Easy Camp Kitchen Setup for Delicious in Outdoor Cooking

There's seriously nothing better than sitting down to delicious home cooking when camping, whether that be for breakfast, lunch, dinner or snacks. 

But food preparation in the great outdoors can be a challenge, especially with limited bench space, equipment and ingredients.

But that doesn't mean you are confined to cereal, sausages and tinned spaghetti.

The good news is, preparing meals in the outdoors isn't rocket science, and you don't need a lot of camping experience either. Or an expensive and complicated camp kitchen setup - just one that works together.

In this article, I will show you the various components of a functional, compact and easy to set up camp kitchen.

With the right camp cooking equipment, whether you are an experienced or a beginner camper, you will certainly have plenty of meal options that are easy, stress free, extremely rewarding and just plain delicious!

The key to a functional portable camp kitchen

At the end of the day, here are the three things you need to have for a successful camp kitchen:

1. Camp kitchen equipment and utensils
2. Meal plan and recipes that can be easily prepared in the camp kitchen.
3. The right ingredients either brought from home, or, in the case of bulky or perishable items, easily sourced on the road.

Camp Kitchen Essential: 

1: Furniture

Kitchen space for food preparation and storage is one of the camp cooking essentials. Add to that other essential furniture items such as:

• a folding dining table set, which also comes in handy as a picnic table,
•  a camping chair each
• 1-2 standard camping tables can also be used for bench space, picnics, card tables and the like

You can have a simple and cost effective kitchen like ours in the image above, you could buy an all-in-one bench style unit with a sink from a store, or you could go the custom made route if you have a trailer or some kind of RV.

The level of detail in the image might not all be necessary on short trips, or it might for some of you require more bench and storage space. But you can at least see that you don't need a special purpose or custom built unit for your camp kitchen setup to be perfectly functional.

2: Camping Stove

Some camp stove models will come with a grill underneath the gas burners which comes in handy for all manner of things. 

Ensure also that the cooker is fitted with the necessary wind-breaks, without which the cooking time could be doubled.

Our go-to gas stove recommendation is the Colman Triton two burner stove . We love this product because while it runs on LP gas, it also can run on disposable butane cannisters as a backup at times when the LP gas unexpectedly runs out.

3: Campfire cooking

Even though campfires are not always permitted, no outdoor kitchen would be complete without the necessary items for managing and cooking over one for those delicious hearty camping meals.

You will need:

• Camp/dutch oven, either cast iron or the lighter weight spun steel
• Heavy duty frying pan
• Long handled shovel / spade to use to move the coals around
• Lid lifter tool
• Long tongs
• Long handled fork and serving spoon
• Wooden spoon for stirring (wood is kinder to the camp/dutch oven than metal)
• Leather or heat resistant gloves

4: Refrigeration

Your refrigeration options for your cold foods are fairly broad from the fairly light weight esky's to the higher cost and heavy compressor fridges.

Rather than buy an excessively large fridge, overflow food that would benefit from a cooler environment but that doesn't need to be refrigerated could be stored in padded cooler bags.

For a complete run-down on your camp refrigeration options, check out our article on How to Choose the Best Camping Fridge.

5: Camp Kitchen Container

All of our cookware and tableware is neatly stored in one camp kitchen container in a plastic storage container.

Cookware: Outlined below are our cookware essentials:

Tableware: Also contained in our camp kitchen container is our tableware. When selecting tableware, durability is obviously important as is bringing along a few spares in case the dishes aren't clean or you have a few extras for dinner.  

Most of the items below will be of a durable material, although personally we have glass cups which we use for wine and spirits.

8: Water and Refreshments

Camp close to a reliable water source and maintain a good supply of water at your campsite. This will save on multiple trips to the tap or other source, and is essential when staying in remote areas. For this you will need the following essential items:

9: Cleaning and Dish washing Station

Many campgrounds don't provide dishwashing facilities, so you will generally need the necessary items for the times when you need clean dishes. As well as hot water, listed below is all you really need for washing dishes after a meal:

A hand washing station is also important when preparing food. This can be in the form of a water container with tap, a bucket with a cup or bowl or simply a recycled bottle.

10: Sundry Items and Refreshments

Meal Plan and Recipes

In the coming months we will be putting together recipes that can easily be prepared in our camp kitchen setup, so stay tuned.

Food pantry of long life ingredients

If you are regular campers, you will save on packing time by maintaining a permanent food pantry containing the kitchen supplies and staple ingredients you would typically use during any given trip.

Once you have your camping pantry of staples in place, all you need to do is to decide on what is on the menu, replenish the what you are running low on, and add anything additional required for the recipes, such as any spice and sauce mixes.

If you only need a small amount in the packet, transferring the required quantity into a suitable container, plastic bottle or snap lock bag to reduce the amount you need to pack.

You should also ensure that your containers and bags are securely closed after use and before being packed for transport to avoid leakage. There are things more annoying and frustrating than discovering leaked flour or olive oil all over your container... and beyond, but not many!

Listed below are products we typically have packed in our food pantry - all you need to do is start creating your own preferred ingredient list and a list of recipes that you all love and that are possible using the equipment above. 

Here are the camping food items that we include in our long-life food pantry:

Keeping Animals Away From Your Food

While here in Australia we have some issues with preventing animals from eating our food, in other countries they also want to eat us, as we quite found out when camping in the US a number of years ago. Specifically, Mt Whitney comes to mind!

So, while the level of precautions taken might vary depending on whether birds or bears are your animal of prey, there are some tips for keeping keep animals at bay:

• Thoroughly clean any items of food smells, scraps and remains
• Remove all food related rubbish and waste to the designated waste bins regularly, and particularly each evening
• Cook at a distance from your tent and sleeping area
• Store your food and other scented items such as toileltries away from your tent and sleeping area, especially if there is a risk to your personal safety.

We hope we have given you lots of camp kitchen setup ideas. For lots more tips and advice, check out our Blog.