foil dinners

By jab120638

Ingredients

• This is my go-to foil dinner recipe.
• 1/2 lb ground hamburger meat
• 1/2 can of Veg-all or other mixed vegetables
• 1/2 can can of cream of mushroom soup
• spices and seasonings

Details

Servings 20
Adapted from artofmanliness.com

Preparation

Step 1

, foil packet meals can be one of your greatest allies. It’s cooking at its simple best; you take some ingredients, wrap them up in a foil parcel, and place the pouch in a campfire’s coals to cook. You can prepare these foil packets before you head out into Mother Nature, and they require no pots and pans, no plates, and no clean up. All you need is a fork and some fire. And, if you know what you’re doing, they can be incredibly tasty and satisfying. So today we’re going to cover the basics of foil packet cooking and provide you with some delicious recipes to try the next time you venture into the great outdoors.

Spray the side of the foil on which you’re going to place the food with cooking spray before you add your ingredients and seal it up.

Cook your foil packet on the fire’s coals, not in the fire itself. Ideally, you want to place the packet on a bed of coals about 2 inches thick.

Making a good foil pack is essential to foil dinner cooking success. There are a couple of different kinds of foil packs you can make depending on what you’re cooking.

1. Place the food in the middle of the sheet of foil. If you needed to mix the ingredients up, do so in a separate bowl before transferring it to the foil.

2. Tear off a sheet of heavy-duty foil that is about twice as long as the food you’ll be wrapping. It’s better to overestimate the length than place your food on it, start wrapping it up, and realize you don’t have enough foil to keep everything in and make your folds.

2. Place the food in the middle of the foil.

You don't have to limit foil packet cooking to camping. All of these recipes are also good when cooked on the grill. It's an easy way to grill veggies. Above, I took some squash and zucchini and mixed it with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic. Very nice.

I’ve tried to give somewhat exact measurements here, but honestly I just eyeball it, and I recommend doing likewise. Foil packet cooking is not an exact science. And these recipes represent just the basics-you can add all sorts of variations to them. The foil is your camping canvas and you can do whatever you’d like with it. All servings are for a single person unless otherwise indicated. Just double or triple the measurements according to your needs.

½ can of Veg-all or other mixed vegetables

Mix together the above ingredients with spices and condiments to your heart’s content. Place the mixture on the center of a sheet of foil, wrap in a tent pack, and place on hot coals for 25 minutes.

Crimp the sides of your sheet of foil so that the eggs won’t go anywhere when you add them. First place your hash brown patty on the foil. Then place the eggs on top of the hash brown patty. Then place the sausage patties on top. Season with spices and condiments and wrap up in a tent pack.

Place on hot coals and cook for 15 minutes. Add the cheese when it’s ready (it turns out better than cooking it in the pack).

1 package of just add water muffin mix

Mix up the muffin mix as instructed. Cut off the quarter top of the oranges. Carefully scoop out the pulp; do not break the skin. Pour the muffin mix into the oranges. Wrap the oranges in foil, crimping the foil around the hole at top of the shell, but leaving it open.

Place the oranges upright in a stable position on hot coals and cook for about 10-15 minutes.

Makes six servings. Well, if you’re someone who can stop at one muffin.

Mix together the broccoli, soup, and cheese. Add spices and condiments. Place the chicken breast on the center of the foil. Top with the soup mix and then rice. Seal in a tent pack.

Mix the melted butter with a dash of lemon juice and the above spices to taste (with the exception of the paprika). Place the onions on the foil sheet. Place the fish on top and sprinkle with paprika. Wrap the foil in a flat pack.

Place on hot coals and scoop some hot coals on top of the packet. Cook for 15-20 minutes.

½ package frozen stir-fry vegetates

Mix together the apricot preserves, the soy sauce, and any seasoning you’d like to add. Place the pork chop in the center of the sheet of foil. Spread half of the apricot sauce on top. Put the veggies on top/around the pork chop. Pour the rest of the sauce over the whole thing. Wrap in a tent pack. Place on hot coals and cook for 20 minutes.

Place turkey cutlet on sheet of foil. Put the stuffing on top and the green beans around the cutlet. Pour gravy over everything and sprinkle with the dried cranberries and seasonings. Wrap in a tent pack and place on hot coals for 20 minutes.

Place the ears of corn on a large sheet of foil. Spread the butter on top. Sprinkle with the seasonings and Parmesan cheese. Put the ice cubes on top. Wrap up into a tent pack. Place on hot coals and cook for 20 minutes. Makes 4 servings.

Place donut on sheet of foil. Mix the softened butter and brown sugar together and spread it over the donut. Place the pineapple ring on top. Wrap the donut in a tight flat pack. Place on hot coals and cook for 5-7 minutes.

add one

Great article on a great campfire tradition! To add, there are plenty of scrumptious variations to be had with the oranges. I used to put ground beef in the hollowed out orange halves…spices up to your personal preference!

A great trick I learned one night, (after a few beers) take some foil place onion slices, a couple tablespoons of butter (use real butter) and a couple tablespoons of BBQ sauce inside, fold into a flat pack and set on coals, in about 15 to 20 minutes you will have caramalized onions that are great by themselves or as a topping to burgers steak or anything. I use a spicy BBQ sauce like “fighting cock”, but whatever your favorite is will do just fine.

I will take the catch of the day one step farther. We tend to favor this recipe when up in the mountains and the AOM community should like it because it involves bacon. Take your fresh Trout and lay two strips of bacon on the inside of the fish. Between these two pieces of bacon*, add onion and lemon slices. On the top, and bottom of the fish, add an additional strip of bacon. Cinch up your foil pack and throw it on the coals.

The foil packet recipe I make most is simply potatoes, vegetable oil or butter, and lipton onion soup mix. Slice the potatoes, and coat with the fat, then the soup mix. It also helps to lubricate the foil with some of the fat as well. Wrap it up, Stuff it into the coals of a fire, or put on a grill. It works in the oven as well. It’s delicious, and you can completely change the character of the dish depending on how thinly you slice the potatoes.

Also try stew meat the chunks cook well, I prefer tenderized stew meat. But my favorite is a tri-tip Cook it like the latin ranch hands did who invented grilling tri-tip or do it like a London broil with a brown mushroom gravy. You can get brown mushroom gravy near the canned mushroom area at the store. Add more fresh mushroom slices (I prefer the thick ones) Worcestershire sauce, onions and other veggies. It’s amazing cooked this way and will impress everyone.

For corn on the cob, forget the foil altogether. It helps a little if you soak the corn in water first, but it’s not necessary. Simply place the unhusked (husks still in place) directly on the coals. Removing the silk first is optional. Rotate occasionally, when the bottoms of the husks turn brown/black. After 3 to 4 turns the husk should be mostly black. Peel back the husk, leaving the stem in place to hold onto. Try it without any butter or salt.

Recipes and comments list various soup mixes to provide moisture and flavor. I was always partial to natural spices [basil, cloves, pepper, etc] and Applejack, vodka, or [pilsner] beer to moisturize and tenderize the meats and vegetables. And, then you also had a before dinner drink while cooking.

Great article! I love this practical “how to” stuff. Anything that makes great cooking simple scores a lot of points by me.

This method I used..Can be placed inside meat that will be more delicious

A great one that we do is corn wrapped in bacon. One or two strips of uncooked bacon wrapped around the corn. Wrap that in tinfoil and then put in the fire for like 15 minutes or so (depending on how hot you make the fire). It tastes great, and there’s no need to salt or butter your corn.

A few other tricks I learned in my scouting days are you can always par(half) cook things like a stuffed pork chop in the microwave before going or you can take, say a frozen steak in a ziplock bag and place it in the frame of your backpack at your lower back and not just will it keep you cool but it will be thawed by the end of your day hiking.

Also mixing a cajun spice with some butter and putting it on the corn between the corn and husk before cooking can be very good.

Wrap apples on a double thickness of foil filling each with the butter, sugar and cinnamon mix.

Great advice, I know how hard it can be to get the foil wrapped tight. The “Tent” is very important for steam to build, especially if your cooking ribs or meat that creates a lot of juice that makes steam. Great article , Thanks!!

I like to grill (or place on coals) corn in the husk too. One thing I have done successfully many times is to pull back the husks without fully removing before cooking, remove the silk, rub with butter and a few spices and then carefully replace the husks to create a new seal. Yes, you have to basically pull back each piece individually to make this work, but it doesn’t take that long, and the end result…. A nice ear of corn already cleaned, buttered and ready to eat!

Take a lump of ground beef the size of a 4x4x4 rubik’s cube. Place it on the foil and flatten to a rectangle the size of the top of a kleenex box.

Add mixed veggies and bbq sauce.

Wrap up the foil and place in campfire

For a great appetizer, peel a large onion, core it almost to the root, but not all the way through the bottom. Next slice it into 1/4′s, but not all the way. Next place a beef bouillon cube in the hole, and a slice of butter between each knife slice. Wrap with foil, leaving air space at the top, and set it in the coals. Makes as good an onion soup as you have ever had.

I took my girlfriend camping last night and made two foil dinners before I left. The first one I made was zucchini, squash, carrots with butter, a little chicken broth, parsley, salt and pepper. The second one was sockeye salmon from the store because we were leaving after work and I did not get a chance to fish. The salmon had .5 of an onion, 2 lemons that I squeezed over the salmon and then placed on the side, a tomato cut up and placed around the salmon, as well as butter, parsley, dill weed, salt and pepper. I built a fire and let some coals collect in the pit and then started putting the firewood in a tent shape so I could place the food on top of the coals but under the fire. I cooked everything for about 27 minutes and my girlfriend could not stop talking about how good it was. It was by far one of the best meals I had ever cooked.

Cook the “turtle” in a bed of coals for 25-35 minutes (depening on it’s total volume), and eat it right out of the foil (you might need a paper plate under it for stability, again, depending on volume – do NOT use styrofoam plate).. You can’t beat ‘em for taste, ease of clean up and best of all, FLAVOR!!!

2. Try the Foil Pizza- a pita topped with pizza sauce, pepperonis, and mozzerella. You can add more. The beauty of this is that it cooks quickly and can be eaten pretty much raw- perfect for impatient kids. These are also great for groups of kids- build it like an assembly line.

Read the article and just happened to be going camping this weekend. Tried the muffins in an orange shell and don’t know what I did wrong but they didn’t work at all! The muffin never baked/cooked and all I got was muffing mix boiled in orange juice. Anyone had any luck with these and what was the trick? Thanks.

Did you scoop out all the pulp before you put in the muffin mix? There shouldn’t be any orange juice left in there.

My grandad had a variation of this: he would put a large potato in foil in the morning and put it in the engine bay of his delievery truck. At midday, break out a lump of cheese and a tin of beans, and the hot spud from the engine. Spinkle the cold beans & cheese on the steaming hot spud and voilà, a filling meal on the road that was far more good for you than a grease covered burger!

having spent YEARS in the pow-wow circuit, i learned LOTS about cooking on fire…here’s one of our favorites you can cook in an oven (non-manly i guess, but good in the winter in New England) or on a fire in a dutch oven…it’s not a precise recipe, so make it using your imagination!

hollow the seeds from a small/medium pumpkin, leaving the meat…cook about a pound of hamburger adding some poultry seasoning & a little extra sage (you can use venison too, or buffalo…MMMMM-MMMM!!)…drain off the fat…make mashed potatoes, instant or fresh….spread about 1/3 the potatoes around the bottom of the pumpkin…add the meat…add a can of corn…and a can of green beans…and then the rest of the potatoes…then put the top back on the pumpkin…(did i forget to tell you to cut it leaving the top whole? sorry)…..put it all into the dutch oven….no top required…bake just over the coals or at about 375 deg. until the pumpkin collapses…..it should be done then.

I’ve been selected as “Chef for Life” by the friends I go camping with and it’s all because of foil meal cooking! Our favorite side dish, which could easily be a meal unto itself, is a roasted sweet potato. Just split the potato in half, lengthwise, and puncture it several times with a fork or knife. Place some sliced raw onion, a few pads of butter, salt, pepper, thyme or sage, in between the two potato halves and sandwich them together. After wrapping them up in foil (I use a triple layer) I like to slow-roast them on the edge of the coals – which takes about 60 to 90 minutes. Keep rotating them and they’ll come out perfect every time!

I’ve also had great success cooking peeled, raw, frozen shrimp. I wouldn’t recommend it if camping for more than two nights, but shrimp with any kind of “Asian” marinade, some scallions, and snow peas, makes for a perfect foil meal. Cook for about 10 minutes, max, and you’re set.

I have made the hamburger, potatoes and carrots too in the foil but have you ever tried putting chicken instead of hamburger? It works great, I use chicken tenderloins and layer thinly sliced potatoes and carrots with a little butter on top with seasonings of course, fold it up in foil and at the end I pour some chicken broth or stock in before closing up the last corner. Turns out great every time.

Ground beef patty (size to personal preference) in the center of the foil. Surround that with tater tots (frozen) and top with frozen mixed veggies. Sprinkle with brown gravy mix and any other seasonings you enjoy. Tent-pack and place on coals. (In the oven it’s about 45 min. @ 350F.)

We use individulal frozen turkey burgers in our foil packets (we also use the butter flavored nonstick spray-we have never had a charred dinner) sliced potatoes, and add veggie packets from the grocery like broccoli, carrots and cauliflower—very short prep time and does not take long to cook over the fire. Delicious and nutritious…I have also frozen some dinners in individual portions using the seal a meal bags then when you get to the camp just put into foil packets to heat…less dishes to wash ….to keep your cooler cold longer, fill 1/2 gallon milk jugs approx 3/4 full of water and freeze, then add your ice over the food, even as the ice melts you have “blocks” of ice which lasts longer and does not add water to be drained. This site also gave me some great tips for our next camping trip to YNP…can’t wait to try them out! Thanks!

We do these meals at home on the barbeque or even in the oven. No dishes to wash afterwards, just throw the foil away. Our favorite, Italian sausage and kielbasa, onions, carrots and potatoes. Oh don’t forget to add some pieces of garlic and salt and pepper. Enjoy!

2 large onions, cut off enough of the top and bottom so they stand upright and have a flat top to them. Core out the middle of the onion, jam a beef bullion cube into the center as well as butter. Put on coals and let it go. Makes a perfect onion sauce for marinated / grilled steak. Tasted even better the next morning for breakfast as steak and eggs.

Instead of foil packs I tried cooking meals at home and sealing them in plastic bags that I could reheat in boiling water. Pastas, chillies and stews worked well. In my early attempts I used ziplock type bags but they softened too much and while none tore, some became dangerously stretchy. I moved on to seal a meal type solutions and these held up well.