Outdoor Cookbook Guide
Photo by Anna Brones
The sky can be the limit when cooking with a camping stove and a fire pit, but sometimes you need a little direction and inspiration. There has been an avalanche of new outdoor cookbooks, so we’ve made a list of our favourites that are sure to please any messkit fan.
1: Best Served Wild
If we had to choose, Best Served Wild, by outdoor writer Brendan Leonard (aka Semi-Rad) and food writer Anna Brones (Fika, anyone?), may be one of our favourite backcountry cookbooks. Gorgeous outdoor photography, entertaining and cheeky stories, and the recipes feature easy-to-pack ingredients and require minimal prep, leaving you more time for outdoor adventuring. From backpacking to bikepacking these recipes really hit the spot.
Check out Anna’s Peanut Sauce in the messkitchen.
This one caught our eye. This cookbook emerged from the Dirty Gourmet website of outdoor cooking friends Aimee Trudeau, Emily Nielson, and Mai-Yan Kwan. These three women make it their mission to get more people to eat well outdoors and have fun doing it! The book emphasizes healthy eating with fresh ingredients, efficient techniques, and global flavours. Breakfast, trail meals, sweet and savoury snacks, dinners, appetizers, side dishes, desserts, even refreshing camp drinks—it’s all there. You definitely won’t feel deprived after eating a meal from this book.
Here’s their warming Salsa and Corn Dumpling Soup from the messkitchen.
The enthusiastic and professional chef, Emma Frisch, writes in an entertaining and easy to follow manner. It’s a wonderful book for a novice or a seasoned adventurer. It has amazing tips for clever outdoor and open fire cooking methods, how to prep food at home, and how to pack smart. The photos are beautiful, and the flavour combinations are unique. It’s a classic outdoor cookbook in the making.
Here’s a few of Emma’s classics in the messkitchen:
• Skirt Steak with Salsa Verde
• Skillet Biscuits
• Grilled Asparagus with Honey Mustard Dressing
This top-notch bike touring cookbook, from Tara Alan, is complete with foolproof and (mostly) vegetarian recipes, prep suggestions, and storage tips, inspired by her captivating ride around the world by bike. The recipes are as fresh and simple as the cover leads you to expect. This is exactly the kind of food we want to eat while touring and it’s hard to look through the book without wanting to try every single recipe.
Go on tour and try out Tara’s Potato Leek Soup.
This is BioLite's first-ever cookbook and is filled with delicious global recipes inspired by adventurers and outdoor chefs alike. Of course, it’s designed for cooking with their own stoves but are easily done on any standard grill or open fire pit.
Here’s a few samples of their cooking with beer series.
Linda Ly presents the recipes in a simply imaginative and delicious way. The recipes are inventive and are for many different cooking styles, whether you are a day tripper, adventurer, camper, or just anyone who enjoys cooking outdoors. The recipes use basic outdoor cookware but take your outdoor menus to a whole new level. From breakfasts to full on feasts this book has it covered.
Here’s her Five-Alarm Three-Bean Chili that’s a true crew pleaser.