Healthy camping meals: what are your recommendations?

[Whitwellblue]

Hello one and all! I am so fricking excited. It is less than a week until we embark on our longest adventure in the van. We are off to Switzerland and I am keen to plan some healthy meals, rather than the usual crap we cook!

Weekend trips are fine for naughty bacon and beef burgers smothered in cheese, but as we’ll be away for a fortnight, I’m keen to have some healthy meals prepped.

What do you tend to cook? I’m thinking fresh chicken or Turkey fajitas and fish cooked in foil with veg or salad. But what else? Ideas very welcome!

Sachets and tins of cooked lentils, chickpeas and beans with extra green veg etc, plus or minus goats cheese, crispy bacon, hot smoked salmon etc
We try and have some stews in the freezer at home that we can heat up after theyve slowly defrosted in the bottom of the fridge the first couple of nights.
We also cook excess vegetables with dinner, then for breakfast we fry up the veg in butter, add eggs and cheese to make a sort of frittata
Overnight soaked oats (birchermüsli, as you’re going to Switzerland) is another thing you can prep at home before you go, as well as make it on holiday - it’ll keep a couple of days. Oats, chopped nuts and seeds, fresh or frozen berries, grated apple and/or pear, all soaked in yoghurt or kefir (strawberry is my choice). Topped with sliced banana.

 

[wildslammer22]

Okra cooked well is superb, but it a minefield for the inexperienced cook, seemingly turning to a gooey stringy mess without the slightest provocation. The key; wash it, dry it, slice it, let it dry out overnight (tricky in a van perhaps) before frying it. Add water back to it and it'll turn back into a sticky mess again.

I’ve only ever used it as a thickening agent for a stew or a gumbo, might try your suggestion next time I see some.

 

[Elly Swanson]

These packs from Merchant are very good as a store cupboard staple. They have a long use by date so obviously some preservatives but better than some other side dishes. They’re also very delicious, take hardly any space and most contain other nutrients, like protein.

Although they have instructions to microwave, one packet will fit in the ridgemonkey XL toastie pan. Add about 2 tablespoons of water and cook with the lid on for around 3 mins, shaking and turning a couple of times. I think you can eat them cold from the packet too. You could also cook on a bbq, etc, in foil packets.

My fave is the Mexican one. Often I’ll add a small tin of sweetcorn.

 

[Elly Swanson]

Would be good if somebody make an excel spreadsheet with items at the top, and you click on the tick boxes of what you have left over and it tells you what you can make with those items.
Need an Excel Wizard….

You can type a list into the BBC food website and it’ll come up with recipes.

 

[Elly Swanson]

Not a meal/recipe, but if you’re using ridgemonkey pans you can stack them up up and swap them over. You can keep something warm in the top one whilst the bottom is still cooking. Good if you’re short on hob space.

 

[BeeBee]

At the end of the day, you've got a fridge, a water supply and a two-ring hob. Barring oven/grill based dishes, anything you do at home is pretty much possible. I would avoid anything prone to spitting, so no reducing down tomato-based currys, but otherwise the world is your lobster.

I find when camping my food standards drop; at home I'd never entertain tinned veg for example, but when camping I'll happily throw it into a curry or something and be satisfied. Condiments are your friend - basic herbs, seasoning and a hot sauce can massively pep up an otherwise mundane meal.

I keep on thinking about a ridge monkey . . .

Love our Ridge monkey croissants and coffee of a morning

 

[Elly Swanson]

Like the spice rack! We’ve done the same using (unused) wee sample bottles !

Sherbert fountain pots are great for herbs/spices.
Bonus is you get to eat to the sherbet and liqcorice stick. Negates the healthy eating theme though.
You can bundle them together with an elastic band.

 

[Hawthorn37]

These packs from Merchant are very good as a store cupboard staple. They have a long use by date so obviously some preservatives but better than some other side dishes. They’re also very delicious, take hardly any space and most contain other nutrients, like protein.

Although they have instructions to microwave, one packet will fit in the ridgemonkey XL toastie pan. Add about 2 tablespoons of water and cook with the lid on for around 3 mins, shaking and turning a couple of times. I think you can eat them cold from the packet too. You could also cook on a bbq, etc, in foil packets.

My fave is the Mexican one. Often I’ll add a small tin of sweetcorn.

View attachment 113815

Great idea heating in a RM - keeps the steam in - never thought of that!

 

[Hawthorn37]

A new bit of learning from us this year on stock cubes. They tend to go off (squidgy) in the van, probably due to heat when parked up. We’ve chucked a few packs away in the last two years. But you can get chicken stock in a tube now, under the Kallo brand. Hopefully they’ll bring out beef as well.

 

[Barbara]

Great question! We're largely vegetarian with fish occasionally and I'm always on the look out for new recipes that work in the van.
Here's a veggie recipe we use a lot, it's one pan, which has to be good, right?

Braised Courgettes Recipe With Cannellini Beans | olivemagazine

The stove does all the work in this easy one-pot with courgette, cannellini beans and Parmesan. Hands-on time is minimal – as is the washing up at the end

www.olivemagazine.com

It's really yummy, much nicer than it sounds, and it doesn't need anything that you can't usually buy when you're out and about.
We've found some things (halloumi I'm looking at you) impossible in supermarkets in France and Spain.

I made it, very easy. The favour was really good and as there was some left we had it the next day with mash potato.

I did not have a parmesan rind so I just put in 50gms of parmesan. A bit of a mistake as it made it very sticky and stuck to the forks and the base of the pan, so be warned that washing up may be difficult. The parmesan helps with the texture but maybe best to add later as the recipe says.

Talking about mash potato it is now possible to buy Mash Potato Flakes which work well with butter and boiling water. Notting like the mash we had in the 70s.