19 Easy Cast Iron Campfire Recipes

These 19 cast iron cooking recipes are great for camping or home. This collection of recipes that are easy and portable can be used when you’re RVing, camping, traveling or just wanting something great and easy from your own kitchen.

We learned a lot at Camp Boredom, otherwise known as our back yard during the early days of Covid. We decided to learn to use our cast iron dutch oven and our propane fire pit and test some camp recipes. In the worst case, we thought, we could go in the house and find something else to eat if a recipe didn’t work out. That never was a necessity.

Our cast iron cooking test kitchen - Camp Boredom

Years prior, during a kitchen remodel, we had learned that it was not only possible, but quite easy, to bake in a cast iron dutch oven inside an enclosed BBQ grill. This knowledge gave us more confidence that we could successfully cook over a campfire.

We had tremendous success, and continue to make many of these recipes still.

Cast iron cooking over a campfire offers superior heat retention, durability, versatility, a natural non-stick surface, enhanced flavor, and easy maintenance. These qualities make cast iron cookware the preferred choice for outdoor cooking enthusiasts, ensuring delicious meals and an enjoyable camping experience.

Before You Cook

An important note about cast-iron cooking over a campfire: the flame is not going to provide even heat. Cast iron cookware is renowned for its exceptional heat retention properties. When placed over a campfire, the thick and heavy cast iron material absorbs and distributes heat more evenly, allowing for more consistent cooking temperatures. Still, it’s important to keep an eye on the food to avoid burn spots. Propane campfires are a bit more even; however, you’ll still want to keep an eye on your meal while it cooks.

Be prepared: when the cast iron meal is ready to come off the fire, you’ll need a sturdy, heat-proof location for the hot, heavy dutch oven.

Cast Iron Breakfast Recipes

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. It sets up the day for success, with a full tummy and a happy tongue.

For a warm, delicious breakfast treat, we love a German Apple Pancake, also known as a Dutch Baby. This sweet, filling breakfast will warm your tummy on a cold morning around the fire.

If the caramelized, apple-filled pancake isn’t enough sweetness, maybe you’ll want to make cinnamon rolls. Now I will admit, I haven’t ever taken the time to make these in camp. As I mentioned in the recipe for cinnamon rolls, we usually make these ahead and eat them in camp. But seriously, doesn’t a warm. Fresh-from-the-fire cinnamon roll sound delectable?

If savory breakfast is more your style, you could bake up a crustless quiche using this egg bite recipe. Or include a crust, because you’ll probably work off all those carbs when you go hiking later, right?

One of our favorite savory cast-iron breakfast is the Mediterranean campfire casserole. This bread-based recipe should be prepared the night before and allowed to soak overnight. In the morning, just pour the mixture into a heated dutch oven and let it bake!

Another savory, bread-based recipe is our Sausage Gravy Breakfast Casserole. It is filling, and has a delicious blend of sausage, mushrooms, cheese, and gravy (from the mushroom soup). Tony believes gravy should be included in every meal.

Cast Iron Lunch Recipes

If you fill up too much on breakfast, you may not be ready for lunch but let’s talk about it anyway. If you took a long morning hike after breakfast, you may have build up your appetite anyway!

I’ve always been a fan of chicken pot pie - something about he (piping hot) creamy, chunky filling and flaky crust really hits the spot. An easier version is this Cast Iron Chicken Biscuit Pot Pie, that uses a can of pre-made biscuits in place of a crust. This is an easy way to enjoy chicken pot pie, without the worry of burning a crust.

You say you love chicken, but not biscuits? How about stuffing? This easy Campfire Chicken Bake mixes up in a snap and bakes to a savory, melty, delicious lunch option.

Maybe you don’t want to spend a lot of time preparing lunch and you make sandwiches. You might still want a side dish, right? When we started eating less carbs I started making Cauliflower Salad as a side dish. Why am I including this in a post about cast iron cooking? Well, you have to fry the bacon somewhere, don’t you? This is also a good make-ahead recipe, if you don’t want to spend a lot of time on preparing lunch.

Cast Iron Dinner Recipes

If you like cold lunch, and you didn’t use the above recipes, you are already ahead of the game for dinner time. But, if you need more ideas for cast iron dinners, here ya go!

There is never a bad time to eat pizza, including when you are camping. This easy Campfire Pizza recipe is just right for pizza night in camp. Pizza is so versatile; we could eat pizza with different toppings several times during a camping trip!

This recipe I like to call Figgy Piggy. Although a more descriptive title is Pork Tenderloin with Fig Sauce. Isn’t Figgy Piggy just more fun to say! This recipe will really impress your friends; it’s kind of fancy but still really easy to make. And it tastes so good with the balsamic vinegar and fig jam. YUM!

Meatloaf is a favorite meal in our house, and at camp. I found a really easy way to enjoy meatloaf while camping is to prepare these Meatloaf Bombs ahead of time. Pop them into the dutch oven wrapped in foil to cook over the fire for a easy, cheesy main dish at dinner time.

If pre-forming meatloaf bombs seems like too much work, don’t do it! Just mix up a batch of meatloaf, form it by hand into a loaf shape, and plop it into the dutch oven over the campfire for a hearty meatloaf. This recipe removes the carbs from my Kind of Keto Meatloaf by substituting the bread crumbs with crushed fried pork rinds. Besides being a binder, they give an extra touch of flavor to the meatloaf.

Bonus: leftover slices of meatloaf make delicious sandwiches - maybe served with Cauliflower Salad!

I could be happy with just protein - especially some of those recipes above that are casserole-style. However, if you want an easy, delicious and yes, even low-carb side dish, check out our Cauliflower Risotto recipe. You could make this with white or brown rice just as easily. I would pre-cook the rice. So that’s an extra step. But it takes away ricing the cauliflower. So, win-win.

Do you camp with your love? Do you want to show them how much you love them, through their stomach? Then you really need to check out this Love Sausage recipe. Kielbasa, bacon and eggs. What more could you need? Come to think of it, this could have been a breakfast recipe just as easily.

You say you don’t want bacon and eggs for dinner? Or, you made Love Sausage for breakfast and still need a romantic dinner idea? How about this Chicken Cacciatore recipe? And the greatest news: the cacciatore post even includes a dessert recipe!

Cast Iron Dessert Recipes

Speaking of dessert (did you love the Campfire Cannoli, by the way?), camping isn’t really camping if there isn’t some form of gooey campfire dessert right? No cast iron is needed for the classic s’mores, but what about a fruit cobbler? I recall back in my scouting days that was a popular dessert treat.

With care, even cookies can be baked in cast iron. We like to have a few extra chairs, and a plate of cookies, available when we are sitting around the campfire, so we can invite new friends to have a seat and a snack while we chat. And we love a variety of cookies, as evidenced by our recipes for Grandma’s Persimmon Cookies, Easy Corn Cookies (don’t knock ‘em till you try ‘em!), Peggy’s Blue-Ribbon Razzamataz Cookies, and 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (gluten free!). Remember, keep an eye on the cast iron when baking small items like this, they won’t take long!

The king of cast iron cooking

One more thing - we had the very distinct pleasure of speaking to renown cast iron expert and great guy Kent Rollins on the StressLess Camping RV Podcast. Kent has a very popular series of videos on YouTube about cast iron cooking and is just a great guy with several cook books out.