If someone in your camping group is a vegetarian, it doesn’t mean they have to suffer.  Below are several great vegetarian recipes for main dishes both at base camp and on the trail.

Black Bean Burritos

Backpacking: Yes
Effort: easy
Serves: 1-2
Prep time: 1-30m

Ingredients:
tortilla shells – I like the soft taco size which pack easier package of Fantastic Foods dried Black Beans packets of taco sauce
cheddar cheese, diced peppers (if in first 2 days on trail) (a dinner for 2 uses 1/2 package beans and 6-8 tortillas)

How to Prepare:
Boil water for beans according to package Add beans, stirring well, and turn off burner*
Cover and let sit 5 minutes
Warm shells if desired (makes folding easier)
Make burritos and enjoy
*do not cook the beans – just let them sit, or else you will have a very messy pan.  Use an extra tortilla to wipe leftover beans from pan.
You can also make the beans, and then make quesadillas if you have a big enough fry pan.

Angel Hair with Fresh Vegetables

Rating:N/A
Backpacking: No
Effort: easy
Serves: any
Prep time: 1-30m

Ingredients:
Angel Hair Pasta
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Fresh Garlic
Fresh Tomatoes
Broccoli
Basil
Shallots

How to Prepare:
Simple dish with no set quantities.  Cook enough pasta for the number of people in your group and eyeball the rest to your liking. Prepare the pasta al dente.  In a separate pan, heat the olive oil and add minced garlic, and shallots.  Remove the pan from heat and toss oil mixture into pasta.  Add finely chopped basil, tomatoes, and broccoli.  We like to find fresh vegetables for our camping meals at roadside farm stands.  Easy and filling.  Enjoy!

Cream of Vegetable Casserole

Rating: 9.5
Backpacking: Yes
Effort: average
Serves: 1-2
Prep time: 1-30m

Ingredients:
1/4 C dehydrated broccoli
1/4 C dehydrated shredded carrots
1 (0.6 oz) package Creamy broccoli soup mix
1/2 C herb stuffing mix
2 Tbsp margarine/oil (opt.)

How to Prepare:
Rehydrate the broccoli and carrots in 1 1/2 C water.  Stir in the soup mix and margarine/oil.  Bring to boil, and then remove from heat.

Add the stuffing mix.  Toss lightly, cover and let stand 5-10 minutes.

You will find that in most cases any vegetarian dish you cook at home can be easily converted to a camping or backpacking dish and many dishes in which you include meat can be easily modified with the addition of tasty seasonal vegetables.
 

Tags: camping recipe, dinner