Adding a fire pit to your backyard means you can enjoy more time outside, year-round. Who doesn’t like the idea of cozy nights spent around a glowing fire with family and friends – and s’mores?
While sitting around an outside fire over conjures up images of roasting marshmallows to make tasty treats, there are many other things you can cook over a fire with your family.
Accessories are a must
As a general rule, if you can cook it on a grill, you can cook it over a fire pit, as long as you have a grill grate. Depending on what you want to cook over your fire pit, you may need some additional accessories:
There are even gadgets that allow you to easily make 6 s’mores at a time (but I personally prefer the messy old-fashioned way of making them – gooey fingers and all).
Grilling food the non-messy way
When cooking over a fire, the most natural means of fuel are the best. Fuels such as wood, charcoal, and even propane would be safe to cook food with.
While there are many ways you can cook over your fire pit, here we will focus on one of the easiest and least messy methods – using foil packets. You can make these yourself by simply wrapping food in heavy duty foil, or you can purchase foil grilling bags.
Do not place your foil packets DIRECTLY on the fire – put them on a grill grate, in a broiler basket, or coals or a stone or brick that is placed on the fire. Open your foil packets slowly (away from your face) to allow steam to release slowly – be careful!
Always place the meat on the bottom of the packets so it will be closer to the heat source. Crunchy raw vegetables like carrots take longer to cook than softer ones, so steam them a bit first if you are in a hurry. Flip the packets a few times to ensure even cooking.
Experiment with different kinds of meat, vegetables, and seasonings. Following a recipe is not necessary – get creative and have fun with it!
11 divinely healthy fire pit meals
Toasty Sandwiches: Use your favorite bread and fillings – wrap the sandwiches in nonstick foil and place them near the fire (or on a grill grate) until they are nice and toasty.
Burritos: Wrap ingredients of your choice (meat, veggies, rice, cheese, salsa, beans) in large flour tortillas. Then wrap your burritos in foil and place in the fire until they are warm.
Herbed vegetable mix: Place chopped potatoes and vegetables of your choice (peppers and onions work well) in foil and drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle herbs and seasonings of your choice on top, fold foil around veggies and seal to make packets, and cook over the fire for about 30 minutes (flip halfway through).
Spicy grilled corn: Combine your choice of seasonings in a small bowl (try cumin, coriander, and ginger or curry powder). Brush olive oil over ears of corn, then sprinkle with seasoning mixture. Wrap each ear in heavy-duty foil – seal tightly – and grill for 10-12 minutes.
Pineapple BBQ chicken: Marinate chicken in BBQ sauce and pineapple juice. Place in foil cooking bags or make packets with heavy-duty foil with fresh pineapple slices, red pepper, and onion. Grill for 30 minutes, or until chicken is fully cooked.
Lemon chicken with potatoes: This recipe combines herbs, spices, and fresh lemon with chicken and red potatoes for a delicious meal.
Butter, garlic, and herb steak: Herbed garlic butter, your choice of steak, red potatoes, peppers, and onion are placed in foil packets to make a complete meal in this recipe.
Sweet and sour tofu with vegetables: Place diced firm tofu (pre-baked varieties work best) on foil and add diced pineapple, sliced red pepper, thinly sliced green onion, garlic, sweet chili sauce, coconut milk, and pineapple juice. Fold the foil over and crimp edges. Heat over the fire for about 20 minutes.
Sausage and peppers: Combine sausage of your choice with bell peppers, onion, and a drizzle of olive oil. Place over the fire until sausage is fully cooked.
Berry crisp: Mix your choice of berries and a little lemon juice in a bowl. In a separate bowl, combine brown sugar, rolled oats, a few small cubes of butter, and cinnamon. Add chopped nuts if desired. Place the berry mixture on pieces of foil, top with sugar-oat crumble, and seal your foil packets. Bake over the fire for 10 to 15 minutes.
Cinnamon apples: Slice your choice of apples (or use several kinds) and sprinkle with cinnamon, nutmeg, and a little raw sugar. Place on foil and seal packets. Heat over the fire for about 20 minutes, or until apples reach desired softness.
Are there any fire pit or campfire recipes your family enjoys?
Please feel free to share your ideas in the comments!
Hardly healthy…burnt BBQ-ed neat AND veges develop carcinogenic pyrroles. These inflame the colon allowing easy entry for the cancer nucleus and complexto that body part, to start and fuel a malignancy. Hul da R Clark PhD ND 2007.
Un-fermented soy has 10, deleterious effects on our bodies. Soy Alet, Dr Mary Enig. Westyon Price Foundation’=
All grains are high in lectin phenols and leptin hormones. These disrupt insulin production through different pathways.. leading to diabetes2 and obesity. Grains raise artery clogging triglycerides. They are also high in phytates that block mineral absorption.
Out-datet mainstream ‘healthy eating’ advice speeds an early death.
Thomas, We all know these are not supper “healthy”, maybe a better title would have been “Fun fire pit meals”. I’m in favor of real, healthy meals but sometimes you just got to have fun meals, especially on an outing.
never use an acid ingredient or food with aluminum foil!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hobo stew: on a piece of foil, make a very thin hamburger patty, top with thinly sliced onions, and peppers if liked, shredded or finely sliced carrots and top with slices of potato. Salt and pepper to taste. You could add a little barbecue sauce if wanted, but not too much- just for flavor. You can always add more when it’s done.
Roll the foil up to make a flat package, and crimp the ends so.it holds all the juice in. This is very important.
Place meat side down on coals, and place a few on top. After about 5 minutes, flip it carefully so the potato side is down . Open very carefully( steam will come out) to make sure it’s cooked.
Enjoy!
Great article to learn, in a fun way, to make meals for times of crisis! Copied and saved with Diana Davies’ Hobo Stew idea in the comments.