Delicious, nutritious vegan WFPB recipes for teaching kids how to cook at camp!
Need to go car camping with a vegetarian or vegan, and you are neither? Don’t worry – vegan WFPB scouter here to help! For my Wood Badge ticket, I expanded the veg-friendly pack camping recipes we had to a whole cookbook. These recipes aren’t just vegan-friendly, they are already balanced (or easy to make so) and formatted to call out key camp cooking from scratch elements to learn to meet Cub Scout adventure requirements! And once my scout joined Girl Scouts, I realized that my cookbook easily covers both Camper and Simple Meals requirements in part because it’s real cooking. Check the adventure icons at the top of the recipe to see what that dish can help the scouts earn in Cub Scouts.
These recipes (ok, maybe not hot dogs, but everything else) require the scouts to start from whole foods in your kitchen – no factory pancake mix or cake mix for the cobbler. In cooking for real, they will be all the better positioned for the Cooking merit badge when they cross over or can squarely earn the Simple Meals badge! I’ve seen Webelos (year 1 Juniors) cook for themselves an entire den campout – they can do it! And when they do, they are rightfully very proud of themselves.
There are also allergen markers at the bottom of the pages. While many of these recipes do contain gluten, some do not. These recipes also address people with egg and fish allergies as well as those who are loosely keeping kosher or halal. (No meat or dairy, no problem!)
In order to make the cookbook a one-stop shop for planning the food at campouts, I also made a page with the USDA plate model for omnivores and the Simple Happy Kitchen plate model for vegans, so even if you don’t know the first thing about eating a balanced vegan diet now you can grab this to help plan balanced vegan campout meals!
Each recipe also has a companion shopping list math aid – Webelos and Arrows of Light have not typically practiced scaling recipes in math class yet, but can be walked through how to do it so they know how much food the whole pack needs.
I also typed up a bigger version of a Dutch oven charcoal-to-temperature chart my den leader extraordinaire friend Amanda had, and summarized how to use a storm kitchen.
Trangia‘s storm kitchens have dominated the camp stove market in Sweden for many decades for the simple reason that they are rugged, they’re good in a rainstorm (which we always have to plan for), and their fuel is sold in every gas station for cheap. The original fuel ethanol isn’t as easy to buy in the US, but you can order it from REI, and these days one can get burners for many different kinds of fuel. They can take a beating and still keep cooking, and the flame is protected all the time. Simply put, they are reliable when you’re far from civilization, so I’ll be sticking with the tried and true stove I grew up with.
Vegan-Friendly WFPB Cub Scout Cookbook File Downloads
Add the optional vanilla! It's amazing!
Cub Scout favorite - "this tastes like funnel cake" heard at a campout!
Sticks to your ribs and warms you up on a cold morning.
Contains meat and eggs - but co-cooks well with Woodbadge Dave's Breakfast Tacos to serve a mixed omni-veg crowd.
Breakfast tacos from South Texas!
Quick no-cook breakfast for get out of camp quick days! Buy dairy and plant yoghurt as needed for a mixed crowd.
Bake at home and bring to camp.
No-cook balanced lunch, fast and in hot locales cool. Lentil Red Pepper Spread and Savory Tofu Dip also needed for this lunch.
For the sandwiches - even omnivores ask for this recipe! Make at home and bring to camp.
Delicious, protein-rich vegetable dip! Make at home and bring to camp.
Broccolini isn't the thriftiest buy, no, but it generates very little food waste at camp.
DIY parmesan sprinkle.
Make the filling at home and bring to camp.
Pasta with sausage and Feta. Crowd favorite in our pack for both kids and adults - many have been surprised that it was vegan!
Every Cub Scout should be able to make a good hot dog stick. Perfect for AOL Knife Safety useful item requirement!
Bannock sticks need the bark peeled where the bread is going to go to help the finished roll come off the stick. Also great for AOL Knife Safety useful item requirement!
Everyone loves ramen, and here's a quick, nutritious, and balanced recipe!
Also known as hobo dinners. Camping classic.
Two-pot meal, but curry over rice is comforting on a cold night.
One-pot hearty recipe for a storm kitchen.
Hearty one-pot meal that scales well! From Fresh off the Grid.
Shelf-stable vegan bouillon powder!
Veganized version of an arctic cuisine classic from the Sami. Uses the mushroom roast below. Meat in cream sauce is always delicious, and the folks who have tasted this are always excited when it's on the menu! Hard to scale, though, so best cooked as a single batch for a smaller group or in addition to a dish to feed most of the pack.
Classic European food flavors! Make it ahead and freeze it, then it's ready to chafe whenever it's reindeer time. Needs the stock below.
When you make your own meat, you can flavor it from the inside, for example with this delicious and rich broth! Freezes well.
Serves 18! Speed tip: A giant can of peaches from Costco covers the entire recipe. "Best cobbler I've ever had" was heard from an adult, after the Webelos challenged a commissioner to a cobbler bake-off. The Webelos won!
Cake at camp feels so luxurious! However, due to the cost of a pack's worth of oranges and the coal space needed for that, best made for a den or patrol.
Classic sweet treat recipe from Scouterna, Swedish scouts. Generations of Swedish scouts learned to make this over an open fire!
Coordinating Shopping List Planning Sheets for Scout-Led Meal Planning
You know how to scale a recipe (for 60), make a shopping list, price compare, and stick to a budget. But do your scouts? Let them step into owning their campout food planning and cooking. These sheets are set up to help them figure out how many times over they need to make the dish they chose (if you use my complete campout meeting planner), whether they need to add something to a particular meal to make it balanced, and figure out what the budget for the shopping trip is.
[…] Pack 601 Recipe Book […]