The Best Camping Cookware for Making Delicious Meals in the Outdoors

Best Camping Skillets 

In our opinion, a full-size skillet is an indispensable piece of camp cookware. Cast iron, stainless steel, and non-stick hard anodized aluminum are all great materials. When it comes to selecting a size, our thinking has always been: You can cook a small amount of food in a large skillet, but you can’t cook a large amount of food in a small skillet. 

Best Cast Iron Skillet: Lodge Cast Iron Skillet

We are big fans of cast iron’s versatility. It works great over a stove or campfire, is naturally non-stick, is easy to clean, and has great heat retention. Lodge makes high-quality and very affordable cast iron. We use a 10″ or 12″ skillet nearly every time we camp.

Best Non-Stick Skillets: GSI Outdoors Bugaboo Frypans

There are some occasions when a non-stick skillet is a must: omelets, scrambled eggs, pancakes, and delicate foods like fish. GSI’s Bugaboo fry pans are the best non-stick camping pans we’ve tried. Additionally, their handles fold in, making it easier to pack away. We’d recommend a 10” or 12″ skillet for most people, although we love the square frypan, too—the design makes it so you can fry four pieces of French toast or pancakes at a time!

Best Camping Pots 

Boiling pasta, steaming rice, simmering soups, whipping up a one-pot meal—there are a lot of uses for a camping pot! If you have a two-burner stove, a skillet and pot combo can get a lot done at the same time.

Best All-Around Camping Pot: Sea to Summit Sigma Pot

The Sigma Pot is a super durable stainless steel pot with a pivoting handle that makes it more packable. We like that the black powder coating on the base helps with heat distribution while also giving it a little texture so it doesn’t slide around on our stove.

Best Space-Saving Camping Pot: GSI Escape HS Pot

This clever pot is designed to collapse down into itself, creating a space-saving pot. When expanded, it’s very sturdy, and the anodized base helps radiate heat, making it so you can cook faster and more fuel-efficient. The biggest downside to this pot is that while the silicone material is very heat resistant and safe to use on a camp stove, you won’t be able to use this pot over a campfire.

Best Crossover for Camping and Backpacking: Sea to Summit Alpha Series

If you’re looking for just one pot that you can use for both car camping and backpacking, take a look at Sea to Summit’s Alpha Pots. These hard-anodized aluminum pots are very lightweight (the 1.2L pot is only 6.6oz) so you’ll barely notice it in your pack. However, one of the reasons these pots are so light is that they are on the thin side. This is typical of backpacking cookware, but you’ll want to keep a closer watch on this pot over a camping stove so make sure your food doesn’t scorch.

Best Camping Dutch Oven 

A camping Dutch oven is one of the most versatile pieces of camp cooking equipment you can own. Sauté, steam, boil, fry, and bake – if you can imagine it, you can probably make it in a Dutch oven. Learn more about cooking with a Dutch oven.

Best Dutch Oven: Lodge Camping Dutch Oven 

There are lots of camping Dutch ovens out there, but we have found the Lodge model to be our favorite. It’s also the most affordable! We own a 10” 4-quart Dutch oven and find it ideal for up to 4 people. If you are cooking for 4-6 people, we would recommend the 12”, 6-quart oven. 

Pro Tip: Despite having attached legs, this Dutch oven often fits on a camp stove just fine. This allows your Dutch oven to double as a stovetop pot or skillet. We’ve owned several camp stoves over the years, and our Dutch oven has worked with all of them. 

Best Camping Cookware Sets

While you could piece together your cookware, the benefit of buying a complete camping cook set is that they are designed so that everything nests together to save space in your storage boxes.

Best All-in-One Camp Cook Set: GSI Outdoors Pinnacle Camper Cookset

The Pinnacle Camper Cookset is a great one-and-done solution. It comes with two pots (2L and 3L), a 9” fry pan, plates & cups for four, and it all nests into a basin that can also be used as a sink. The pots and pan are non-stick, making cleanup a lot easier, too. This is a great set for families or if you frequently camp with a small group of friends.

If you don’t need the plates and cups, you can pick up a set with just the pots and frying pan and save a bit of money.

Best Stainless Steel Camping Pots and Pan: Stanley Even-Heat Camp Pro Cookset

This set from Stanley features three-ply stainless steel construction, making it function the most like the pots and pans you’d find in your home kitchen. As the name suggests, this design helps it retain and distribute heat evenly so you’re less likely to have hotspots or scorch your food as you might with thinner camp cookware. The pieces all nest together for space efficiency—we use these in our campervan for this reason! Our biggest gripe with this set is that the frying pan is only 8.5”, which is fine for small meals for two but likely undersized for families or groups.

Best Camping Griddle 

Using a griddle when camping can be a great way to expand your cook surface, allowing you to make larger batches of pancakes, bacon, hamburgers, etc.

Best Propane Griddle: Blackstone 22″

The Blackstone Adventure Ready Griddle has been our favorite upgrade to our camp kitchen. Using a green camping propane canister, the surface heats evenly, and once it’s seasoned, it’s pretty non-stick. You can make all kinds of meals on a Blackstone and the large surface means you can make an entire meal without being limited to small skillets.

Best Campfire Griddle: Lodge Cast Iron Griddle  

This reversible griddle/grill from Lodge is great for cooking over a campfire. While griddles can work over a 2-burner camp stove, we vastly prefer to use a griddle over a campfire. The broad heat profile ensures the whole griddle is evenly heated. This cast iron griddle will work on either heat source!

Best Camping Kettle

While not as necessary as a pot, a camping kettle can be a nice addition to your cookware kit—particularly if you drink coffee and tea. We also find a kettle full of warm water very helpful when washing dishes at the end of the night.

Best All-Around Kettle: GSI Glacier Kettle

We have used this kettle for years. It is very durable, can be used over a camp stove or a campfire, and has a smooth pour.

Best Space-Saving Kettle: Sea to Summit Detour Kettle

If you’d like to have a small kettle for boiling water in the morning, but can’t justify the space, check out the Detour Kettle. This silicone kettle collapses down to a disc that’s less than 2½” so it will fit just about anywhere in your camp kitchen box. 

Camping Cookware Extras 

We’ve covered many of the camp cooking essentials above. But what about all the fun camp cooking extras?

Rome Pie Iron

Want to make decadent triple-decker grilled cheeses, delicious hand pies, and homemade pizza hot pockets? These are just some of the amazing pie iron recipes you can make using one of these!

Lodge Cook-it-All

A combination of a Dutch oven, griddle, skillet, and wok, the Lodge Cook-It-All is incredibly versatile. It’s also really big. So if you have a large group and enjoy cooking over a campfire, this is a potential all-in-in cookware option.

Omnia Oven

The Omnia Stove Top Oven has been one of the best “upgrades” we have made to our camp kitchen setup. Unlike a Dutch oven, which requires wood embers or charcoal to bake with, the Omnia oven only needs a burner from your camp stove! The ability to quickly and easily bake cinnamon rolls, fresh bread, or a tray of nachos has significantly expanded our camp cooking abilities.