Kielbasa & Potato Foil Packets

Grilled kielbasa, potatoes, and onions all tossed together in a honey mustard sauce and grilled to perfection! This foil packet recipe is such a satisfying camping meal and it is an absolute cinch to make!

We love making foil packet meals when camping! They’re simple to assemble, can be cooked over a campfire or grill, and best of all – there’s no cookware or dishes to clean up! So simple!

If you’ve never made a foil package before, this kielbasa and potato recipe is a perfect place to start. First off, the flavor combination is amazing. The sausage, potatoes, and onions all get mixed together with sauce of honey, spicy mustard, garlic powder, paprika, and a touch of apple cider vinegar. Then everything gets loaded up into the foil packet with a few slices of butter.

Once over the fire, the combination of direct heat and trapped steam gives you the best of both worlds. The steam cooks the potatoes quickly and keeps everything moist, but the direct heat from the fire allows you get some browning on the potatoes and kielbasa.

After is comes off the fire, we topped topped it with some diced parsley and little extra mustard for dipping. It could easily be served with a side of sauerkraut or coleslaw.

What to make this meal on your next camping trip? Let’s dive in and show everything you need to know to make it happen!

Benefits of Foil Packets:

• No dishes to clean afterwards!
• If using parchment paper, the foil will remain clean and can be reused multiple times over the course of a single camping trip. And then it can be easily recycled.
• Can be cooked over campfire, charcoals, or propane grill
• The combination of direct heat and steaming cooks food really quickly!
• The trapped steams keeps everything moist! Never a dry meal.
• Don’t have to wait for campfire to burn down to embers.
• Don’t have to worry about smoke or flare ups
• So easy to personalize to individual taste.
• Require minimal active attention

Ingredient Notes

Kielbasa sausage: This widely available Polish style sausage. It is typically smoked and comes “pre-cooked”, so all you really need to do it heat it up. This is also nice because it reduces the concern about undercooked meat.

Baby potatoes: We used baby yellow and red potatoes, but any waxy potato will work. You want to cut them to no larger than 1”x1”. Big enough for a fork, but not so big that they take forever to cook.

Onion: We used a coarsely chopped yellow onion. Try to keep the layers together and really thin slivers tend to get a little extra crispy.

Spices: We wanted to keep it simple, but garlic powder and paprika is a power duo that is too good to omit.

Sauce: Spicy mustard (like Gulden’s), honey, and apple cider vinegar.

Parsley: Great for topping. Could also sub out for chopped scallions.

Essential equipment for foil packets

Aluminum Foil: Use Heavy Duty aluminum foil for these foil packets. It’s easy to work with, holds up to the heat of the fire, and doesn’t shred when handled with gloves or tongs.

Parchment Paper: If you want to avoid cooking directly on aluminum over high heat, line the inside of the foil packet with parchment paper. Everything cooks the same, just without direct contact with the aluminum. It also keeps the foil clean, so it can be more easily reused or recycled.

Heat Resistant Gloves: These heat resistant gloves make working around a campfire or backyard grill so much easier.

How to make kielbasa and potato foil packets

At home, mix the mustard, honey, and apple cider vingar together and store in in a small container to bring with you to camp.

In camp, the first step is to make sure you have a fire and/or coals going (or set up your propane grill). The point is this meal comes together super quick, so you don’t want to be waiting around for your heat source to be coming up to temp.

Roll out 4 x 18” inches of aluminum foil. Then roll out 4 x 16” inches of parchment. You want the parchment paper to be a little smaller than the foil.

Assemble your ingredients in the center of the parchment paper. Start with the sliced kielbasa, potato pieces, and sliced onion. Sprinkle with the salt, garlic powder, and paprika. Divide the sauce between the packets and top each one with a tablespoon of butter.

To seal the packets, bring the two short edges of the aluminum foil together and fold together to form a seam. Then roll the ends in towards the middle, so you have two seams on the edges with a long one running down the side.

Place this packet over your fire pit grate or grill. We find that placing the packets on a grate over the coals allows us more control of the heat and keeps everything clean. If your fire has died down a lot, you can also try placing the packets directly on to the embers.

Cook for 10 minutes, and then flip and cook for another 8-10 minutes. Take them off the heat and let the packets cool down for a minute.

If you’re delicate about how you open the foil, you can easily shape it into a bowl to eat out of.

Sprinkle chopped parsley over the top and serve with some extra mustard and sauerkraut on the side if you’d like!

Tips and tricks

Even if your baby potaoes are already small, make sure you cut them down to 1” pieces so they will cook through.

Line your packets with parchment paper if you don’t want to cook directly in the aluminum.

Make sure you get a good seal around the edges of your foil packet to keep the sauce in. When grilling, start with the seam side down and then flip halfway it so the seams are facing up.

These foil packets can be cooked on a grill, on a campfire grate, or in the oven (at about 400F)!