This weekend we took a pretty impromptu trip to my favorite Florida campground, Fisheating Creek Outpost.
There was no particular occasion for this trip. No birthdays or holidays—just plain hanging out with friends. Since I already posted about Fisheating Creek and all the amenities and activities it has to offer for my last birthday celebration, I figured I can focus this post on camping cuisine.
If you’ve never been camping before, the food prep can be overwhelming. But between fishing, kayaking, and relaxing on a hammock, there is still plenty of downtime for cooking and eating.
Typically, you would need a grill and a stove for camping. There’s tons of portable grills that you can buy online like this one, and some come with a grill and stove combination like this one. These are propane powered, but you can opt for a cheaper charcoal grill to get the job done too. If you like charcoal cooking, most campsites have a fire pit where you can cook as well if you have a grill to place over it.
For our meals, we had plenty of burgers and hot dogs. But my favorite camping meal is spaghetti with chili, which I like to say is my own invention, but it’s probably not.
For the chili spaghetti, I just cook a buncha spaghetti on the stove in a pot, drain it, and then mix in a few cans of chili. It’s perfect for adding protein to your pasta meal, and you don’t even need to buy spaghetti sauce. It’s a super easy to cook meal while out in the middle of nowhere. Toss in some cheddar cheese for a cheesy, chili covered spaghetti meal.
I love using chili on everything while camping: chili dogs, spaghetti, loaded chili baked potatoes, you name it! It’s a very versatile cooking ingredient for camping!
Looking for an easy camping meals shopping list? Here’s mine:
Groceries:
Burgers and buns
Hot dogs and buns
Ketchup, mayo, mustard
Chili cans
Spaghetti (or any pasta type)
Potatoes (for baked potatoes over the fire)
Cheese slices
Chips
Breakfast Items:
Eggs
Ham or turkey deli slices
Bagels and cream cheese
Chocolate chip or blueberry muffins
Orange juice
Cooking Tools:
Aluminum foil
Grill and stove
Propane fuel or charcoal
Serving/stirring spoons
Spatula and tongs