Somewhere around the second night of a cabin weekend, the third hot dog loses its magic and everybody starts wondering out loud what else you can actually cook over a fire. Turns out: a lot. Here are ten things that actually work, in the order you'd probably cook them across a weekend.
All of these assume a real hardwood fire that has burned down to a proper coal bed — glowing orange, dusted with gray ash, no tall flames. Campfire cooking is coal cooking, not flame cooking. If your fire still has a leaping blue-tip flame, wait 20 more minutes.
Breakfast
1. Campfire breakfast burritos
Scramble eggs in a cast iron pan over the coals with whatever you've got — sausage or bacon cooked first, onions, peppers, a handful of shredded cheese stirred in at the end. Wrap in flour tortillas with salsa. The move is to pre-chop everything the night before so morning you isn't also sunrise you.
Cabin-grocery pickup list: 1 dozen eggs, 1 lb breakfast sausage, 1 bell pepper, 1 onion, 8-count flour tortillas, shredded Mexican cheese, salsa. Feeds 4 generously.
2. Bacon-in-the-coals
Lay strips of thick-cut bacon directly on a piece of heavy-duty foil, fold into a flat packet, place on the edge of the coals. Flip after 4 minutes. Done in 8. The fat drips through, the smoke gets into the bacon, and it tastes like nothing you've ever had indoors. Upgrade to maple-glazed by brushing with maple syrup in the last minute.
Lunch and snacks
3. Pudgy pies (pie irons)
The great Midwestern campfire dish. If you grew up in Ohio or Indiana, you know what these are. Two slices of buttered white bread, anything you want in the middle (see below), clamped in a cast iron pie iron, held over coals for 2–3 minutes per side.
Savory versions: ham and cheese, pizza (sauce + mozzarella + pepperoni), grilled cheese with tomato, sloppy joe filling. Sweet versions: pie filling (apple, cherry, blueberry from a can), Nutella and banana, peanut butter and jelly. Kids go feral for these.
Pie irons are sold at most hardware stores, the Logan Walmart, and many cabin hosts keep a pair for guests. Worth bringing your own if you don't see them listed.
4. Campfire nachos
Layer tortilla chips in a cast iron skillet or disposable foil pan. Top with black beans (canned, drained), shredded cheese, sliced jalapeño, pulled pork or leftover chili. Cover with foil. Set on coals for 8–10 minutes until cheese is fully melted. Top with sour cream, salsa, and chopped cilantro. Feeds 4 as a snack, 2 as a meal.
Dinner
5. Foil-pack dinners
The workhorse of campfire cooking. Lay out a 12-inch square of heavy-duty foil. Protein in the middle (chicken thigh, ground beef patty, Italian sausage, shrimp). Sliced vegetables around it (potato rounds, onion, bell pepper, mushroom). Butter, salt, pepper, garlic, a splash of soy sauce or Worcestershire. Fold into a tight packet. Place on coals.
- Chicken thigh packet: 15–20 minutes per side
- Ground beef patty packet: 10 minutes per side
- Sausage and potato: 15 minutes per side
- Shrimp and corn: 8 minutes per side (shrimp cook fast)
Rotate once halfway. Let the packet rest 2 minutes off the heat before opening (the steam inside is hotter than you'd think).
6. Cast iron pizza
Pre-made refrigerated pizza dough from the grocery store. Press into a well-oiled 12-inch cast iron skillet. Sauce, cheese, toppings. Cover with foil. Place on coals, rotating every few minutes for even heat. Done in 12–15 minutes. Sounds ambitious; takes 20 minutes total and makes you look like a genius.
7. Hobo stew (beef stew in a pot)
A Dutch oven (cast iron with a tight lid) is the secret weapon of real campfire cooking. Brown 1 lb stew meat in the pot directly on coals. Add a chopped onion, 3 chopped potatoes, 2 chopped carrots, 2 cloves garlic, 1 can beef broth, 1 can diced tomatoes, salt and pepper. Cover with the lid. Pile a few coals on top of the lid (the Dutch oven trick — heat from above and below). Cook 90 minutes. Check at 60 and 75. It'll be better than any beef stew you've had in a kitchen.
Dutch oven cooking is the one skill that'll upgrade your campfire dinners by an order of magnitude. Buy one. Use it at home in the oven too. It'll last longer than you will.
Dessert
8. Cast iron apple cobbler
In a cast iron skillet: 4 sliced apples (Gala or Honeycrisp), ½ cup brown sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, a pinch of salt, 4 tbsp butter in pats. Top with 1 box yellow cake mix (just the dry mix, sprinkled evenly over the top — do not make batter). Dot the top with another 4 tbsp butter. Cover with foil. Place on coals for 35–45 minutes, rotating occasionally.
The butter melts through the cake mix and it turns into a crispy cobbler topping. Serve with ice cream if you've got a cooler, or just warm with whipped cream. The easiest impressive dessert in the world.
9. Banana boats
Slit a banana lengthwise (don't cut all the way through the bottom peel). Stuff the slit with chocolate chips, mini marshmallows, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Wrap in foil. Place on coals for 6–8 minutes. Unwrap, eat with a spoon. Sounds weird, is excellent, easy enough for kids to assemble themselves.
The extra one (snacking)
10. Campfire popcorn
Buy a Jiffy Pop aluminum pan — they still make them. Hold the handle over the coals (use a glove or long stick). Shake gently. In 3 minutes you have fresh popcorn, in a pan, by firelight. Younger kids love watching the foil inflate. Older guests remember it from childhood. Everybody eats it.
If your cabin supplies cast iron cookware, great. If not, bring a 10-inch skillet and a small Dutch oven — those two pieces cover 90% of what you'll want to cook. Clean with hot water and a stiff brush; no soap. Dry over the coals while you eat. A well-cared-for cast iron piece lasts three generations.
The grocery strategy
Most of these recipes work with ingredients you can pick up on the way in. Logan, Ohio has an IGA and a Walmart that together cover everything on this list. Nelsonville has a Save-A-Lot and a Kroger within 15 minutes. If you're staying on the south or west side of the park, Rockbridge has a small country store that's handy for basics but won't have everything.
My suggestion: do one big grocery run on the way in for the whole weekend. Plan on one proper dinner per night (Dutch oven stew, cast iron pizza, foil packets, a proper pudgy pie night), one proper breakfast per morning (burritos, bacon, pancakes if you brought a griddle), and one lazy meal (cold sandwiches, snacks, s'mores). That's enough structure to keep things easy without making it feel like a cooking show.
The right fire makes all of this work. Too small a coal bed and your foil packs undercook. Too hot and everything burns. The trick is proper seasoned hardwood — oak or hickory ideally — burned down for about 45 minutes before you start cooking, which gives you a steady coal bed that'll hold heat for 90 minutes of active cooking.
If you need wood delivered to your cabin before you arrive — so you can cook rather than spend night one negotiating with a bundle of damp pine from a gas station — we handle that across Rockbridge, Logan, and Sugar Grove. For cabins with well-equipped fire rings and cast iron cookware in the kitchen, Hocking Cabins is where to start.
Let us handle the wood.
Hand-inspected, properly seasoned hardwood — split, stacked, and delivered free across Rockbridge, Logan, and Sugar Grove.
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