Easy Campfire Dutch Oven Beef Stew

We love cooking in our Dutch Oven, especially when we are camping! There is nothing better on a cool mountain night at the campsite than some good hearty, easy campfire dutch oven beef stew.

It’s an easy, one pot camping meal that can make a great dinner when you are enjoying the outdoors.

When we make this, we usually do all the prep at home and take it with us so the meat has a chance to marinade and the hard work is done ahead of time (even though it’s not that hard).

For this recipe, you will want to have a fire going long enough to make a bed of coals. We also made a tripod for our dutch oven but you can get one here. It helps to use it when cooking with the Dutch Oven but you can also use it for hanging lanterns, waterjugs, or pretty much whatever you want to hang from it.

Ingredients:

• 2-3 lbs of precut stew meat or boneless beef chuck cut into peices
• Montreal steak seasoning (enough to coat the meat)
• 7-10 red potatoes, cubed
• 4-5 stalks of celery cut into 1 inch peices
• 1 (16 oz) bag of carrots (chopped) or 3-4 large carrots chopped
• 1 onion
• 2 cans of beef broth
• 4-6 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tsp rosemary
• 1 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp parsley
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 (6 oz) can tomato paste

For the stew meat, we used precut stew meat which comes from random trimmings but if you don’t mind cutting your own we recommend getting chuck roast or chuck steak (it will have a better consistency). For vegetables, we use red potatoes, celery, onion, and carrots.

To prep at home, I make sure my Dutch Oven is clean and then I go ahead and grease it with oil. I also take the stew meat and put it in a ziplock bag, then add Montreal Steak seasoning to it and put it in the fridge until we leave.

I will cube my potatoes, slice my celery and chop the carrots and onions. I put the potatoes in a ziplock bag by themselves and the other veggies together and refrigerate them too.

If you decide not to prep at home, just make sure you bring everything you’ll need with you like a cutting mat and a good knife. We like flexible cutting mats because it makes it easier to scrape the food into the pot.

*Tip- you can add bacon to your meat (in cut up peices) to add some flavor. You can also use whatever veggies you prefer!

How to Make Campfire Dutch Oven Beef Stew

Step 1- Get your campfire ready by making sure its hot and you have coals.

Step 2- Veggie Prep, unless you have already completed this step at home.

Step 3- Prep the meat, we recommend this step at home so the seasonings have time to soak in. It tastes so much better this way!

Step 4- Heat the dutch oven. (to heat up the oil we put on it in prep)

Step 5- We added around 1 1/2 cups of water to the oven, then we add the broth. Once the broth is added, we put the potatoes with the garlic and seasoning in the oven and let them cook until they are slightly tender.

Step 6- Next, add the veggies and let them cook for 5 minutes or so, and add the tomato paste

Step 7- Then add the meat and let it cook until it gets to the desired doneness. (we let ours go for another 5-10 minutes with it raised up higher on the tripod)

*Remember the fire is not predictable so it will be hard to say for sure how long it needs to cook, we just check things as it goes.