Dutch Oven Camp Lasagna
Beef sauce, broken noodles, and two cheeses baked under coals. Layered at home, dumped at camp.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 11 oz
- cal / oz
- 56
- protein
- 38 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 45 min
- total time
- 60 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Lean ground beef | 1.5 lbs | brown and drain at home, then chill |
|---|---|---|
| Tomato paste | 1 can (6 oz) | |
| Pasta sauce | 1 jar (24 oz) | |
| Italian seasoning | 1 tbsp | |
| Oven-ready lasagna noodles | 8 oz | snapped into pieces that fit a round pot |
| Cottage cheese | 2 cups | cooler item, any fat level |
| Mozzarella | 2 cups grated | grate at home |
Method
- At home: brown the beef, drain the fat, and stir in the jarred sauce, tomato paste, and Italian seasoning. Cool it and pack it in a sealed container in the cooler.
- At camp, build a fire and let it burn down to coals. You want steady heat, not flame.
- Line a 12-inch Dutch oven with parchment. It saves you a long scrub later.
- Spread half the meat sauce across the bottom. Lay broken noodles over it in a flat single layer, then half the cottage cheese and half the mozzarella.
- Repeat with the rest of the sauce, noodles, cottage cheese, and mozzarella.
- Lid on. Set the oven over a bed of coals and shovel more coals onto the lid — roughly twice as many on top as underneath.
- Bake 45 minutes, rotating the pot a quarter turn every 10 minutes so one side does not scorch. Refresh the lid coals once around the halfway mark.
- Check that a noodle piece gives under a fork. If it still snaps, another 10 minutes.
- Let it sit 10 minutes off the coals before serving or it runs.
Oven-ready noodles are the whole reason this works over a fire. They are dry enough to absorb liquid from the sauce and the cottage cheese as they bake, so you never boil a pot of water, never drain it, and never deal with a second dish. Break them to fit a round Dutch oven and stop worrying about the shape.
The coals matter more than the recipe. Heat only from below burns the bottom layer before the noodles hydrate, so most of the coals go on the lid. Browning the beef at home is not laziness — it removes the greasiest, longest step from camp and means the pot only ever holds one thing.
This one stays in the cooler. Cottage cheese and grated mozzarella are not shelf-stable, so it is a car-camping or basecamp dinner, best on night one or two.
Packing
The meat sauce travels as one container, already cooked and seasoned, so camp work is layering. Noodles go in a bag broken up. Cheeses ride in the cooler; grated mozzarella packs flatter than a block and melts faster.
Variations
- Skip the layering and stir everything together in the pot. It bakes the same and tastes the same.
- Colby jack or a Tex-Mex blend melts as well as mozzarella.
- No fire? The same pot bakes at 350°F in a home oven for 45 to 55 minutes.
https://campfirefoodie.com/dutch-oven-lasagna-recipe