The Best Campfire Meal I’ve Ever Made…and It Was Super Easy

I’ve been camping my entire life…and by camping, I mean an air conditioned trailer with plenty of indoor entertainment options when it’s too hot to be outside, and a fire! If you have a fire, it’s camping, I don’t care what you say. Don’t rain on my parade. Anyway…that’s not why you’re here.

Over the weekend, I went camping with my family, my brother’s family and my mom and aunt. We all split the meal cooking duties, and my responsibility was the Saturday dinner. I choose to do sous-vide chuck roast with a finish sear on the camp fire.

Let me tell you friend…it was one of the best outdoor meals I’ve EVER HAD.

If you aren’t familiar with sous-vide, it’s sounds fancy, but it is really just a super easy, lazy way to get perfect results every time when cooking protein. Sous-vide cooking is like giving your food a warm and cozy bath. You put the food in a vacuum-sealed bag and let it cook slowly in water set at the same temperature you want your internal meat to be. Want a steak medium rare? You set the water to 135 degrees. As long as you have a vacuum sealer and an immersion circulator (the special piece of equipment that heats and circulates the water), you’re good to go!

I choose chuck roasts for two reasons. Number one…it’s a pretty cheap piece of meat! Two…it’s rather tough when cooked normally, but when cooked low and slow, it gives fantastic results!

Here’s another beautiful thing about sous-vide cooking…it’s very schedule flexible! Once the meet reaches the temperature you desire, it can stay in the bath for quite a long time because well, it can’t overcook! It can never get warmer than the water temperature you set!

I actually cooked the meat for 24 hours from Wednesday night to Thursday night. I put the kids to bed on Thursday, went down to the garage, took the bags of perfectly cooked chuck roasts out of their warm bath and directly in some ice to cool it down, then put it in the fridge! Then just packed it into the cooler with ice and took it out to the campsite where it remained under ice until dinner on Saturday.

My brother made some campfire corn, my mom made some campfire baked potatoes, and when it was time to eat, I put some butter on the screaming-hot griddle, and tossed the dried-off meat on there to sear for about a minute per side.

I’ve never actually tried searing meat after cooking it several days earlier, but man…it came out with an awesome crust and a perfect medium-rare on the inside.

Nailed it!

I actually did a video during the pandemic when I sous-vided some Foxfire ribeyes. It’s honestly the best way to cook steaks, in my opinion!

Since it’s National Steakhouse Month, Foxfire is actually selling these steak kits again if you want to give it a try!