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Healthy Camping Meal Plan, Recipes, and Shopping List!

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Planning healthy food for camping doesn’t have to be complicated! Get our printable healthy camping meal plan that will make cooking for your family while camping a breeze!

Camp Cooking scene with a Pot of food cooking over the fire with a tent in the background.

Last week we went camping! Rather than bringing marshmallows and chips, we brought healthy food, with little to no complaints from my kids! Mostly because everything tasted so great. Scroll to the bottom of the post for complete meal plan and shopping list that you can print!  We only stayed one night, and this was our feast:

Breakfast

We decided on oatmeal, berries, eggs, and turkey bacon.

Prep ahead:

  • I boiled eggs ahead of time, put them in a container in the cooler.
  • I chopped berries for our oatmeal, also put them in the cooler.
  • My husband wanted to also cook eggs at camp, “for a real camping breakfast”, so we also added uncooked eggs, stored in a container like this:
Healthy Camping Meal Plan, Recipes, and Shopping List! The food for your next camp out- planned for you!
Healthy Camping Meal Plan, Recipes, and Shopping List! The food for your next camp out- planned for you!

We love cast iron for cooking when we camp. This is a link to our favorite cast iron skillet.

Healthy Camping Meal Plan, Recipes, and Shopping List! The food for your next camp out- planned for you!

We also ate some of the melon we had chopped for lunch!

Healthy Camping Meal Plan, Recipes, and Shopping List! The food for your next camp out- planned for you!

 Lunch

Prep-ahead:

  • Brought all the fixings for sandwiches with whole wheat bagels. We prefer bagels to bread because they hold up better, rather than smashing.
  • I chopped all our vegetables and fruit, and added it to a container in the cooler.
Healthy Camping Meal Plan, Recipes, and Shopping List! The food for your next camp out- planned for you!
Healthy Camping Meal Plan, Recipes, and Shopping List! The food for your next camp out- planned for you!
Healthy Camping Meal Plan, Recipes, and Shopping List! The food for your next camp out- planned for you!

Snack

No prep needed- we brought pistachios and apples.

Healthy Camping Meal Plan, Recipes, and Shopping List! The food for your next camp out- planned for you!

Dinner

Taco Soup! We love this filling and super easy dinner when we are camping. We also have a set of camping dishes and cookware to bring with us that we can use on a grill, or in a fire if needed. This is our favorite camping dishes set!

Prep ahead

  • I made the entire soup ahead of time, using our pre-cooked ground beef I posted last week! This is our fast, easy, and MOST delicious recipe we have, so the kids were thrilled to eat it .
  • I also shredded some cheese to add after cooking.

Healthy Camping Meal Plan, Recipes, and Shopping List! The food for your next camp out- planned for you!

Healthy Camping Meal Plan, Recipes, and Shopping List! The food for your next camp out- planned for you!
Healthy Camping Meal Plan, Recipes, and Shopping List! The food for your next camp out- planned for you!

Dessert!

The kids loved these baked apples for dessert! Erica even said she liked it better than s’mores!!  We sliced apples, topped with brown sugar and cinnamon. Then, wrapped in foil and put on  the fire.

Healthy Camping Meal Plan, Recipes, and Shopping List! The food for your next camp out- planned for you!
Healthy Camping Meal Plan, Recipes, and Shopping List! The food for your next camp out- planned for you!

We had a great  time camping, and ate well- which really cut back on the crankiness!  Gotta love that! What food ideas do you have for camping?

Natalie Monson

I'm a registered dietitian, mom of 4, avid lover of food and strong promoter of healthy habits. Here you will find lots of delicious recipes full of fruits and veggies, tips for getting your kids to eat better and become intuitive eaters and lots of resources for feeding your family.

Learn More about Natalie

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46 Comments

Now that’s one fun and healthy camping experience! Super love the picture with your kids and dog! Adorable! All the foods you prepared are very nutritious which is why all your kids look healthy. They’re so lucky to have you! I will follow your tips to enjoy our next camping adventure!

Wait, I thought you were going to post a recipe for the taco soup? Or have you already made a previous post about it?

It seems we always used to leave for camping trips on a Friday evening. Taco Salad was always the first meal of the trip. I would prep all the ingredients so when we arrived all I had to do was put it together while my husband set up tents with the kids.

great tips! another quick one – for eggs, I crack how ever many I need per meal, like 8 for 4 people, and put in a mason jar. no worries about breaking the eggs adn they are ready to use!

Planning and prepping at home saves time and money. For our two week rv trip, I planned my menu and shopped at home. Next I cooked my ground turkey/ beef mixture ( i mix the two) and then seperated it into ziplock bags and added seasoning for meals: chili, tacos, italian soup, spaghetti meat. That way, I dont have to carry all my spices along. I labeled them and froze them. I collected any canned goods for my recipes also. When I am ready to make a meal, all I have to add is my fresh ingredients which I buy 1-2 days before I need them. It has helped us tremendously. We have been traveling New England and never know what kind of supermarkets will be close by. In Vermont, there are no chain stores and prices are twice as much on some items than at home. It helped us to be able to eat healthy meals and not eating out as often planning ahead of time. I know in an rv we have a freezer, but on a short trip, you could still do much of this in a cooler. Hope this helps!

What about trying to make “banana boats” a little more healthy for desert? The traditional option is to cut a slip in the bananna and flip it with chocolate chips and marshmallows and then put the peel back over and wrap in foil b4 putting it on the fire. But i’m thinking maybe a bananna with some sort of nut butter a few dark choclate chips or something?

And for breakfast–for scouts, we do “egg in a bag”. You boil a pot of water and everyone throws their own eggs and omelet fixings in a plastic bag with their name written on it in permanent marker. The the bags are set in the boilid water to cook. The girls like the “make your own” aspect!

We slice up potatoes, carrots,etc , add oregano and wrap in tin foil and cook in fire. We also buy dry ice and wrap it in a pillow case( don’t ever touch it ) and it keeps things frozen for about 3 days.

I have an amazing camping meal list I’ve compiled over the last 10 years. I have it as a PDF–if you email me I will send it to you?

I intend on making this taco soup for our upcoming trip! Is there a recipe for the ranch seasoning packet? It said “see below” for homemade seasoning. Thanks!

Thank you so much! That gave me some great ideas for our camping trip this weekend. We might even just completely copy this, how excellent of you to share!

To really add some fun to those apple you can get a dark chocolate spread (low sugar) and a pkg of natural dried coconut and do a little dipping! Its also great on pineapple which can be roasted over the fire if you have kids that want that smores experience. We have found we like these options more than we like smores and they don’t leave you feeling as guilty. It also helps the kids avoid those sugar tummy aches they get from too much sugar.

Can the taco salad soup be made in the crockpot? I don’t have Ac in our house right now, so 30 minutes of a simmering soup is a no-go.
Also, do you have suggestions for making this more toddler friendly? I think everything could be except the pistachios.

Hi Julie, you can definitely try it in the slow cooker! I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. And yes, feel free to omit the pistachios for your little one.

Whoah, it’s great inspiration.
can do with children and family, stay healthy because can cook by ourself.

thanks for sharing this inspiration 🙂

I would not use non stick pans due potential PFAS contamination of your food. Healthy kids♥️