Lazy Camping Food: Quick Easy Recipes for Families and Car Camping

UPDATED: MARCH 2025

Camping food has come a long way from its humble roots in military-style MREs (short for Meal, Ready-To-Eat) and foil hobo packets. No offense to MREs and hobo packets, but the camping food of today tends to be far more enjoyable.

Cooking extravagant camping meals has become a pinnacle of the outdoor experience for many. If you’re one of those people, you need a Trident 2-in-1 portable propane camp stove and campfire and our new camping and overlanding skottle, the Skwok. On the other hand, some of us just want something quick and easy lazy camping food recipes to fuel up for the next adventure. 

Even seasoned camp chefs need a break sometimes. 

Our Favorite Lazy Camping Food Recipes: Mouthwatering Meals in Under 10 Minutes

Simple and minimal effort doesn’t have to mean bland or boring. Enter lazy camping food. 

You could also call it camping comfort food… Decadent. Warming. Cravable. Indulgent. Everything a wholesome camp meal should include — minimal gear or know-how required.

Read on to discover what will surely become your new go-to deliciously easy food recipes for camping.

The Best Lazy Camping Food Recipes for Car Camping With Family 

Kids are picky. Everyone knows it. Getting them to eat enough food while camping can be a challenge that keeps some families from getting out there as much as they’d like. When you’re planning lazy camping food for your family, simplicity and variety are the two key ingredients.

“Simplicity”, meaning simple meals that are packable and popular among all campers — kids and adults. And “variety” in that you can easily load the car up with a variety of snackable options so there’s something for even the pickiest eaters to enjoy.

Lazy Camping Food Recipe: Sweet Potato and Bacon Breakfast Scramble

This hearty breakfast scramble is lazy camper food at its finest. Simple and delicious, one big cast iron skillet will fill the whole fam up. 

• If you prefer to make this lazy camper food recipe even lazier, you can dice the vegetables ahead of time and pack them in Tupperware or ziplock bags. 

• Use a large cast iron skillet — our LavaBox Skwok is the perfect option — prepped with oil or butter. Cook on a grate over the campfire or on a burner like a Coleman camp stove or LavaBox Hekla with Trident dual burner. 

• Add one sweet potato, finely diced, to the skillet. Let it cook close to the flame (or on high heat) for about 5 minutes. 

• Add diced red onion and a few strips of fully cooked bacon from the package. Let cook for about 2 more minutes. 

• Lastly, add 6 eggs. Don’t want to bother traveling with whole eggs? Eggs from the carton will do for a lazy camper substitute. Pour eggs from the carton into the skillet until it’s about half full. Add salt and pepper and cook to your liking. 

• Bonus points: Got a picky kid or a vegetarian? Cook the bacon on the side. Sweet tooth in the group? Add some maple syrup while the eggs are cooking and give it a stir. 

Lazy Camping Food Recipe: Quick Mix Squeezable Pancake Batter

Is there anything easier than squeezing premade pancake mix out of a bottle straight onto a hot griddle over the campfire? Probably not. Not to mention eating pancakes at camp first thing in the morning is sure to engrain fond memories of camping in your kid’s mind for life.

• We recommend the Kodiak brand Power Cakes Flapjack Quick Mix. 

• Protein cakes are more filling than typical pancakes and taste just as good. Your kids won’t know the difference and they’ll stay full longer to power through whatever adventures the day holds. 

• To make this easy food recipe for camping, just add properly filtered stream water or bottled water to the squeeze bottle, shake, and squeeze out the mix onto a griddle prepped with butter over the campfire.

Once cooked, top your protein pancakes with whatever your family loves from maple syrup to berries to squeezable marshmallow fluff and chocolate chips for a s’mores-inspired variation. 

Lazy Camping Food Recipe: Walking Tacos

When you bring the walking tacos, you become the hit of the whole camping trip. Everyone loves walking tacos. They’re the perfect lazy camping food in that they leave minimal dirty dishes, take no time to whip up, and everyone can serve themselves with whatever fixings they do or do not want. 

Here’s what it takes to make this popular lazy camping food recipe… 

• Go to Costco or Sam’s Club and grab one of those giant variety boxes of snack-size chip bags.

• Pack ground beef in the cooler (get the fully cooked kind if you want to reduce the time you spent making this lazy camping meal), a packet of taco seasoning, a bag of shredded cheese, jars of salsa and queso, and whatever other fixings you’d like. 

• Easy fixing options: avocados, canned black beans, shredded lettuce, hot sauce, pickled jalapenos, pickled onions, sour cream, etc. 

• Cook (or warm if you bought the pre-cooked kind) the ground beef with taco seasoning over the fire or camp stove using a cast iron skillet or the LavaBox Skwok.

• Set out all the fixings and let your ravenous group of campers go wild! Have a fiesta!

• Choose a chip bag as the base for each walking taco

• Add ground beef to the bag, and then add whatever fixings each camper prefers. 

• Walking tacos are eaten straight out of the bag with a spoon. When you’re done, toss the empty bag in your camp trash. No mess no stress.

Lazy Camping Food Bonus Meals: Backpacker’s Pantry Desserts

When you’re kicking back around the campfire after dinner and craving something sweet, Backpacker’s Pantry’s dessert selection can’t be beat. For lazy camping food and easy car camping recipes, nothing is lazier than boiling water, pouring it into a bag, and having it magically turn into creme brulee. 

These are no MREs from the 1950s. Backpacking meals have come a long way and, as someone who has tried many of them, Backpacker’s Pantry makes some of the best. We recommend you and your family try… 

• Backpacker’s Pantry Creme Brulee

• Backpacker’s Pantry Blueberry Peach Crisp

• Backpacker’s Pantry Dark Chocolate Cheesecake

Lazy Camping Food For Car Camping and Overlanding

A good car camping or overlanding setup is one that’s ready to go on a dime. 

Less packing means fewer obstacles in the way of getting out and enjoying yourself. All of your gear should be able to be packed into sealable camping boxes at the start of the season and live there until the season ends. 

This way, whenever nature calls or the opportunity arises, you can get up and go. There’s no excuse not to get outside and camp. Your gear is always packed. Just chuck those designated “car camping” boxes in your trunk and go. This includes food.

Pack a separate car camping food box with nonperishable food items. Multipurpose ingredients that don’t require refrigeration and have long shelf lives are lazy car camping food staples. If you have a cooler and need to subsidize your pre-packed pantry with perishable items, you can do that with a quick pit stop on your way out. 

Lazy Car Camping Recipes: Chili From the Can

Nothing holds a place in my heart like this tasty, nostalgic lazy camping food. It may sound simple but don’t knock it til’ you try it.

• You need: 1 can of Vegetarian Hormel Chili with Beans or Turkey Hormel Chili with Beans, ½ an avocado per can of chili, a fresh jalapeno, and sour cream if preferred. 

• Use the pull tab to remove the top from the can of chili and place the can directly in the ashes on the perimeter of a nice hot campfire. 

• Alternatively, you can place the can of chili on the Over/Under Grill Thingy atop your LavaBox.

• Let it heat up and stir the chili as it cooks for about 5-7 minutes. 

• Once it’s bubbling, use Fireproof Gloves or a hot pad holder to remove the can of campfire chili from the fire. I’ve even been so lazy as to use a fork to do this part (I don’t recommend it). 

• Use a pocket knife to add some avocado slices and slice some jalapeno straight into the can — cowboy style. Add sour cream if you like and chow down. 

Lazy Car Camping Recipes: Three Cheese Campfire Nachos 

This is another lazy camping meal you can throw right on the campfire or Lavabox Portable Campfire. The only dish you’ll need to dirty is your good old cast iron skillet. We have an entire blog post devoted to this decadent campfire meal.

• Get the quick and easy camping recipe for Three Cheese Campfire Nachos

Car Camping Essentials: Lazy Camping Food Staples 

You're probably wondering about that box of nonperishable lazy camping food staples I mentioned. The essential camping food items that can be mixed and matched to make a myriad of meals for car camping. We’d never leave you hanging. These are our must-have lazy camping food staples to keep handy in your car camping pantry all season long. 

• Honey

• Maple syrup

• Coffee

• Coconut oil or ghee

• Powdered coffee creamer 

• Hot sauce

• Sugar packets

• Jerky or packaged meat sticks like BoboLinks Beef Sticks or Chomps meat sticks

• Emergen-C packets

• Salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, and onion salt, taco seasoning

• Cans of cream of mushroom and/or cream of chicken soup

• Uncooked white rice 

• Bobo’s oat bars

• Cans of chili and/or soup

• Canned vegetables 

• Dried fruit like mango, apples, pineapples, cranberries, or banana chips

• Granola

• “Just add water” squeezable pancake mix

• Cans of evaporated milk or a carton of unopened shelf-stable almond or soy milk

• Extra backpacking meals like Backpacker’s Pantry or Farm to Summit 

• Instant mashed potatoes and instant gravy packets

• Chocolate bars (as long as you don’t store your camping box anywhere too warm)

• Hot chocolate packets

• Graham crackers

• Marshmallows 

Make the Most of Your Time Outside With Lazy Camping Food Recipes

Some trips call for extravagant camp cuisine. Others call for quick snacks and lazy camping food. Cooking camp meals doesn’t ever have to be stressful or time-consuming. And quick, easy meals don’t have to mean you’re resigned to eating prison gruel.