Easy Campfire Dutch Oven Chili Recipe

If you know anything about us, you know we love two things…camping and eating. While breakfast is still our favorite meal, this Campfire Dutch Oven Chili comes in a close second.

Chili can make the perfect comfort food for those cold camping trips in the fall or winter. We recently went camping in one of our favorite fall spots (Black Rock Mountain), and since we made our favorite fall camping meal, we decided to share our delicious and easy chili recipe with you.

One of the first ingredients you will need for your Dutch Oven Chili is an open fire. You will want a good fire, one with a bed of hot coals.

You can either use the campfire grate or a tripod to put your chili over the heat. We use both. For this trip, the campsite had a fire ring with an adjustable grate, so that is what we used, but like in our beef stew recipe, we have used our tripod, and it works great.

Ingredients

To make this easy Dutch Oven Campfire Chili, you will need some ingredients:

• 1 or 2 lbs of meat (we use ground turkey). The more meat you use, the thicker it will be
• potatoes (we use red potatoes)
• 28 oz of crushed tomatoes
• 15 oz of fire roasted diced tomatoes
• 2 cans of beans (black, kidney, chili, whatever beans you like)
• 1 diced onion
• chili seasoning (we use the packet to make it easier, but feel free to use your own)
• Fritos, sliced cheese, and sour cream (for serving…we like to use Fritos instead of saltines, and we enjoy cheese and sour cream in our chili)

How We Make It

If you want to, you can prep some of your ingredients before you go camping. The trip before last, I went ahead and cooked the ground turkey and onion. This just makes it easier when you get to the campsite to prepare your chili.

If you choose not to prep, you can cook the ground meat and onion together in the Dutch Oven or on a skillet. We have done it all 3 ways.

You can cook your potatoes ahead of time, but we find it easier to cook them over the fire with some water first. This is our first step.

We will boil them until they are just getting soft enough for a fork to go through them. We then take them off and drain the water. After this step, you can cook your meat and onion if you are using the Dutch Oven to do this step.

After the potatoes, meat, and onion are prepared, you will want to add all the other ingredients to the Dutch Oven and then put it over the fire.

Tip: We add a little water to ours to thin it out just a bit. This is a personal preference, and you can do the same depending on how thick you like yours.

We like to let ours cook slowly, so we keep it up off the fire just enough to where it gets low heat. You will want to stir it and check it often while it’s cooking to make sure it doesn’t get too hot and that the chili isn’t sticking to the bottom of the Dutch Oven.

We let ours simmer for about 20-30 minutes and then take it off the fire for a few minutes before we enjoy!

Alternative Ingredients

The great thing about chili is you can make it however you want to. I shared how we make ours, which is super simple and easy for camping, but you could bring other ingredients to add in and enjoy.

• Bell Peppers
• Chili Powder (to make it spicier)
• Cumin
• Garlic
• Broth (instead of water)
• Diced Green Chilis
• Saltines (we use Fritos)

DIY Chili Spice Packet

You can make your own chili spice pack if you want to. We usually just grab a spice pack from the store because, let’s face it…it’s just easier, and when you are camping, you want to keep it simple. But if you want to make your own, add the following:

• 1 tbsp Chili Powder
• 1 tsp Cumin
• 1/4 Cayenne Pepper
• 1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
• 1/2 tsp Onion Powder
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1/2 tsp Pepper

Mix it all together, put it in a ziplock bag and there is your DIY spice packet. (You can keep the spices mixed like this for up to 6 months. You can use a ziplock or a sealed container.)

Dutch Oven Tips

Make sure your Dutch Oven is seasoned. If you don’t know how to do this, you can see this video. We like to grease ours each time before we use it. I would recommend this. Also, when you are handling it, use a heavy-duty oven mit or fire glove because it will get hot!

We recommend cooking with a tripod or a stand if your campfire doesn’t have a cooking grate. This will help keep your chili from burning.

If you enjoyed this chili recipe, you need to see our Dutch Oven Beef Stew and Hobo Eggs to feed your hungry campers!

We also want to share our Fall Camping Tips to make sure you have a great trip in the great outdoors this time of year!!