Avoid Mistakes and Make Tin Foil Dinners that Actually Taste Good

Tin foil dinners are a staple of scout cooking, but far too often they’re made with a lack of imagination and honestly, a total lack of flavor.  Making good tin foil dinners was always a focus of my annual Webelos outdoor cooking meeting.  We’d invite the parents to come along, and I’ll always remember the shocked expressions of parents who had never had a good meal cooked in aluminum foil.  

 

What goes wrong with tin foil diners?  Any one of these things:

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•  Undercooked: Too often the veggies are crunchy and the meat isn’t quite done. This usually happens because we’re either impatient or afraid of the next way to spoil dinner.
• Burned: You might think this happens because your meal cooks too long or too hot, but there’s another reason dinner burns – a lack of sufficient liquid in your foil pack.
• Greasy: Cooking cheap hamburger in a foil pack can make for a greasy meal, especially if you don’t have enough veggies and other ingredients in your pouch.  If all you want is a hamburger, use a grill!
• Just plain “blah:” Young scouts especially can be afraid of adding seasonings, but they really can make the difference between a tasty meal and a lousy one.

Individuality is a big part of the appeal  of tin foil dinners, so I decided to share some success tips for avoiding these pitfalls, rather than a recipe. I hope they're helpful!

Tin foil dinners cooking on wood coals

Avoiding the Undercooked Tin Foil Dinner

 

Raw carrots taste good, but raw potatoes are awful and undercooked meat is just plain dangerous.  If you do it right, there’s no reason why you need to pull that dinner off the fire before it’s done.  Follow these tips in making yours.

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• Cut veggies and meat small.  This is a no brainer.  Things that are smaller cook faster.  If you’re pre-cutting veggies, consider using the slicing wheel on a food processor to get thin slices of potatoes and carrots that will cook quickly.

• Thin, flat foil packets are best.  A big ball or banana shaped foil pouch doesn’t cook all that well because you have to push the heat through a thick pile of food and you have less surface area to apply heat to.  Lay a generous sheet of foil flat, spread your dinner out on it, and then put another sheet on top, rolling up the edges for a good seal.
• Consider pre-cooked meats.  Using pre-cooked meats reduces the danger of food poisoning from under-cooked meats. This will also allow you to more safely use poultry and other lean meats in your tin-foil dinner, reducing the fat content. I like to use turkey kielbasa or smoked sausage in foil dinners.  They’re pre-cooked, have lots of flavor, and are leaner than their pork and beef based counterparts.
• Use sufficient liquids.  Liquids in your tin foil dinner pouch make steam, which is more effective than dry heat at cooking the veggies in your foil pouch. Some examples of liquids I’ve used include a couple of tablespoons of undiluted cream of mushroom soup, beef bouillon, barbeque sauce mixed with soy sauce, or a mixture of Worcestershire sauce and catsup. Another way to get liquids into your dinner is to use generous amounts veggies that release a lot of water in the cooking process, like onions.
• Cook it long enough.  Foil dinners need at least a half hour to cook and often more like 40 minutes, depending upon how well you followed the steps above.

 

Avoiding the Burned Tin Foil Dinner

Believe it or not, fishing dinner off the fire before its fully cooked is not the best way to ensure you don’t burn it. There are really just three things you need to do to make sure your tin foil dinner doesn’t burn.

• Use sufficient liquids. When it comes to food, moist heat doesn’t burn.  Dry heat does. Use plenty of a liquid like the ones listed above so dinner doesn’t dry out and burn.
• Double-wrap your meal. Using two layers of foil reduces the risk that you'll puncture your pouch and lose all those liquids into the fire.  
• Turn frequently. You also don’t want any one surface to sit on the heat source for too long at a given time.  Doing so might limit the amount of liquid between dinner and the heat source and cause things to burn.  Gently turn your dinner with a good set of tongs or mitts every 6-8 minutes. 

 

Avoiding the Greasy Tin Foil Dinner

Foil dinners can be greasy. For those who would rather not eat all that fat at their evening meal, keep these things in mind:

• Use leaner meats. If you’re making the classic foil dinner with ground beef, remember that 80 or 85% lean ground beef puts out a lot of fat during the cooking process. Use 90-95% lean ground beef for better results, or switch to one of the precooked sausages or poultry mentioned above.
• Keep meat content below 30%.  Boys will be boys. Left to their own devices, most will fill their pouch primarily with hamburger and add just a few vegetables if you force the issue.  To keep the fat content in check and make the meal healthier you should have twice as much vegetable as meat.

 

Avoiding the Blah Tin Foil Dinner

Any adult who has tasted Spaghetti-O’s recently knows that most kids tend to like their food bland and won’t be apt to add much seasoning on their own. On the other hand, a little added seasoning can go a long way in making meals taste better. Be sure to put a few things out and encourage them to try them.  Here are a few things I like in my foil dinners:

• Taco seasoning:  Kids who normally wouldn’t put any seasonings in their food will generally use some of this, so it’s a good choice for them. Just remember it has a very high salt content and supervise the use of it.
• Garlic powder: Some like it, some don’t. I for one love the stuff on just about everything, especially beef and potatoes, which are mainstays of foil dinners.
• Chili powder: If you like a little kick in your meal, a touch of this can add a lot of flavor.
• Herbal salt substitutes: There are several mixed seasoning varieties out there marketed as salt substitutes.  Most of them work very well adding flavor to a foil dinner.
• Salt and pepper: This is the bare minimum seasoning, and you really should make sure they’re included when your scouts put their foil dinners together.  Too often, the scouts won’t think of adding them on their own.