Some hobo meals created with these foil pack recipes, cooking on an open fire.

Foil Pack Dinners

The Traditional Combination

Many campers know that if you want a meal with little cleanup, you can cook it in a foil pack. The most typical foil pack ingredients are ground beef, potatoes, carrots, and onions. But don’t get stuck in a rut! Try some new combinations.

Try Some New Foil Pack Recipes

Most foil pack recipes contain some type of meat (beef, chicken, ham, etc.), a starch (potatoes or rice), and fruits or vegetables (carrots, apples, peppers, pineapple). You can add a little moisture with some condensed soup, ketchup, gravy, BBQ sauce, or something similar. I stay away from cheese in the pack itself, but sometimes I sprinkle some on the finished product.

Don’t be afraid to try something different in your hobo meals. I’ve seen a recipe for an omelet in a foil pack which I am going to try soon. Find some new foil pack recipes at the bottom of this page.

After assembling your ingredients, follow the directions below to seal and cook your foil pack recipes.

How to Make a Foil Pack (Hobo) Meal

Equipment

Heavy duty aluminum foil
Charcoal fire – charcoal should be in a single layer

Instructions

Tear off a piece of foil about four times the size of the food you want to cook.
Fold the foil in half.
Place the food in the middle of the foil.
Bring the opposite sides of the foil together.
Fold the sides over, one half inch at a time, crimping the foil together as you go.
Fold the open edges toward the center, crimping together.
Place the foil packet on the charcoal
Cook until packet puffs up with steam – usually about 30 to 45 minutes.
Open carefully! You don’t want a steam burn.

When sealing up the foil, the idea is to form an airtight seal, so the steam can’t escape. If the steam gets out, you might scorch your food. You are essentially making a small pressure cooker.

If you are not using heavy duty foil, use two pieces of foil to make a double layer. You don’t want your dinner to end up in the fire.

Comments

3 responses to “Foil Pack Dinners”

Regina Burress

November 19, 2010

This recipe is good. My scouts enjoy making this, they even cooked it at home for the family. Sometimes instead of beef they will try chicken.

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Nancy Pendleton

September 21, 2011

We did this with 40 people. I used frozen diced potatoes (walmart w/no oil or spices), a couple of bags of different frozen veggies, ground beef 85/15, cut up chicken, assorted spices (hot, italian, onion & garlic powder), and Italian dressing, ranch dressing, & BBQ sauce. Some boys mixed everything together, some just used meat, they all smelled yummy!

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Quinn McDermott

November 22, 2021

This foil recipe looks really good. If there is one thing that sometimes needs some revamping it’s cook out meals. People definitely want something that easy to shop for and easy to cook. The worst is when you can’t seem to get your food (meat) cooked all the way through (this has happened, more than once). Actually someone should make a recipe book and it should be part of the equipment.

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