Dutch Oven Scout Breakfast Bake
Sausage, hash browns, and eggs baked under coals until it sets into a sliceable slab.
- calories
- 610
- weight
- 11 oz
- cal / oz
- 55
- protein
- 34 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 35 min
- total time
- 50 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.
- Breakfast
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Gluten free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Pork sausage | 1 lb | links or patties; precooked saves fuel |
|---|---|---|
| Frozen hash browns | 1 box | or 3 potatoes, peeled and shredded |
| Eggs | 12 | crack into a bottle at home if the drive is rough |
| Cheddar cheese | 1/2 lb | grate before you leave the house |
| Salt and pepper | to taste |
Method
- Build a fire and burn it down to coals. You want a 12-inch dutch oven at about 375F for frying, so bank the coals underneath.
- Tear or cut the sausage into small pieces and stir them in the bare oven until browned through. Precooked sausage only needs to heat.
- Add the hash browns straight into the sausage fat. Stir and fry about 10 minutes, until the edges go brown and crisp.
- Pull the oven off the coals. Beat the eggs in a bowl or a zip-top bag and pour them over the potatoes. Salt and pepper.
- Put the lid on, set the oven back over a thin bed of coals, and pile most of the coals on the lid. Bake about 20 minutes, until the eggs no longer jiggle in the center.
- Scatter the cheese over the top, replace the lid, and give it 5 more minutes off direct heat to melt.
This is a car-camping breakfast, not a pack meal. Twelve eggs and half a pound of cheese need a cooler, and a 12-inch dutch oven is a heavy piece of iron. Carried to a site you can drive to, it feeds six people off one fire with one pot to scrub.
The order matters more than the recipe does. Sausage first, so the potatoes fry in its fat and actually brown. Eggs last, and only after the oven comes off the bottom coals, or they scorch to the iron before the top ever sets. Baking means heat from above: most of your coals belong on the lid. Cheese goes on at the end with the oven off direct heat, because it needs to melt, not cook.
Packing
Sausage, eggs, and cheese all need the cooler. Grate the cheese and pre-crack the eggs into a wide-mouth bottle at home, and the whole cook is stir, pour, cover.
Variations
- Diced onion and bell pepper go in with the potatoes if you have knife space.
- A 10-inch oven works with about two thirds of everything; keep the coal count and the timing the same.
https://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/recipe/pecs_breakfast-1321.asp