Sure, there’s something tasty about tin foil dinners in the middle of the forest, but did you know you can gourmet it up when you’re at home (or, even when you’re camping — it’s not like any of this is super difficult cooking).  Let’s take tin foil dinners beyond the hamburger and potatoes you ate in the forest by doing tin foil dinners at home.

Obviously, the key to tin foil dinners is the foil.  We ended-up buying non-stick tin foil (it says it’s for grills).  Mostly I’d be sure to get the heavy duty kind.  If it gets too shredded out in the fire you’ll end-up with charred dinner.  Certainly worth the $$ for buying the nicer tin foil.

Big thanks to  HomeRight for sponsoring this helpful content!

We have tried tons of different things in our tin foil dinners. Here are some of our favorites.

Things to put in tin foil dinners at home:

Meats:

• Sausage
• Smoked Sausage
• Chicken
• Marinated Chicken
• Ground beef (or any other ground meat)

Fillers:

• Potatoes
• Mushrooms
• Carrots
• Green Beans
• Onion (I think this is vital)
• Pineapple (from the can is fine)
• Tomatoes
• Celery
• Peppers (fun to get a cool color in these)

Spices & Sauces:

• Salt
• Pepper
• Garlic Salt
• Worcestershire
• Soy Sauce
• BBQ Sauce
• Teriyaki sauce
• Cream of mushroom

I love adding a pat of butter on top too!

I like to chop everything up and have it available for people to plop on their foil.

Then, call people in to make their own.

We do a layer of newspaper (to insulate from hot fire spots) between 2 layers of tin foil (see it in the video)

I usually do potatoes (they can be sliced or diced, you could probably even just used thawed hashbrown potatoes).

I like to salt and pepper those separately.

Then comes the rest.  No particular rhyme or reason.  Kids love this part since they can put on JUST what they want!

Then, bring the ends up and fold down to seal.

We started our fire with HomeRight ElectroLight Fire Starter.  We used it when we did coals a while ago to make brownies.  It was impressive then, but YOWZAS, with wood that thing is FAST.  We had a roaring fire within 30 seconds.  It was crazy impressive!  Be sure to watch that part in the video.  It will seriously make s’mores happen weekly around here. My children thank it. 🙂

Once the flames die down, put the dinners on top of the hot coals.  Once they start to sizzle, wait a few minutes then flip them.  And once that sound gets really loud, they are likely ready to come off. If the packets are sealed fairly well, they will start to bulge under the steam pressure when they are close to being done.

Let cool for a few minutes and then open up and serve.  You can eat it straight out the foil or scrape onto a plate.

The ash is just some extra seasonings.

**Full disclosure, that is not my tin foil dinner.  They are SO tasty, but aren’t really Pinterest-worthy.  But, this stock photo is awfully pretty! **

Because the ElectroLight makes things SO fast we will be doing these frequently at our house.  The kids all enjoy them, and they can be a super tasty, and flavorful option for your dinner fare!

Check out all the other tasty outdoor food we’ve done this summer, and be sure to try your own!

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And again, a big thanks to HomeRight for sponsoring great content and allowing me to be 100% creative on my own!