Nothing is better than food cooked in the wild. It creates the perfect combination of smoky flavor and natural taste that can’t be matched at home.
One meal that is often skipped in the wild is breakfast. Too many people think breakfast in the outdoors must consist of pop tarts and other non-nutritious meals. But it doesn’t have to! With a little planning and preparation, you can eat just as healthy, or maybe healthier, than you do at home. The questions most people ask are, what kind of breakfast can be cooked on a camp fire? Can I make steel cut oats while camping? Can I cook pancakes on a camp stove or camp fire? Can I bake biscuits on a camp fire? The answers are yes!
COOKING BREAKFASTS IN THE WILD
OPTION ONE
STEEL CUT OATS
Steel cut oats might take a long time to prepare from scratch, but they are easy to cook ahead of time at home, prep, and even dehydrate. I always add blueberries, mango, and peaches for a sweeter taste.
STEEL CUT OAT PREP AT HOME
• Bring water to boil
• Add Steel Cut Oats
• Turn the temperature down to about 2.5
• Cook for 20- to 30-minutes
• Mix in fruit, stir, let dissolve, and thoroughly stir again at the end.
I make these weekly and store the oats in mason jars. For a short overnight trip in cool enough weather, or a car camping trip with a cooler, I bring a jar with me. I also bring Ceylon cinnamon and a small bottle of dark wildflower honey.
For long backpacking trip, I dehydrate the oats and fruit. To make the dehydration process go much faster, I cut the fruit into very, very tiny pieces. The oats will dehydrate much faster than the fruit. Once the oats and fruit are dehydrated, I vacuum seal them with a food sealer and place them in the freezer for storage. I typically place one meal on each tray on the dehydrator to easily organize the amount I seal and cook each day.
STEEL CUT OATS PREP IN THE OUTDOORS
If you take an overnight trip and have non-dehydrated oats, simply heat the oats on your stove, but add extra water to your pan to keep the oats from burning on the bottom.
If you have dehydrated oats, pour your dehydrated oats in a pan, add lots of water, bring to a boil, turn the heat off, and let sit for about 10-minutes. The heat will make the re-hydration go faster. Then simply reheat the oats again to the temperature you prefer to eat and enjoy! They will taste just like freshly made oats!
STEEL CUT OAT HACKS
• I add blueberries, stir, let sit for a minute or two until the blueberry juice turns the oats a purple color, add mangos, stir, let sit, add peaches last, stir and sit. Then at the end, a final thorough mixing. Since I typically use frozen fruit, I go from the smallest fruit first to keep the oats from turning cold during the process and making the fruit hard to thaw. Adding peaches at the end is like dropping ice cubes into the mix!
• My weekly mix at home is,
28oz container of Kroger or King Scoopers steel cut oats,
• Half a 48oz bag of blueberries.
• Half a 48oz bag of mangos.
• One small bag of freestone peaches.
This will make enough to last me about a week if I eat half a quart size jar per morning.
OPTION 2
COOKING PANCAKES ON A CAMP FIRE OR CAMP STOVE
Yes, you really can make protein pancakes in the wild! Pancakes can be cooked on a camp fire or a camp stove. The key is patience!
I use Kodiak Cakes branded pancakes. My first choice is a mixture of the dark chocolate and buttermilk flavors. Think of the taste like an ice cream swirl! In the wild, I typically bring the dark chocolate flavor, unless I mix them ahead of time at home.
COOKING PANCAKES IN THE WILD DIRECTIONS
• Pour a liberal amount of olive oil to your pan and add heat until the olive oil is hot. I bring a very small partially-filled 8.4-once bottle of olive oil on overnight trips. For foreign trips, I buy a small bottle once I get into that country.
• Add water and your pancake mix to a bowl and stir. With the higher heat from an open flame, it’s best to make the mix a little thinner than you would at home.
• Pour mix into the pan, wait a few seconds, and raise the pan a couple inches higher than the camp fire or camp stove flame. This will prevent the bottom of the pancake mix from burning. For car camping, I bring a small metal stand and raise the pan a couple inches higher than the flame to avoid holding the pan. This also helps with the patience aspect of cooking pancakes outside! For backing with a camp stove, I either hold the pan or sometimes find something to help hold it up.
• Have patience. This is the most important part! Let the pancakes cook slowly and keep as much consistent heat on them. This will help cook the pancakes evenly across.
• Stir and flip as necessary until done. Did I mention you need patience?!
PANCAKES COOKED WHILE CAMPING HACKS
• If you have high winds that blows the flame to one side, this will prevent the pancakes from cooking evenly across. Use a windscreen, tree, your body, or something to block the wind. This will also make the process go faster!
• Add a lid to your pan will keep more consistent heat on the pancake mix and cook them more evenly. Make sure you don’t make the pan too hot. Heat regulation is very important!
After a couple attempts at making pancakes in the outdoors, you will learn a lot about heat regulation. Each time you make them will go faster and you will get more consistent pancakes.
OPTION 3
COOKING BISCUITS ON A CAMP FIRE
Yes, I’m from the south and yes, we really love biscuits that much! It’s practically in our DNA! This might negate my statement about eating healthy in the wild, but it’s biscuits after all. Cooking biscuits on a camp fire is very easy.
COOKING BISCUITS ON A CAMP FIRE
• Place aluminum foil around the biscuit and wrap it at least twice.
• Add the biscuit to the side of the flame, but not on an actual flame itself. Ashes and coals will work. All you need to bake biscuits is heat. A direct flame will burn the biscuits!
• Turn the biscuits occasionally for consistent texture.
• Enjoy! It’s that easy.
Have other tips on cooking breakfast outside? Did I forget something? Comment below and let me know!
