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.

My Son’s First True “Open-Fire” Meal

Last summer my youngest son, who is usually my most enthusiastic helper when cooking indoors or out, told us that he “had never cooked over a campfire” and really wanted to do so.

My first reaction, as you might expect, was “that can’t be,” but when I stopped and thought about it, I had to realize that aside from warming a hot dog on a stick he was probably right. 

• We’ve cooked dozens of tin-foil dinners and hundreds of meals in my Dutch ovens, but the vast majority of those were cooked using charcoal briquettes. To the extent that I’ve used wood coals from the campfire on my Dutch ovens it’s usually been because it was a windy day and my briquettes burned out before dinner was done.
• We’d grilled more times than I could count, but most of the time I used (gasp!) a gas grill.
• We’ve used pie irons and sticks to cook things over the open fire, but most of the time these were snacks, not meals.
• I’d had tons of experience cooking over the open fire in scouts as a youth, but my boys’ troops cook with a propane stove for nearly every meal, unless I happen to bring my Dutch ovens along. 

This was a situation my wife and I decided we had to fix, and so we bought a freestanding grill for my son’s birthday and I resolved to cook a complete meal over the fire with him, using absolutely no gas, no charcoal, and no pots or pans.

Step 1: Build the fire 

My son has this one quite well nailed. His fires aren’t so much campfires as they are towering infernos. We have a large enough fire ring that it’s safe, so we let him run with it. Let one of his giant fires of oak cut from our yard burn down for about an hour, and you have a beautiful bed of coals for cooking. If you’re not as brave (or foolhardy) as we are, a more modest log-cabin style fire lay will do the trick, although you may want to start it earlier for optimum heat.

 

 

Step 2: Baked potatoes

Wash one nice russet potato per person with water and a stiff brush and wrap them, still wet, in two layers of aluminum foil.  Bury these in the coals of your fire.

 

Baking potatoes partially buried in wood coals.

 

Step 3:  Grilled corn

Remove the outer layers of the husk of each ear of corn, leaving 3-4 of the inner layers.  Peel the inner layers back, remove the silk and replace the husks.  Then, soak the corn for 10 minutes or so in lightly salted water.  Reopen the remaining husk, spread some butter on the corn, close the husks and wrap each ear in a couple of layers of aluminum foil.  Place these on the hottest part of the grill, turning occasionally for 15-20 minutes.  For the best flavor, you want to caramelize the sugars in the corn, so don’t be afraid of getting them hot!  

Corn grilling on the wood fire with baked potatoes in the coals.

 

Step 4: Steaks

When the corn has been on the grill for 10 minutes or so, move it to a cooler spot on the grill to free up the hot spot. Wet 2 small sticks of split dry oak (the splinters left over from splitting are perfect for this) and set them on the coals for an extra smoky flavor. Then add your favorite cut of steak. We used rib-eyes seasoned with Penzey’s Chicago Steak Seasoning. Depending upon how hot your coals are, about 5 minutes on each side should get a good steak to a medium temp.  You’ll want to monitor this closely, because wood heat is unpredictable, and you don’t want to burn dinner.

Finishing up our wood-grilled summer feast!

If you’re not a big fan of steaks, we’ve subsequently done boneless pork ribs pretty effectively this way as well, using our favorite dry BBQ rub on the grill. If you’re going to try cooking chicken, leave the corn on the hottest part of the grill and cook your chicken longer in cooler parts of the grill to avoid burning it and ensure that it cooks thoroughly.

 

Dinner Time!

Remove the steaks and corn from the grill, then use tongs or a small shovel to remove the potatoes from the coals. Potatoes should be unwrapped from the foil, cut in half, and scooped out of the skins, which are usually pretty black, but the potato inside is deliciously baked. Also, use caution when removing corn husks, which will be very hot and can scald you – use gloves or wet your hands first with cold water and use a knife to cut off the husks, rather than ripping them off.   

Enjoy!  We liked this meal we did it a couple more times before summer was over. After a really cold, snowy February, I can hardly wait for the snow to melt so we can have it again!

How to Make a Simple Hobo Stove

It's name may not be politically correct, but "thrifty" scouts will appreciate the hobo stove for its economy.  It is made entirely from cast-off materials with simple tools and requires very little fuel to cook simple meals.  It's a time-honored cooking technique used by the homeless, hobos, backpackers and in survival situations.

Hobo stoves can be quite elaborate.  My simple hobo stove can be made by young scouts as a project a scout meeting. 

Materials & Tools

The tools and materials needed are simple:

• A puncture-type can opener (see photo)
• A hammer
• A spike or large nail
• An aluminum 3# coffee can or #10 aluminum can.
• A small scrap of wire mesh or chicken wire
• A vise and a 15-18" 2x4 are helpful as well

 

 Step 1: Create vents at the top and bottom of the hobo stove.

Using the can opener, create several openings around both the closed end and the open end of the can.  These will provide both the necessary oxygen supply at the bottom and a "chimney" at the top to allow smoke to escape.  More openings are better, so take your time.

Making vent holes in the base of the hobo stove.

Step 2: Create vents along the side walls of the hobo stove.

Put your length of 2x4 in the vise with most of the extra length sticking out on one side.  This will be used as a support for your can.  Then using the hammer and nail, create extra vent holes in whatever design you like along the sides of the can.  These provide some additional airflow as well as an opportunity to decorate your stove. 

Using a hammer and nail, punch additional vent holes in the sidewalls
of your hobo stove.

Step 3: Use your wire mesh to create a "grille" for the hobo stove.

Since your cookware will most likely entirely cover the mouth of the can, the grille may not seem as though it is a necessity.  On the other hand, it does provide some separation between the can and cookware and an additional route for smoke to escape.

For a grille, fold your wire mesh, chicken wire, or even an old wire coat hanger into a square-ish shape a little larger than the top of the can.  This simply rests on the top of the can under the cookware.

This photo shows finished stove, grille, and cookware.

Step 4: Fueling the hobo stove.

The fuel for the hobo stove would make scant kindling for your typical cook-fire.  Small twigs, small pieces and/or very small pieces of scrap lumber are all that is needed.  This small pile was more than enough to cook a simple meal, and I ended up burning off the rest just to clean up the mess.

Fuel for the hobo stove consists of small scraps and twigs.

Step 5: Final preparation.

If you've never cooked over an open fire before, fair warning! Your cookware gets very black and the soot can be very hard to remove.  Applying a little dish detergent to the outside of your cooking pan beforehand and spreading it over the entire surface with your fingers will make a huge difference at  clean-up time.

Applying dish detergent to the outside of cookware helps keep soot from
permanently ruining cookware. 

 

Time to cook on your hobo stove!

Kindle a small fire in the can. (I used a single sheet of newspaper as tinder and lit it through one of the vent holes.) 

Once the fire is burning well, it's time to cook!

You can cook almost any simple meal on your hobo stove.  In this example, I'm frying hot dogs and onions in a little margarine.  I've also done baked beans and hot dogs on the hobo stove as well as making boxed rice dishes (such as Rice-a-Roni or Zataran's).  You may need to add fuel from time to time.  Be careful to handle your grille with a mitt or stick.  It can get quite hot!

Hot dogs and onions cooking on a hobo stove.

This is one of those easy and fun projects, like the cardboard box oven, which fascinates scouts for its simplicity and highlights how cooking can be accomplished without fancy, expensive, heavy cooking equipment. 

Pie Iron Pizzas are a Fun Way to Get Kids Involved in Outdoor Cooking

An important component of getting children involved in the outdoor cooking process is making it fun. We learned this one at Cub Scout Day Camp a few years back, and we've found it to be a really fun and easy before dinner snack around the campfire even now that the boys are older.

What You'll Need

The ingredients and tools for this one are simple:

• A pie iron (or one for each kid if you can)
• A tube of ready-made biscuit dough (the smaller variety, not "Grands")
• Ragu Pizza Quick or similar pizza sauce
• Shredded mozzarella
• Your favorite toppings
• A spoon
• Cooking spray

You'll want to have a good fire going for a while before you start, so that you have a decent bed of coals to cook on.  If you can't have a campfire where you are, this works on charcoal briquettes as well.

Step 1. Spray the inside of your pie iron with cooking spray. Open your tube of biscuit dough and flatten 1 of the biscuits, then put it in the pie iron and close.

Step 2. Place your pie iron in the fire on the hot coals. Let cook just a couple of minutes, then turn your pizza crust over to cook the other side.  It's usually best to check for donness frequently, because temps on a wood fire can be pretty hot.  You'll also find that the first pizza takes longer than later ones, so be careful not to burn your second helping.

Step 3.  Add sauce, cheese, and toppings and you're done. Enjoy!

 

Make a Cardboard Box Reflector Oven

There's no surer way to impress Cub Scouts with outdoor cooking than to tell them you're going to bake their favorite treat in a cardboard box.

As outdoor cooking methods go this is more stunt than practical, but it does pique the interest of young Webelos and their parents and is actually quite easy to pull off. We usually make the oven in a den meeting, and cook in it the next week as part of our Outdoorsman activity badge.   Here's how you can make one:

Cardboard Box Oven Tools and Supplies

• One cardboard box - approximately 22" x 15" x 11" 
• Aluminum foil - Have a full roll on hand, although you may not need it all
• A few heavy wire coat hangers
• 1/4" light-duty staples (for a staple gun) separated from each other
• Duct tape
• 2 disposable aluminum pie plates
• A utility knife or heavy scissors (for cutting cardboard)
• A pair of heavy wire cutters or lineman's pliers

Making the Oven
1.       Start by cutting one of the short flaps on the open end of the box down to 2-3 inches.  This will be the top edge of your reflector oven.

The short flap will hold your doors closed.

2.       Cover the inside of the box with layers of foil as follows:

A.     Bend a short piece around the four corners of the side walls, a small amount should also overlap the back wall of the oven.  Secure by pushing staples through the foil by hand at an angle.

B.     Stretch long pieces from the outside of the short (top) flap to the outside of the opposite flap, carefully tucking the foil into the corners so that the entire top, back, and bottom of the oven are covered and about 3" of foil are wrapped around to the outside of the oven.  Be sure to overlap all pieces and leave no cardboard exposed.  Inside, attach by pushing staples though by hand.  Outside, secure the ends with duct tape.

C.      Stretch pieces from the outside of one long flap to the other long flap (side to side) being sure to overlap your pieces.  Tuck carefully into corners and secure with staples inside and duct tape outside.  The entire  inside of the box should now be covered in foil.

There should be no exposed cardboard inside the oven.

3.      Create a baking shelf about 1/3 of the way down from the top by straightening and cutting wire coat hangers into straight pieces and pushing them through the box from left to right.  Use a ruler to ensure that the shelf is the same distance from the top corner on each side and your baking pan is level.   Bend the ends of the wires to hold them in place.

4.      If the wires sag, you can strengthen the shelf by weaving a couple of additional wires from front to back of the oven through the wires installed in step 3.

The baking rack in the carboard box oven is
made with coat hangers.

5.  Place one pie plate upside down at the base of the oven, and the second one right-side up on top of it.  This will hold the charcoal briquettes that are used as a heat source.

The lower pan keeps the extreme heat from the briquettes
away from the flammable cardboard box oven floor.

6.  Close your long side flaps first, and use the shortened top flap to hold them closed.

Exterior of the completed oven.

You have a completed Cardboard Box Reflector Oven!

Baking in the  Cardboard Box Oven

In theory, you should be able to bake just about anything in this oven, with the only constraint being the oven's small size and lightweight construction, which will by no means support a heavy load.  I usually opt for simple items that are easy for the scouts to make, like brownies or cornbread from a pre-packaged mix. 

You may need to experiment with the heat, but usually I find that 4-6 briquettes preheated until they are mostly white are about right for 350 degrees on a New England summer day. Preheat these outside the oven and then place these in the top pie plate and your baked goods on the rack in a disposable foil pan. A small shovel can be used to transfer preheated coals into the oven.