Tips for keeping food fresh when camping

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Katy Holder shares tips for keeping your food fresh — and delicious — when camping.

1 Smoked fish is ideal for salads and sandwiches. It has quite a strong flavour so you don't need that much of it. Smoked trout or mackerel is delicious in a noodle salad with pickled ginger. Smoked chicken will also keep longer than fresh chicken.

2 Most fresh vegetables will keep for several days, as long as they don't get squashed — carrots, cucumbers and corn cobs are pretty tough. Alternatively, take tins of beans or corn kernels instead.

3 Buy your meat from your butcher and ask them to vacuum-pack it. Vacuum-packed meat lasts three to four days longer than non-vacuum-packed meat.

Another great idea is to freeze your meat before you go. This has a double effect of, firstly acting like an ice pack and keeping other things cold, but also the meat will defrost during the first day and then should still last another two days.

4 Limit waste by planning exactly what you're going to cook before you leave, and how many people you have to serve. Keeping your meals simple will mean you are far more likely to use all the ingredients you buy. Having lots of different ingredients to chop and cook could quickly become frustrating in the limits of your campground, so you may well end up not using some ingredients.

5 If buying prepackaged meat, remove only what you need for your trip and freeze the rest at home for another meal. If you're going with other friends or families, plan your meals so you cook together. We often allocate each family one meal to shop and cook for.

Katy Holder, author of the Hungry Campers Cookbook, blogs about food at katyholder.com