Mexican-Inspired Camping Meals for Your Next Outdoor Adventure

Mexican cuisine is among the most marvelously varied, multifaceted—and, in a word, beloved—gastronomy in the world. Traditional Mexican cookery, founded on thousands of years of indigenous culinary practices and notably inflected by Spanish ingredients and techniques among other global influences, has been declared an official UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage. From the legendary dishes of Oaxaca (often featuring that sublime sauce called mole) to the Tex-Mex cooking of the borderlands, there’s truly an entire culinary universe to explore within this country that’s also known for its biological “mega-diversity.”

Its tremendous variety and zesty flavors mean Mexican cuisine is as crowd-pleasing as they come, and, needless to say, strong cravings for those flavors often strike us on a camping or backpacking trip. How can you treat yourself to Mexican camping food?

Well, you’ve come to the right place: In this article, we’ve rounded up (count ‘em) 10 Mexican camping food ideas—including a very exciting Mountain House debut we know you’re going to fall in love with: our brand-new Cheesy Beef Enchilada Bowl!

Why Mexican Food is Great for a Camping Trip

There are many flavorful Mexican dishes whose easy preparation and versatility lend themselves to roughing it (to whatever degree) in the great outdoors. A number of staple ingredients, from tortillas and beans to peppers and spices, travel well, and many provide excellent hits of protein and energy. And Mexican camping meals can be whipped up through a range of cooking methods, from stovetop to Dutch oven to campfire grill.

If you do a little prep work ahead of your camping trip—pre-chopping veggies, marinating meats, mixing ready-to-use spice blends—it’s even simpler to get your Mexican-food fix at the campsite!

10 Mexican-Inspired Camping Food Ideas

Get ready—here are 10 mouthwatering Mexican camping meals you’ll want to make on every trip! Consider this another addition to our Mountain House library of easy (and lip-smacking) camp recipes, complementing such articles as “Easy & Tasty Camping Food Recipes Anyone Can Make” and the downright massive “49 Quick & Tasty Camping Food Ideas.”

1. The New Cheesy Beef Enchilada Bowl by Mountain House

At Mountain House, we’re always testing out fresh recipe ideas and soliciting suggestions from our loyal customers, and few things are as exciting for us as debuting new products. And among the newest (along with our take on pizza, which we recently highlighted) is our Cheesy Beef Enchilada Bowl, which gives you the toothsome flavors of a traditional enchilada with zero prep, thanks to the magic of freeze-drying: Just add hot water and wait 15 minutes!

We make our Cheesy Beef Enchilada Bowl with fresh corn tortillas as well as ground beef, melted cheese, long-grain rice, and black beans, all smothered in a bold red enchilada sauce that’s smoky, spicy, and utterly delicious. No, it doesn’t look exactly like a traditional enchilada, rolled up in a tortilla and slathered in sauce, but it incorporates the real ingredients and delivers the genuine flavors with no hassle and minimal time—and that’s the whole point! If you ask us, this is Mexican camping food of the tastiest, most convenient kind, and we can’t wait for you to give it a taste.

2. Breakfast and Regular Burritos

Few things get you going for—or hit the spot so well after—a day burning through switchbacks or paddle-boarding till you drop as a burrito. You can pull together a killer breakfast burrito with nothing more than tortillas, eggs, chorizo, and cheese—or take it up a notch with sautéed onions and peppers. An even easier option? Use a Mountain House Breakfast Skillet pouch. Just heat it up according to the pouch directions, then wrap it in a tortilla for a quick, no-fuss breakfast burrito that’s delicious and ready in minutes.

For lunch or dinner, swap in proteins like grilled chicken, beef, or even tofu, and bulk it up with beans, rice, and your favorite veggies for a hearty, satisfying meal. 

If you have access to a cooler or fridge, you can even prep burritos ahead of time and wrap them in foil for a quick, easy heat-and-eat meal over the campfire.

3. Chilaquiles

Chilaquiles are a Mexican breakfast preparation that often uses leftover tortillas, which are simmered in salsa or sauce and served with any number of garnishes. You can make a no-sweat campsite version using tortilla chips, softening them in salsa and mixing them with eggs and cheese as a one-pan wonder. Finish it off with toppings such as avocado, sour cream, and jalapeños.

4. Foil-Packet Fajitas

Bring pre-marinated meat and/or veggies, wrap them in tin foil, and cook the packet on the grill or right on your campfire coals. When you open that packet and the smoky fajita sizzle hits the air, you'll know you did it right. Serve with warm tortillas, guacamole, and salsa——not much could be better!

5. Dutch Oven Enchilada Casserole

A Dutch oven is your best friend at the campsite, especially when it’s churning out an enchilada-style casserole! Layer up tortillas, cheese, beans, and sauce to your heart’s desire, and use those top-and-bottom campfire coals to get everything nice and melty. Spice up this Dutch oven enchilada casserole for camping as much or as little as you want to appeal to different tastes.

6. Campfire Nachos

Campfire nachos are almost as easy as a Mountain House Enchilada Bowl (almost): Stack your tortilla chips, cheese, beans, proteins, and jalapeño peppers in a foil packet, and get it all melty and gooey over the coals (or on a grill). Presto: the perfect shareable appetizer—or, if it’s dressed up enough, an all-out meal!

7. Street-Style Elote (Grilled Mexican Corn)

Coating grilled corn (elote) with mayo, cheese, lime, and chili powder gives you an absolutely to-die-for side for campsite dining. And, in fact, you don’t need to grill the corn; boiling or roasting in foil are also perfectly acceptable.

8. Chorizo and Black-Bean Tacos

Cook up some chorizo sausage with black beans to produce the perfect taco filling, then top it off with onions, cilantro, and a splash of hot sauce. To make it vegetarian-friendly, skip the sausage and use peppers, avocados, carrots, tomatoes, or the like. 

Of course, you can mix and match proteins and fillings to create any kind of taco your campfire cravings call for.

9. Carne Asada With Grilled Veggies

Pre-marinate some steak, then grill it over the campfire for a smoky, mouthwatering dinner of carne asada—readily pairable with charred bell peppers, onions, and tortillas!

10. Campfire Quesadillas

Campfire quesadillas are as easy as they are satisfying—whether you're cooking them in a cast iron skillet, on a grill grate, or directly in foil over hot stones. 

Even the simplest version with just tortillas and melted cheese hits the spot, but you can easily upgrade with fillings like beans, grilled veggies, shredded chicken, or steak. Top with salsa, sour cream, guacamole, or whatever extras you’ve packed for a classic Mexican-inspired dish that everyone can customize to their liking.

More About the New Mountain House Cheesy Enchilada Bowl

As with every single product we create and market here at Mountain House, our brand-new Cheesy Beef Enchilada Bowl is the result of many, many hours of testing and fine-tuning to make sure our freeze-dried version is as good as it can be. Our bowl needs to evoke a real, honest-to-goodness enchilada, and that meant loads and loads of careful trial-and-error work inside our Research & Development kitchen. As Mountain House R&D Director Drew Heubsch says, “We’re not going to put something out there that doesn’t represent what it should.”

From playing around with flour vs. corn tortillas (corn won the day) to refining the red enchilada sauce (which ultimately was the trickiest part of the whole endeavor), a lot of culinary craft and tinkering went into our Cheesy Beef Enchilada Bowl recipe, and we think you’ll be able to appreciate that with every bite. This is a supremely comforting and filling dish, the ideal payoff for hiking, backpacking, climbing, river-running, and whatever other outdoor activities you’re up to—and it’s gluten-free, to boot.

Lightweight, supremely packable, boasting our unbeatable Mountain House shelf life, and serving up a full dose of flavors and nutrition, the Mountain House Cheesy Beef Enchilada Bowl is the Mexican camping food you need in your larder!

Spice Up Your Camping Trip With Mountain House

Keen on some Mexican camping meals? Look no further than our fresh-off-the-press Mountain House Cheesy Beef Enchilada Bowl, which, we’re wagering, is really going to rock your world. 

We can’t wait to hear what you think of this fine new addition to our legendary spread of freeze-dried camping and backpacking meal pouches!