Camp Cooking Done Right: What We Actually Eat on the Road

Somewhere around week three of the big lap, I had a realisation: eating well out here was entirely possible, and it made every single day better.

This isn’t a survivalist trip. We’re not eating two-minute noodles by necessity. We’ve got a working fridge, a proper camp kitchen, and enough Australian outback campfire to slow-cook things in a cast iron pot that would feel right at home in a restaurant. If we’re going to be out here for fourteen weeks, we’re going to eat properly.

Here’s how we do it.

The Dutch Oven: Worth Every Gram

The single best camp cooking investment we made was a cast iron Dutch oven. We use a Lodge 6-Quart — it’s heavy (yes, deal with it), indestructible, and once seasoned properly, it does things that no other camp cookware can touch.

What we cook in it:

• Slow-cooked beef cheek — chuck it in with a bottle of red wine, some onion, garlic, and thyme. Four hours over coals. Done.
• Lamb shanks — same treatment. The outback campfire adds a smokiness you can’t replicate at home.
• Bread — the Dutch oven bakes bread. Actual crusty sourdough-adjacent bread. Our kids thought it was a magic trick.
• Lasagne — layer it up, put coals on the lid, 45 minutes. It works.

The technique for campfire Dutch oven cooking isn’t complicated: you want coals, not flames. Let your fire burn down to a good coal base, then sit the Dutch oven on top and put coals on the lid for even heat distribution. You’re essentially creating a primitive oven.

The brand matters less than the thickness. Cheap thin cast iron cracks. Lodge is reliable and widely available in Australia. Petromax is excellent if you want to go premium.

The Camp Kitchen Setup

The Mars 15 Elite has a built-in rear kitchen drawer slide — and it’s a proper kitchen, not an afterthought. Four gas burners, a sink, and plenty of prep space. The ability to cook standing up rather than crouching over a low camp stove is genuinely life-changing on a long trip, and having it all built in means setup takes seconds rather than fifteen minutes unpacking boxes.

The spice kit: we carry 20–25 spices in small labelled jars. Weight is minimal and the payoff is enormous. You can make the same ingredients taste completely different if you actually season food properly.

The fridge: a good 12V fridge is non-negotiable on a long trip. Inside the camper we have an Evakool 95L Platinum Upright Fridge Freezer — it’s a beast of a unit and keeps everything cold even in 40°C heat. The 95L capacity means we can do a proper shop at major towns and not think about it for a week. We also opted for a Dune 4WD 45L Fridge Freezer in the back of the Prado — best decision we made. On day trips away from the camper you always have cold drinks on hand, and on long road trip days it means you never have to pull into a servo just for a cold bottle of water.

Cheeseboard Nights

Some of our favourite camp memories are the simplest ones: cold beers at golden hour, a wooden board with whatever cheese we picked up at the last town, crackers, pickles, dried fruit. The kids have cottoned on to this and now it’s a non-negotiable on good campsites.

It also photographs well. That’s just the reality.

The key is buying fresh at larger towns and storing properly. Most aged hard cheeses survive fine in the fridge for a week or more. Soft cheeses are best bought and eaten within a day or two.

The Morning Coffee Ritual

I don’t function without a proper coffee. This isn’t going to change because I’m in the outback.

We took a Nespresso Essenza Mini bundled with the Aeroccino3 milk frother — two minutes and you’ve got a proper coffee with frothed milk. The only catch is it runs on 240V, so you need the inverter on, but the battery drain is minimal and absolutely worth it for that morning fix. Pod in, button pressed, done. No faff.

If you’re a coffee person, sort out your camp coffee setup before you leave. It’s a small thing that matters every single morning for months.

The Kids’ Opinions

Hazel’s (15) favourite camp meal: lamb shanks. James’s (12): pasta with Dutch oven slow-cooked meatballs. Both of them now request specific meals by name at certain campsites, as if we’re a mobile restaurant.

Getting kids invested in the camp food means they’re also more invested in the camp experience. They’ve both helped cook. Both have opinions about seasoning. Neither of them asks for McDonald’s anymore when we pass through towns, which was definitely not the case in month one.

The Practical Stuff

A few things that help:

• Prep at the caravan, not at the site. Chopping, marinating, seasoning — do it before you start the fire so you’re not losing daylight.
• Freeze meals before you leave towns. We often batch-cook at powered sites and freeze portions for nights when we’re too tired to cook properly.
• A good knife is worth it. We carry a Victorinox chef’s knife in a roll. Cheap camp knives make everything harder.
• The paper towel trick for cast iron: dry it completely after washing, heat it on the gas for 30 seconds to drive off moisture, then wipe with a thin film of oil. That’s it. Cast iron maintenance is simpler than people make it sound.

The Gear List

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Eat well out there. It genuinely makes everything better.