I'm so excited that you've joined me for this week's Camping Series, where I'm sharing meal and snack ideas, fun & games and lots of great tips, tricks and hacks for making your next camping trip the best it can be!

Miss a day in the series? You can catch up at these links:

Monday - Camping Meals: Breakfast

Tuesday - Camping Meals: Lunch & Snacks

Wednesday - Camping Meals: Dinner & Desserts

Thursday - Games & Fun for Kids While Camping

Friday - The Best Camping Tips, Tricks, and Hacks

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Today we're talking lunch and snacks!

The best camping lunch requires great taste, minimal effort and easy clean up. We have better things to do than wash dishes while camping!

Here's a few of our favorite recipes to try on your next camping trip.

Tacos

I have to say, these are probably my favorite lunch for camping because they are super simple to make and clean up. I do as much prep ahead of time as I can so when it’s time to eat I only have to pull everything out and put them together.

Ingredients

1 lb. ground beef
taco seasoning
Tortilla chips or taco shells

Toppings:
1-2 tomatoes, cubed
lettuce, shredded
sour cream (I put this in a small travel squeeze bottle)
salsa
peco (homemade or store bought)
black olives, sliced

Brown ground beef, drain. Add taco seasoning and water (check package for amount) and cook until done. Set aside to cool completely.
While meat is cooling, put all of your toppings into separate containers or Ziploc bags.
When meat is completely cooled, transfer to a container or Ziploc bag.
To serve, heat the seasoned ground beef in a small pot. Pull out all of your toppings.
Put your tacos together and eat!

Here’s another similar recipe - Camping Haystacks - from Taste of Home that uses canned chili beans instead of the ground beef. I’m thinking of trying it!

Sandwiches

Sandwiches are very simple to make and we rely on them a lot while camping. The kids would eat PB&J for every meal if I let them.

There are some sandwich toppings that are easily prepared ahead of time and stored in the cooler. Some of our favorites are Egg Salad Sandwiches, Chicken Salad Sandwiches, and Tuna Salad Sandwiches.

Frittata sandwich - for a twist on the traditional egg sandwich try making a Frittata ahead of time, cut into sandwich sized pieces and store in a container. They hold together perfectly for a sandwich and you can sneak all sorts of healthy things in there!

Grilled Cheese - you can make it the traditional way or you can fill your bread with mozzarella and pepperoni for a pizza style grilled cheese!

And of course, the trusty PB&J!

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Campfire Tuna Mac

Courtesy of Camping Road Trip

Ingredients:

2 boxes Kraft Deluxe Macaroni and Cheese
2 cans tuna, drained
Salt and pepper

Instructions:

Boil a pot of water over a campfire or camping stove.
Pour the macaroni into the boiling water and cook until they are tender.
In a separate bowl, combine the packets of cheese and canned tuna. Mix very well. Season with salt and pepper.
Drain the macaroni and stir into the cheese and tuna mixture.

Sloppy Joes

Courtesy of Camping Road Trip

I make this up at home, cool completely and store in a plastic container. Sometimes I will freeze it depending on what I plan to use it. If using on the first night of the trip I will just keep it cooled. If planning to use it on the 2^nd or 3^rd day I will freeze it and keep it in the cooler. When ready to eat, just reheat in a pot and serve.

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground beef
1 medium onion, diced
1/2 cup ketchup
2 Tbsp. mustard
2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
Salt & Pepper
6-8 Hamburger Buns

In a large skillet pan, cook the ground beef until it becomes brown. Drain off the excess fat and set aside.
Cook the onion in the pan until it starts to sweat.
Add the rest of the ingredients and the cooked ground beef. Cook until the onions become translucent.
Serve the Sloppy Joes on warmed hamburger buns.

Campfire Quesadillas

Courtesy of Dirty Gourmet

The kids LOVE quesadillas so this is a no brainer for camping. I will often add shredded chicken or ground beef to this recipe to protein it up a bit. This goes really quickly at the campground if you mix the meat (optional), mushrooms, corn and cheese together in a small container or Ziploc bag. Store the onion separately…trust me on this.

Another variation we often eat is filling the quesadilla with mozzarella, pepperoni and other pizza toppings. Good stuff!

Speaking of Pizza

Whip up some grilled mini pizzas quickly with this idea from KOA.

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Snacks

I’ll be carrying my snack station planning over to our camping trip. It just makes life simple and easy when it comes to snack time and that’s certainly two things that I want our little camping trip to be.

Obviously, refrigeration isn’t available at the camp site so I will need to make sure that whatever I pack for snacks can last a couple of days without being refrigerated.

I’ll be using two or three covered containers from Dollar Tree to store everything in since I don’t want bugs getting into their snacks.

S’Mores Trail Mix
Probably not the most healthy snack on the planet, but hey…it’s vacation. They deserve a little junk food!