Our Best Make Ahead Camping Meals and Backpacking Recipes

One of the best things on the backcountry trail, whether after a hard day's hike or right after your morning stretch and coffee, is a kickass mouth-watering meal, right?

So, instead of stressing about what to cook outside using your Jetboil backpacking stove or how much time you have to eat before getting to your activities, join the make-ahead gourmet food bandwagon for super easy and super delicious breakfasts, lunches, and dinners!  We've compiled a bunch of great tips and recipes to make ahead of time that will be ready to go when you and your friends or family are ready to go -- which will leave you way more time for hanging out, socializing, and getting to your next day's adventure.

Make Ahead Camping Breakfasts: Fast and Pleasy

Make-Ahead Easy-as-Apple-Pie Pancakes

There’s simply nothing like a hearty stack of pancakes to start the morning right. Caramelize some sliced apples with brown sugar and then pour over the batter and cook until golden yummy, then freeze the pancakes. Now all you need to do at camp is grab your Jetboil HalfGen and a frypan and reheat those apple pie pancakes for a breakfast so delicious that one stack won’t be enough! 

Snag a HalfGen portable and modular backpacking stove system and be gourmet-ready!

Eggs-ellent Trailside Basil and Mozza Scrambled Eggs

Carrying a dozen eggs in a backpack can be both a hassle and super messy, but what’s better than waking up to scrambled eggs with basil and mozzarella with a side of bacon???  Nothing. Nothing is better than that.  (Except maybe Apple Pie Pancakes.)

So, why not plan ahead and have a make ahead meal by scrambling and cooking those eggs, then pour them into ice cube trays and freezing, then simply stick them in a Ziploc bag? (You can do the same with the bacon! Cook and freeze, baby!)  Grabbing your super handy and versatile Jetboil MiniMo – the king of versatility with push-button ignition, full simmer control, and built-in handle – pop those cubes in and reheat at a low simmer. Then you whip out those fresh basil leaves and mozzarella, slice and dice like some backcountry ninja, throw them in the MiniMo and sit back and watch your friends and family offer you gifts of fresh coffee and granola bars. 

Become a backcountry kitchen ninja by snatching the best gourmet meal weapon for mo betta’ cookin, the Jetboil MiniMo.

Make Ahead Lunches: Munch A Better Lunch

Nacho Easy Nachos (They’re MY easy nachos!)

Make ahead nachos must be the best easy lunch time meal anywhere, on any trail. I mean, who doesn’t like a good pile of hot and cheesy spicy nachos alongside an icy cold beverage just as the sun hits its peak? 

Make ahead meals is the ticket. The trick is once again your old friend the freezer and your ever-trusty Jetboil portable backpacking stove system. While at home, grab your diced chicken or ground beef and put it and your fave taco seasoning, chopped onion, minced garlic, salsa, and some lime juice, and simmer until thoroughly cooked, then let cool and pop it into a Ziploc bag and freeze. 

When you are ready to leave the house for the trail, put a bunch of shredded cheddar in another bag, and then a dozen or so soft round tortillas in yet another bag, and a small bottle of vegetable oil into your backpack or cooler.

Once you are at your trailside basecamp, pull out the portable pro-chef basecamp kitchen, the Jetboil Genesis, and put a pot on one burner to reheat your frozen nacho beef or chicken, and on the other burner (yup, the Genesis has two push-button ignition, full simmer control burners like you’d have on an at home pro kitchen range!) put on another pot and fill with veggie oil to start frying up sliced wedges of tortillas. 

Once the tortilla chips are delicious triangles of golden glory and the hot spicy meat reheated, all you have to do is push everyone back, put the meat onto the chips and then throw on the cheddar! 

Become the nacho and culinary center of the backcountry universe with the Jetboil Genesis Base Camp System with included ceramic frypan and ceramic 5 liter pot, and make every breakfast, lunch and dinner you can think of and more you can’t!

Make Ahead Flash Fantastic Spaghetti-and-Meatballs In Minutes

An amazing Italian lunch with just a boil only cook system that can be cooked and devoured in less time than it takes to pack your backpack? All you need to make this make ahead lunchtime Sicilian meal for two is two small frozen bags of precooked spaghetti, sauce, and meatballs, water, and two Jetboil Flash cook systems that can boil water in 100 seconds. And a bota bag of wine if you really want to do the whole romantic Italian lunch thing right…

With the Jetboil Flash you can do a ton of different, incredibly delicious and lightning fast make-ahead boil-in-a-bag meals, like: Lemon Spinach Chicken and Rice, or Spicy Veggie Fusilli, or Tangerine Beef and Brocolli, or almost anything you can think of that you can put in a bag.  (Except jelly stuffed munchkins or sugar and cinnamon rolled donuts… You can’t cook those in a bag, but I can tell how you to make them!)

Munch-a-buncha Jelly Stuffed Munchkins

For that fireside treat you need a Jetboil HalfGen or Genesis. Take biscuits-in-a-tube, grab a bottle of veggie oil, use the bottle cap to punch a hole in the biscuit middle, so you now have a ‘munchkin ball’ and a donut. Stuff the munchkin with some jelly and seal, then drop the donuts and munchkins in the 5 liter pot of hot oil on either the HalfGen or Genesis, then once golden, take them out and with the hot donuts, roll them in sugar and cinnamon. Yum!)

However, to make countless make ahead meals in a bag, the Jetboil Flash is the meal-in-a-bag master (not to mention faster coffee or tea or oatmeal than you can make at home), and it comes in four different color schemes for fancier fireside feasts.

Make Ahead Camping Dinners: The New Dine and Dash

With the tips and tools in this article, backcountry dinner can be optimized and elevated from boring ramen to fantastic feasts by simply leveraging the sweet heat distribution properties of aluminum foil and either the small-but-powerful Jetboil MightyMo (at just 3.3 ounces but up to 10,000 BTU output).  Or, if you are a seriously hardcore backpacker who’s cold camping in the winter or at high elevations, you’ll definitely want to stash the Jetboil MiniMo in your pack.

Either backpacking stove with full simmer and cooking control will deliver you the versatility to cook almost anything you want or need while backpacking anywhere in the world, and each stove can be paired with a skillet or cooking pot (and don’t forget your Jetboil pot support), so by preparing some made ahead dinner meals using foil packets, you can truly impress your partners and your belly.

French Dijon Shrimp, Corn and Potatoes in Foil  

Foil packet dinners are both elegant and super fast as make ahead meals, because this time you’re not precooking anything – you are just putting the ingredients together in the foil packets, keeping them in a cooler of some size, and cooking them at the campsite – and this make ahead recipe will make you a star.  Diced potatoes, precooked jumbo shrimp, and corn are combined with Dijon mustard, lemon and herbs.

You and your partner, or group, get your own little packet of French cuisine deliciousness, and you just take out your Jetboil MightyMo from your front pocket, unfold it, put it on a gas canister and fire it up, then put a skillet on the burner, put a foil packet in and cook for 4-5 minutes. Viola! Amazing meal and no plates to wash up.

Put a pro kitchen range in your pocket with the Jetboil MightyMo and toss an extra in your pack as a survival backup.

High Altitude Cowboy Spiced Steak, Peppers, Black Beans and Onions in Foil

In icy winter or high above the windy peaks, nothing is going to satiate the soul as much as hot beef and stick-to-your-ribs goodness – especially when you can get that in a mere few minutes; which can be all the difference between a good night and a bad one. So thank the mountain gods for the Jetboil milliJoule and the invention of tin foil and this article of ready-made make ahead backpacking dinners, lunches, and breakfasts.

Throw together a pile of shaved steak, black pepper, minced garlic, steak sauce, lime juice, diced onions, sliced red peppers (or chiles if you need even more heat!), and a heaping of black beans in a bowl at home. Now mix it all together and then wrap ‘em tight into individual foil packets, then put them in your fridge until you are ready to put them in a packable cooler. (If you need to keep them fresh for longer you can put them in Ziploc bags, freeze them, then boil them when you need ‘em.)

At your campsite, no matter how cold it might be where other stoves simply won’t work, the Jetboil milliJoule will ignite with a single push of a button, adjust the flame, and put your foil packets in the milliJoule’s included pot and cook.  In no time you’ll be dining on the best grub on the mountain, with a warm glow and a happy belly to ward away any chill. For all-weather performance and push-button convenience for hot food however cold it gets, snag the Jetboil MiniMo.

Make Ahead Backcountry Meals: Time And Social Saver

Camping and sleeping in the outdoors really works up an appetite, but by using these super easy, super tasty, and super-fast make ahead breakfast recipes, make ahead lunch recipes, and make ahead dinner recipes, you’ll be able to have more time to hang out, socialize, have fun, and do what you came outside to do. 

So prep in the kitchen, pack in the backpack, bring the Jetboil backpacking and camp portable stoves, and do almost nada but enjoy these delicious recipes at any time of the day and anywhere your adventures take you.