Camp Pizza Skillet
Pasta, sauce, pepperoni, and cheese cooked down in one pan at the truck.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 11 oz
- cal / oz
- 65
- protein
- 38 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 25 min
- total time
- 35 min
- water
- 1500 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Campfire coals
- Dutch oven
- Liquid fuel
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Ground beef | 1 lb | cooler item; brown at home and freeze flat if you want a shorter cook |
|---|---|---|
| Elbow macaroni | 1 cup dry | |
| Jarred spaghetti sauce | 1 medium jar | about 24 oz |
| Sliced pepperoni | 1 cup | shelf-stable until opened |
| Onion | 1/2 small | chopped |
| Canned sliced black olives | 1/2 can | drained |
| Canned mushrooms | 1 small can | drained |
| Shredded mozzarella | 2 cups | |
| Salt and pepper | to taste |
Method
- Boil the macaroni in about 1.5 L of salted water until just short of soft. Drain it off and keep the pot.
- In the same pot or a deep skillet, brown the beef with the onion. Pour off the fat.
- Add the pepperoni, olives, mushrooms, sauce, and the drained pasta. Stir and heat until it steams through, about ten minutes over low coals.
- Scatter the cheese on top, put the lid on, and pull the pan off direct heat. Five to ten minutes is enough to melt it.
- Salt and pepper at the end. The pepperoni and sauce are already salty, so taste first.
This is a casserole rebuilt as a skillet dish, because nobody is baking a layered pan of pasta at a campsite. Everything goes in one pot and the cheese melts under a lid off the heat instead of under a broiler. The residual heat does the same job with none of the fuel.
Drain the pasta short of soft. It keeps cooking in the sauce, and mushy macaroni is the usual failure here. Draining the beef fat matters too: with a full jar of sauce and two cups of cheese already in the pan, the extra grease has nowhere to go and pools on top.
Packing
Beef, pepperoni, and cheese ride in the cooler. Pasta, cans, and the sauce jar go in the dry box. Chop the onion at home and bag it.
Variations
- Swap the beef for a second cup of pepperoni and skip a whole step.
- Shelf-stable summer sausage in place of the beef gets this off the cooler list entirely.
- Instant polenta or minute rice instead of pasta if you do not want to drain anything.
https://camprecipes.com/classic-recipes/cavatini-pizza-casserole