5 Gourmet Camping Meals On a Stick

There’s little debate as to why we make our sojourns into the great outdoors. We do it to better commune with nature, get away from the rigmarole of daily life and center ourselves while spending some quality time with the people we love the most. After a long day of hiking, biking or fishing, one of our favorite activities is huddling around the campfire, maybe using a Q-Beam flashlight to enhance the fear factor of your favorite ghost story or roasting up some food over an open flame.

Why do those caramelized-almost-to-burnt foods taste so good? Some of it probably has to do with the company, good times and nature all around you, but mostly it has to do with the Maillard Reaction, which rearranges amino acids and simple sugars that turn that good cut of meat from red to brown.

All right, we’re not here to give you a science lesson, but it’s pretty neat stuff either way. In this article, we’re going to give you five easy-to-make almost gourmet meals on a stick that require little more than the ingredients, an open fire and a good branch!

5. Bacon-wrapped Hotdog

Sure, everyone has done the ol’ hot dog over the campfire, but we figured it’s time to take it to the next level. All you’ll need for this recipe is your hot dog of choice (we like to go with 100% all-beef kosher ballpark style dogs) and a nice fat strip of bacon. The recipe can be complete in a few easy steps.

Step 1: Spear your hotdog (we find it’s easier to spear and then wrap rather than wrap and then spear)

Step 2: Wrap with bacon

Step 3: Sprinkle bacon with ground black pepper

Roast over open flame. When bacon on one side gets crispy, rotate the skewer. Top with stone ground mustard and, when cool, eat right off the stick or place in a hotdog bun. 

4. Grilled Cheese

This one is a little more advance than your average hotdog-on-a-stick. You’re either going to need a two-pronged fork skewer, a forked stick or a heavy duty metal spatula with a long handle.

Now, everyone likes their grilled cheese a certain way and you’ve probably already got a recipe you really love. Our way isn’t always going to be the best but it’s pretty darn good! 

Ingredients:

2 pieces King’s Hawaiian Sweet Sliced Bread

4 slices of American cheese

2 slices of tomato

Mayonnaise

Step 1: Liberally apply mayo to the inside of the sandwich

Step 2: Place the tomato between the slices of cheese.

Step 3: Apply a small amount of mayo to the exterior of the sandwich (trust us). 

Roast about six inches over campfire until toasted and then flip. When you see cheese start to ooze out, you know you’ve got it right!

3. Sausage and Biscuit Roll

There’s nothing better than waking up with the sun and making a big pot of steaming campfire coffee to get your day started. We know plenty of campers who eat a cold breakfast (usually granola or one of those meal bars) to get their day started and that’s just fine. But if you really want to be king or queen of the campground, you’ll make these super easy sausage and biscuit rolls (AKA advanced pigs in a blanket). 

We prefer using breakfast sausage but if you’ve got some hotdogs from the night before those’ll work too. 

Step 1: Skewer your sausage

Step 2: Add dollop of jam or jelly to sausage

Step 3: Wrap with refrigerated crescent dough

Roast over open flame until dough is baked and crispy—about 5 minutes on each side.

2. Eggs in an Orange

There are a couple of ways you can cook your eggs over a campfire that don’t involve a cast iron pan. Believe it or not, if you’re careful, you can skewer your egg, shell and all, and roast just like that for about 10 minutes and have a “hard boiled” egg for breakfast.

If that seems too advanced for you, try our version of an “egg in a basket” with a hollowed out orange.

Step 1: cut orange in half and hollow out one side (either eat the pulp or add pulp to your canteen to make an orange infused, vitamin-c rich water for later)

Step 2: Crack egg into orange and season with salt and pepper

Step 3: Pierce orange through the top of the rind.

Make sure you’ve pierced the orange low enough so it doesn’t break on you and roast over an open flame. Alternatively, you can scramble your egg in the orange if you’re not into the whole over-easy thing.

1. Perfect Roasted Marshmallows

First appearing in the 1927 Girl Scout handbook, the s’more is the ultimate dessert for any camping adventure. Getting those marshmallows just right can often be difficult and even the most seasoned camper can quickly turn those candy clouds into a molten, sticky mess.

The best way to roast a marshmallow is not over an open flame, but hot coals. We suggest dragging some coals away and making a small “nest” or “cave” of them apart from the fire.

Step 1: Skewer your marshmallow

Step 2: Roast marshmallow 4-8” above the coals

Step 3: Turn marshmallow slowly and continuously until it’s a perfect golden brown.

Plenty of folks like to enjoy their marshmallow as is, which is fine, but between two pieces of graham cracker and coupled with a nice chunk of chocolate is all the better!

Experiment with some of these camping meals on a stick and you’re sure to be the hero of your next camping trip. Just don’t forget the matches!