Camping Food Hacks

We along with our extended family have garages and sheds packed with camping gear — sleeping bags, camp stoves, tents, packable chairs, lanterns…you get the drift. We take things like bug repellant and marshmallow roasters very seriously.

Adding kiddos to this camping and road-tripping equation is wonderful, hilarious, and overwhelming.

At least once a summer my husband and I remark to each other about how our first camping trip together included sleeping bags, a box of donuts, a pack of hotdogs, a bag of buns, some soda and firewood.

NOW? Is there a patron saint of family travel packing, because I would pray to them regularly for guidance.

Every time we pack up for a camping trip, we learn something new. Now that our oldest is nine, we feel pretty solid about some of our camping hacks —particularly when it comes to camping food hacks.

Long gone are the days of walking out of the grocery store with one or two bags of food. (Thank the heavens for Costco!) We serve up a sturdy three-meals-a-day while we’re camping.

Here’s how we transport our eggs…because nothing will ruining your magical camp breakfast plans like opening your cooler or trailer fridge to discover your eggs are broken.

Egg Camping Hack

Get yourself a bulk container of applesauce, preferably a week or two in advance so you have time to enjoy the applesauce and wash the container.

If you’re careful about how you move this bottle around, you can usually pour out individual eggs for recipes or sunny-side-up eggs. We like scrambled eggs, so I just give that bottle a ferocious shake when I’m ready to roll. (The picture above represents, post-shake eggs.)

That applesauce container became my new travel snacks MVP last summer…

Road Trip Snack Hack

I buy most of our favorite snacks in bulk. But once you’ve got a few kiddos that are well out of toddlerhood, those little snack containers that you’re accustomed to filling full of goldfish and cheerios are not going to get the job done.

6 ounces of cheerios for a roadtrip with a 9 and 6 year old? LOLOLOLOLOL.

So then you’re plastic baggy-ing all this stuff and then, what? Putting it in a bag in the car or in under the seat on an airplane? Probably.

Want to know the number of times my children have stepped on the bag of snacks during a roadtrip: ALL OF THE TIMES.

So instead of bags, I use that same, practically indestructible, bulk applesauce container.

Bonus that it has a narrow spot on the bottle for your hand, and a mouth opening that’s wide enough to accommodate most snacks and small enough to minimize spillage. I said minimize. It’s not a perfect world.