A Campfire Breakfast: Tools & Ideas for Your Next Outing

Written by Cheri of Kitchen Simplicity.

Eating breakfast around a campfire is one of my favorite ways to start a summer day. Nothing tastes quite as good as food cooked over an open flame. Any of your favorite breakfast meals can be made over a campfire; all you need is the right tools and a little innovation.

Campfire Tools and Breakfast Ideas

Pie Irons

These useful tools like this Coleman Camp Cooker are not just for hobo pies. Anything you can dream up to sandwich between bread can be cooked up and devoured. For breakfast try ham and grilled cheese sandwiches, french toast slices filled with cream cheese and jam or how about grilled peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

When cooking with pie irons it’s important to heat them up before using to get that crispy skillet effect. You can even use them to fry eggs. Just open up a pie iron and cook one egg on each side.

Cast Iron Skillet

Cast iron skillets are one of my favorite camping tools because they’re so versatile. Whatever you cook in a skillet at home you can make over the campfire with a cast iron skillet.

To use, simply place the skillet directly onto hot coals or on a rack placed above the fire and allow it to get good and hot. Add a dab of oil and you’re good to go! Try cooking up some:

  • bacon
  • pancakes
  • scrambled eggs
  • french toast
  • hash browns
  • bannock

Caution! Be sure to have a hefty oven mitt handy, as the handle of the cast iron pan will get very hot.

Aluminum Foil

For those who don’t have much for camping equipment consider aluminum foil your new best friend. Nearly anything can be wrapped up in a double thickness of foil, tossed on some hot coals and left to cook through. The food is cooked by the steam created from the food itself, so don’t expect anything to get crispy.

Try the recipe for Campfire Hash Browns below to get things started.

Hot Dog Sticks

This is one tool that nearly every camper has on hand and if not, a sharpened stick is a great substitute.

For breakfast consider threading on breakfast sausages or wrapping biscuit dough around each tong and toasting until crisp and fluffy. Treat each stick like a kabob and thread on fruits, like pineapple, to heat over the fire.

Whatever is good on the grill is great on the fire.

Recipe: Campfire Hash Browns

  1. Take a double thickness of aluminum foil and fill it with diced potatoes and any other vegetables you like (I used onions and red pepper). Sprinkle with salt, pepper and desired spices. Dot with butter. Seal up foil to make a packet.
  2. Place packet onto coals of campfire (making sure it does not touch direct flames). Cook for 40-50 minutes, depending on size of diced potatoes. Avoid opening packet until cooked through or steam will escape and lengthen the cooking time. Serve with ketchup or salsa and sour cream.

* Be careful of steam when opening foil.

* To round out the meal add some chopped sausage to the packet before cooking.

What is your favorite campfire breakfast?

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16 Comments

  1. We take the hashbrowns one further and use a cast iron (or regular skillet on your camp stove):
    After cooking up the potatoes and peppers, add bacon or sausage and then pour eggs over the top to make an amazing scramble. Serve with shredded cheese, sour cream, and salsa if you’re into that kind of thing. =)

    Granted this is also our favorite weekend breakfast at home, so it really shows that anything you can make in a skillet can be done at camp!

  2. Oh, this just made me so hungry. My boys just came back from a three day camping trip and I’m so anxious to get out myself. I’m definitely bookmarking your hash browns for when I do.

  3. You forgot sticks!

    Campfires aren’t complete without oatmeal porridge and the requisite stirring stick. I grew up canoe-tripping with my family and the first thing we did at a campsite was to find a good stick. It needed to be straight and a good length and about twice the width of a wooden spoon and fit nicely in the hand. If one of my brothers was feeling really industrious he would use a penknife to whittle off the bark. Fancy!

  4. Pie irons are awesome. A few years ago the boys in my youth group were in charge of making their own food, and they made pancakes for breakfast in pie irons. Sheer brilliance, I tell you.

  5. As a Girl Scout at sleepaway camp, we’d make banana boats. 1 whole banana, peeled only on the inner curve, with a slight scoop taken out, then filled with marshmallows and chocolate chips, then wrapped in foil and left to cook in the hot coals at the edge of the campfire grill. Once they’d sat (maybe 5 – 10 minutes?) open and eat with a spoon. So good!

  6. We often use our pie irons when we are camping. My ultimate favourite breakfast is…two slices of bread with cheese and minced onion, then just before I close the iron, I quickly crack in a raw egg and break the yoke. Often some of the white will leak out, but thats ok. Then you cook it over the fire. It requires a bit longer cooking because of the raw egg, so I don’t put it in too hot of coals, then I let it set for about 5 minutes before I take it out of the pie iron. I usually devour it before it has had a chance to cool properly. Yummy!!

  7. Back in the 1950’s when I was a Boy Scout, one of my favorite camp breakfasts was rice with milk and sugar. We heated (already cooked) white rice, with milk and sugar in our mess-kit “pot” over the fire. It was so very good 🙂

  8. This really turned out to be an awesome breakfast treat. I’m definitely bookmarking your blog for when I do.