Campfire Chicken Recipe: A Delicious Outdoor Cooking Adventure

Campfire Chicken Recipe: Cooking a Hearty Meal Outdoors

Cooking outdoors has a way of slowing you down and bringing you right into the moment. Whether it’s camping, bushcraft, or just cooking out behind the house, fire changes food. It adds smoke, patience, and that quiet sense of satisfaction you only get when you cook under an open sky.

Today we’re making one of my favorite simple meals, a campfire chicken recipe cooked in a Dutch oven. This one came straight out of one of my Speir Outdoors videos and it’s as easy as it is good.

Setting up camp and cooking some chicken!

What You Need

Ingredients

• One Cornish hen

• Baby red potatoes

• One onion

• One bell pepper

• Mushrooms

• Bacon

• Your favorite seasoning rub
  

Equipment

• A Dutch oven

• A bed roll stove, tripod, or pot crane (all of these setups are explained in the book Primitive Camping and Bushcraft)

• A small shovel or stick for tending coals

• A steady fire or bed of hot coals

You can find examples of these tools on the Primitive Camping links page. I keep all my go-to gear listed there for easy reference.

Hanging the chicken over the fire on a bedroll stove

Getting the Fire Ready

Start your campfire. In the video we used Fire Snot and a survival torch to get things going. You can use fatwood, birch bark, or even a simple match and patience. Let your fire burn down a bit until you have a solid bed of coals. That’s where the real cooking happens.

Prepping the Ingredients

While your fire settles, chop your vegetables and cut the bacon into pieces. If you’ve been out all day hiking or hunting, this part alone will wake you up.

Cooking the Bacon

Set your Dutch oven over the coals using your bed roll stove, tripod, or pot crane. Drop the bacon in and let it cook slow until the fat starts to render. That’s your flavor base and your cooking oil.

Add the Vegetables

When the bacon is cooked, add the onions, bell pepper, mushrooms, and potatoes. Stir everything together and let it cook for a few minutes until the onions start to turn clear.

Add the Chicken

Rub your Cornish hen with your favorite seasoning blend. Set it right in the middle of the vegetables, then cover the Dutch oven. The mix of steam and smoke will make that little bird fall apart tender.

Let It Cook

Hang your Dutch oven over the coals and let it do its thing. The key here is patience. Don’t rush it. You’ll smell when it’s ready long before you lift the lid.

The final result

The Result

The end result is always worth the wait. The chicken turns out tender, the vegetables pick up that smoky flavor, and the bacon ties it all together. It’s simple, hearty, and exactly what a camp meal should be.

You can watch the full cooking process in the Campfire Chicken Recipe video on Speir Outdoors.

If you’d like to learn how to build your own pot crane or tripod setup, it’s covered step-by-step in the Primitive Camping and Bushcraft book. You’ll also find the same gear I use linked on the Primitive Camping links page.

And if you don’t feel like cooking this whole meal from scratch, you can always grab our Primitive Camping Chicken Stew meal from the same page. It’s freeze-dried, ready to pack, and tastes just like something you’d make over the coals.

Final Thoughts

Cooking outdoors doesn’t need to be fancy. A few good ingredients, a little patience, and the right setup make all the difference. Whether you’re camping for the weekend or just cooking in the backyard, this recipe will remind you that simple food cooked over coals always hits different.

In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.

See you out there! God bless you.