Dutch Oven Pizza Casserole
Crescent dough, browned meat, sauce, and cheese, baked between coals in a 12-inch oven.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 9 oz
- cal / oz
- 80
- protein
- 34 g
- serves
- 7, 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
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Ground beef | 1/2 lb | |
|---|---|---|
| Pork sausage | 1/2 lb | bulk, not links |
| Mozzarella cheese | 8 oz | block, shredded in camp |
| Cheddar cheese | 8 oz | block travels better than pre-shredded |
| Refrigerated crescent roll dough | 3 tubes | you only bake two; the third is insurance |
| Canned pizza sauce | 1 can (15 oz) |
Method
- Build a bed of coals and set the 12-inch dutch oven over it at frying heat, around 375°F.
- Brown the beef and sausage together, breaking up the clumps. Pull the meat into a bowl and pour off the grease.
- Let the oven sit off the coals about ten minutes to cool down. Shred both cheeses while you wait.
- Unroll two tubes of dough into flat sheets. Tear a sheet and a half into triangles and press them across the bottom and up the sides, pinching every seam shut.
- Spread the sauce over the dough, then the meat, then all of the cheese.
- Lay the remaining dough over the top as a lid and pinch it closed.
- Bake at 350°F for 30 to 40 minutes: coals ringed under the bottom, most of them on the lid. Rotate oven and lid a quarter turn every ten minutes.
- Check at 30. The top crust should be brown and the middle should not jiggle.
This is a cooler meal, not a pack meal, and it stays that way. Crescent dough and raw ground meat both need to be cold, so it belongs at a car site or a basecamp with ice. Everything happens in the one oven: brown, dump the grease, cool it down, build, bake.
The cooling pause matters. Dough dropped into a 375°F oven scorches on the bottom before the cheese ever melts. Coal placement does the rest — most of the heat on the lid so the top browns while the bottom just sets. Grate the cheese off a block instead of buying it shredded; the anti-caking starch in bagged cheese turns gritty in a sealed bake.
Packing
Meat and dough go in the cooler, at the bottom, on ice. Sauce and the lid lifter live in the food bin. Bring a grater and a leakproof container for the drained grease so it does not go in the dirt.
Variations
- Swap both meats for a bag of shelf-stable pepperoni if cooler space is tight.
- Sliced olives, mushrooms, or bell pepper go in with the meat layer.
- No crescent dough: a 2-cup batch of biscuit mix rolled thin works for both crusts.
https://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/recipe/pizza_casserole-1312.asp