quickly, especially if you have pre-cooked meat or pre-cut onions.
• BBQ chicken flat bread. I usually keep Naan or other flatbreads handy, and put whatever you want on them, whether it’s Marinara and mozzarella for a pizza, a BBQ chicken and bacon option, or other left overs. It also tastes great to dip in hummus.
• Beans and rice. Red beans and rice or black beans and rice as a side or main course with meat. We love Vigo brand beans and rice bags. With red beans, we usually use sausage, but with black beans BBQ pork or pulled chicken go well.
• Pre-packaged and cooked pasta. We usually go with ravioli or tortellini, which is extremely quick and easy, but you need something to go with it like a salad, soup, or meat.
• Homemade chicken tenders. Shake ‘n Bake coated chicken, baked in the oven is a quick meal with your favorite dipping sauce and sides. Go with a simple BBQ sauce or make your own honey mustard with mayo, mustard, and honey.
• Breakfast for dinner! We love breakfast, but often we don’t eat a big breakfast as a family, so it’s fun to make bacon-cheese scrambled eggs, pancakes, or hash browns for dinner.
• Store-bought items. If we have room in the freezer, I usually try to keep a few options on hand such as a frozen pizza, frozen chicken patties, nuggets, and black bean burgers. They’re good for a quick meal or when some of us are eating left overs but there aren’t enough for everyone.

Favorite cooking items

Some people swear by their Blackstone, but I love our “Big Gas Grill”. We really enjoy grilling meat and having burners for pots/pans rather than just having a flat surface. I do use my electric griddle quite often, but I don’t think I could give up my grill. Either way, keep it simple and fun as you prepare your favorite camping recipes.

Here are a few of my favorite cooking items. You can still view our full list of items to stock your kitchen and use kitchen appliances.

I love our grill. The legs come off and on easily, which means I can set this up and take it down by myself. There is a separate grill box which comes with it and sits over 2 of the 3 burners. This allows one burner free for cooking a vegetable or stirring a sauce. I also love the red flat surface for holding utensils. The burners are easy to control and I always have enough heat.

A pellet smoker tube was a nice addition to get some of that flavor when we are traveling away from our smoker at home

I can’t say enough about these stackable pots & pans. They don’t take up much space, they cook evenly, and they are so easy to clean. The main pot is a little small, but I also brought a stew pot from home for some larger chilis and soups which works out well for us.

This electric griddle may be my most used appliance. We use it for a lot of things, from quesadillas, grilled cheese, pancakes, and sausage. We don’t cook bacon in the RV (too much grease) otherwise this would be great for bacon too. I tend to use this inside for quick meals but I have brought it to the outdoor kitchen as another hot surface as well.

See our Shopping lists for Kitchen Essentials and Kitchen Appliances.

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