Camp Kitchen Setup: Keeping Food Cold, Organised and Contained

01Where the Kitchen Goes

You decide placement in the first ten minutes at a site and live with it for three days, so give it thirty seconds of thought before the stove goes wherever the table happens to be.

Three rules cover it. Keep the kitchen downwind of the tent, so cooking smells drift away from where you sleep. Keep it clear of the route between the tent and the fire, because a stove at ankle height in a walking lane is the most predictable accident at any campsite. And put it on a stable surface at a workable height, since crouching over a stove for three days is how a good trip turns into a bad back.

Height is the part people compromise on and regret. A proper surface lets you work standing up, keeps food off the dirt and gives a hot pan somewhere to go that isn't the grass. Our camp chairs, tables and outdoor furniture range covers it, and it beats borrowing the picnic table that turns out to be six metres from where you're cooking. If you plan to put a stove on a folding table, read our roll-up camping table guide first, because a steel top isn't automatically heatproof.

02Keeping Things Cold

Insulation slows heat getting in. It doesn't make cold. So everything that keeps a cooler cold comes down to starting colder, letting in less warmth and leaving no empty space for warm air to fill.

Chill the cooler itself before loading, since a warm one spends its first hours absorbing heat from its own walls. Put food in already cold and freeze what you can, because frozen items act as ice and thaw into meals later. Pack it full, filling gaps rather than leaving air. Load in the order you'll eat, so the first meals sit on top and the lid stays shut. Keep it in shade, off hot ground. Direct sun and warm ground are the two biggest heat sources at a site.

Two compartments help, because the things you reach for constantly and the things you want coldest are rarely the same. A 20–30L Dual-Compartment Insulated Cooler Backpack lets you keep drinks and snacks in the section that gets opened twenty times a day and the actual meals in the one that stays shut. That does more for temperature than extra ice.

If you're unsure whether something stayed cold enough, don't eat it. It's an unsatisfying rule and the correct one, and it's the reason to plan the most perishable meal for the first night rather than the last. Our guide to camp food safety explains the temperatures behind it and how to plan a menu around them.

03Fewer Items, Better Used

Gear piles up fastest in the kitchen and gets used least. Each extra item is something to wash, dry, lose in the dark and carry a smell at the end of the day.

Work backwards from the meals. Decide what you're cooking, then bring only what those meals need. Two pots and a pan cover almost any three-day menu, and our camp stove and cookware guide helps you choose the stove and pots. One multi-purpose utensil per person beats a full cutlery set, and something like the PSKOOK 4-in-1 Stainless Steel Camping Spork handles eating and opening things in one piece that clips on instead of sinking to the bottom of a box.

Do the prep at home where you can. Chopping vegetables with running water and a bin is faster and leaves no food waste on site. Marinating, portioning and pre-mixing dry ingredients can turn a forty-minute camp meal into fifteen minutes, which matters far more in October than in July. Settle the morning coffee too before you arrive, not at half past six in the cold. Our comparison of camp coffee brewing methods sorts the options by how much fuss each one involves, and our picks for the best camping coffee maker list what each product page states and leaves out.

04What Counts as an Attractant

Most camp kitchen advice stops at "put your food away". The Canadian guidance is broader.

Parks Canada notes that leaving food out attracts wildlife, and that animals are also drawn to non-food items that smell like food: garbage, dishes, pots, coolers and even toiletries. In the backcountry all food and garbage must be packed out. The list is the useful part. It isn't only the food that draws animals in. It's the unwashed pan, the bag the rubbish is in, the cooler that held food all weekend and the toothpaste in your wash kit.

So securing the food isn't enough by itself. Everything on that list has to go away at the same time, to the same place: usually a locked vehicle at a drive-in site, or whatever storage the campground provides. In bear country the rules are stricter, and our guide to bear safety for campers and hikers covers what Canadian parks recommend. Pet food counts too, which our guide to camping with a dog explains, and if you keep a catch, our guide to fishing from camp covers keeping fish and fish waste away from your site.

05The Nightly Routine

The habit that separates a clean site from a visited one is finishing the clean-up before dark instead of leaving it for morning. It takes fifteen minutes, and it's the last thing anyone wants to do, which is why it works better as a fixed routine than a decision.

• Wash and dry every pot, pan and utensil before dark
• Strain food scraps out of the washing-up water and bag them
• Scatter greywater well away from the site and any water
• Bag the rubbish and store it with the food, not by the tent
• Put toiletries away with the food, not in the tent
• Wipe the table and check the ground for dropped scraps

Washing up takes more water than people plan for, and where the taps are shut off for the season it takes water you carried in. Count it into your supply instead of finding the shortfall on the second evening. Our hydration and water filtration range covers carrying and treating it, and if you plan to treat water from a stream, our guide to water filter straws explains what a portable filter can and can't remove.

06Frequently Asked Questions