The Complete Guide: Camping Cookware

July 29, 2020

For your savvy backcountry meals, these guidelines are what to keep in mind before choosing any camping cookware and mess kits.

When you head out for a deluxe car camping trip, there is nothing worse than setting up your stove to cook that gourmet dinner, only to find that you forgot your silverware, or you don’t have a scrubber to clean the dirty dishes with. These are the sort of things that every car camper loathes to deal with; we have compiled a checklist for you to make sure that you are prepared for your trip and that you have everything you will ever need, every single time you get outside.

1. Your Activities

Every camping trip is different. Your own personal style will determine your cooking essentials—how long of your trip, where you go, weather condition, how hard to carry stuffs or even how clean of water you’ll use. You mightn’t bring full-size ones to bother your special moment, so you need the right gear for the job.

There’re tons of activities to do in backcountry. But, by the versatility of cooking tools—both difficulties to carry and flexibility to use, they can be roughly segmented these.

All-Clad copper core

Backpacking

The adventurous camping mostly come with extreme activities, like hiking and racing. Most of these have both day and night adventure—explores on the day and rests during the night.

Keep it minimalist. Since these camps need endurance and strength, it’s not good to carry a lot of bulky, extra supplies and fancy things while efficiently keep on travelling on time. Even if you could do it, it might make too exhaust to have a good time. For single hiker, don’t underestimate your water supplies.

Find simple, flexible and lightweight tools. The canned foods are good to consider.

Calphalon Classic

Base Camp

The backcountry camping is more opened to have delicious meals since you don’t relocate your camp frequently or have the destination that won’t move your settle. So, the location is the big role to indicate what to prepare.

What to cook & sufficient water. Research the of the places to go—for example, the altitude of the mountain that can affect to heat-up time and fuel waste, fresh water resources to ensure you’ll have enough water or even food source like fish or mushroom.

Base camp lets you carry more supplies and varieties of recipes than the backpacking trips.

RVs, Cars & Boats

The vehicle trips are more relax than others since you can check-in the destinations you’ll go while cut off the burden of the stuff weight from your cars or RVs. Moreover, many campgrounds offer water, electricity, sewer or even wi-fi connectivity.

Choose the right destination. Normally, RV (and boat) trips don’t have many issues about cooking tools. Still, research for facilities and supplies of the sites or destinations to know what to prepare.

Check if the cooking tools are compatible with the heat sources in your vehicles. For boat trips, choose marine-grade, rust-resistant cookware for longer lifetime.

2. Materials

Picture: GSI Halulite Cook Pot

Like regular cookware, camp tools are found in different materials and each one has the advantages and drawbacks.

Aluminum

Aluminum is a most-found material for cookware because of excellent heat absorption and distribution, reducing cooking time, lightweight and low cost. However, it can react to acidic and alkaline foods, which might get issues for some health conditions and has low endurance—dense and scratches easily.

Aluminum also gets food sticks easily. So, many of them are treated with nonstick coats—both PTFE and non-PTFE. Honestly, until these days, the PTFE, such as Teflon, is the stickiest coat. However, as health issues are raised, the popularity of non-PTFE has been grown. Nowadays, the ceramic coat is the most popular non-PTFE in the market.

Hard-Anodized Aluminum

Hard-anodized aluminum is an advanced version of aluminum. By electricity process, it has more durability construction and nonstick surface while still lighter weight than many others, like stainless-steel and cast-iron. However, it might need proper maintenance.

Stainless-Steel

Stainless-steel is a classic pick since it’s tough, scratch-resistant, non-reactive to foods, fairly lightweight and affordable. However, it’s bad heat conduction. Unless clad versions (multi-ply construction), it’s low heat efficient—needs more energy to cook.

Titanium

Titanium is an ideal tool for backpacking as super toughness, quick heat absorption, corrosion resistance and extremely lightweight. However, though heating very fast, it cooks unevenly and easy to get food burnt. So, this type of product is good for boiling and liquid foods. Moreover, it’s expensive than most materials.

Cast-Iron

Cast-iron is the MPV of most kitchens and the base camp. It can be used on a camp stove, over a campfire, or sit on charcoal. Cast-iron heats much slower other materials, however, it retains heat longer once cooked. So, this workhorse is good for baking, slow cooking and direct-fired heating. For base camp, good cast-iron skillets and Dutch ovens are highly recommended.

Still, as destructible crafted from iron, it’s very heavy, which definitely doesn’t suit for backpackers. Cast-iron also needs proper care to prevent rust.

Plastic (& Silicone)

Plastic is particularly lightweight and affordable but not good for heating and fragile than other materials. So, it’s a good choice for containers and utensils. For food safety, check if your cooking tools are BPA-free (free from Bisphenol A) and food-graded plastic

Silicone

Silicone is a hybrid between a synthetic rubber and a synthetic plastic polymer, is a better than normal-graded plastic because it has superior heat resistance and durability. Silicone isn’t a good heat performer and resistance but excellent for space and weight saving.

So, if you want to use this kind of cookware, choose sturdy construction that have a well-conductive metal base—such as aluminum and hard-anodized aluminum.

3. Type of Camping Cookware

Like regular cookware, there’s numerous camping pots and pans in the market. Consider your trip conditions before buying.

Individual Pieces

Unless going for car trips, collecting the individual pieces might not be better than buying a set because they can’t be nested and keep compactly. However, some gears are useful as fulfilled pieces, like a bigger nonstick pan, a light kettle or an oven.

The individual gears also let to cook easier and better, which is benefit for having delicious camping meals.

Single/Solo set

Like the name, this cookware is meant for single people—mostly for backpacking or tough-conditioned trips so it’s light, flexible and compact for portable design.

Normally, the solo set is suitable for preparing dry or canned foods than regular cooking.

Group Cook set

This type of cookware is suitable for group campers and base campers. Normally, it comes with a specific number of people. Unlike mess kits, this cookware tends to include pots and pans to flexibly use for both cooking and serving, without the extra pieces, like utensils, plates, cups and mugs.

As having bigger capacity and pieces than single set, it allows for various recipes than dehydrated foods.

Mess Kit

A mess kit comes with variety pieces for full dinning equipment—includes pots, pans, plates, bowls, mugs, utensils or even some cutleries—that can be nested in a compact, minimal kit.

Since mainly designed for travel-friendliness and portability, most of this cookware have lower cooking performance than regular cook sets.

4. Capacity

The number of feeders will determine the size of your cooking sets. Generally, camping cook sets and mess kits are design for a specific number of users—mostly found in a single, a couple and a group of four. Ensure that everyone should have their own equipment—at the very least, their own utensil, bowl, cup and plate.

For lessening your weight, choose cooking tools that fit the number of people you’ll cooking for. These’re recommended sizes for cooking capacity:

Single	=	750 ml - 1 liter
2 people	=	1-2 liters
3-4 people	=	2-3 liters
5 or more	=	4+ liters

Still, the number and type of cooking gears you’ll bring along also depends on the sorts of recipes you plan to do. If you just cook dehydrated foods for 2 backpackers, 1 pot might sufficient. But if you plan to go on campfire, extra cast-iron pots might be good.

5. Weight

When talking about camp cookware, one thing to keep in mind is the weight. Since backcountry activities definitely involve transportation, the items you bring with should be easy to move and lightweight enough to eliminate stress while travelling.

Still, this isn’t matter to the vehicle campers—like car campers, RVs, glampers and boat trippers—since they don’t have to carry things themselves and can have suitable cookware, like a Dutch oven, for more delicious meals.

6. Necessities

Whether you’re a beginner or pro camper, it’s good to be prepared before setting the backcountry kitchen. You can design and customize your stuffs for suiting your preferences. These are camp cookware necessities and easy guides:

Pot: Every set should have at least one cooking pot, even for a single set. Consider ones that has enough capacity, at least 1 liter for boiling water. For backpackers, look for pots are made from titanium, aluminum or hard-anodized aluminum for lighter weight and fuel efficiency.
Pan: A fry pan doesn’t be included in all camping sets, especially for backpacking. You might find a nonstick aluminum pan, a folded-designed pan, like GSI Bugaboo series, is recommended. For base camps and direct-fire cooking, a roomy cast-iron skillet is vastly benefit. Lodge 10.5” skillet is our favorite.
Serving Pieces: The plate and bowls are usually included in mess kits but not for others. Occasional campers might be fine with temporary tableware like plastic dishes and sporks. But, for serious ones, it’s worth to buy quality stuffs. If you pick plastic or silicone parts, be sure if they’re BPA-free.
Utensils: For saving space and weight burden, many backpacking kits comes with sporks or foons—combination of spoon and fork—instead of traditional tools. If you find too cumbersome to use, pack your cutlery and utensils separately.
Cups: Most big sets include cups that can be nested in the kits while small sets don’t. For flexible usage, a separate titanium camping mug, like Snow Peak Trek, is recommended.
Knife & Cutting Board: Some camping sets include a small-sized cutting board and a knife that are useful for any occasions. However, if you plan to have good foods outside, it’s much better to have a decent knife and larger cutting board.
Pot Gripper & Heat-Resistant Glove: These tools are unexpectedly helpful as universally used for any pots and pans to prevent burns. The pot grippers are good for some pots and pans don’t have handles while the heat-proof gloves are convenient for cast-iron cookware. Consider ones that are sturdy, thick and ergonomic designed. Make sure you will carry up your pots and pans safely.

Optional:

Campers can feel the same delicious taste at home with these facilities:

Dutch Oven: Hearty-warm slow cooker braises, stews, soups and more.
Camp Grill: As a main fuel or preparing tasty BBQs.
Camp Oven: Never miss your favorite crusty pies, popcorns and crispy chicken wings even in backcountry.
Extension Fork: To roast marshmallows, BBQs and more.
French Press/Tea Maker: Taste your same favorite cups.
Measuring cup/spoon: These small stuffs are unexpectedly useful.
Cast-iron Griddle: Meat roast is a classic recipe for campfires.
Hand-Crank Blender: No electricity, no problem.

Tags: buying guide camping cookware