Dutch Oven Teriyaki Tri Tip
One steak, one bag of marinade, one dutch oven. Feeds a table off a bed of coals.
- calories
- 520
- weight
- 7.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 69
- protein
- 34 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 60 min
- total time
- 70 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
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Tri tip steak | 1 medium roast | figure 1/4 lb per person |
|---|---|---|
| Canned pineapple, with the juice | 1 can | do not drain it, the juice is the tenderizer |
| Teriyaki sauce | 2 cups | |
| Brown sugar | 1 cup | |
| Minced garlic | 1/2 cup | jarred is fine; halve it if that reads like too much |
Method
- At home, put the pineapple and juice, teriyaki, brown sugar, and garlic in a heavy zip bag and squeeze it around until the sugar dissolves.
- Add the steak, push the air out, seal it, and lay it flat in the cooler overnight. Double-bag it. A teriyaki leak ruins a cooler.
- In camp, build a coal bed and preheat a 12-inch dutch oven to about 325F. That is roughly 9 coals under and 16 on the lid.
- Pour in the whole bag, meat and marinade together. Set the lid on.
- Cook an hour, rotating the oven and the lid a quarter turn every 15 minutes so it does not scorch on one side. Pull it earlier if you want the middle pink.
- Lift the roast out, let it sit five minutes, then slice across the grain. Spoon the pan liquid over the slices.
This is a cooler recipe, not a pack recipe, and it earns the weight. The marinade does the work overnight: pineapple juice carries bromelain, which breaks down connective tissue, and tri tip is a lean cut that needs exactly that. Twelve hours in the bag is the difference between tender and chewy.
The lid matters more than the fire. A dutch oven traps the steam coming off two cups of sauce, so the roast braises in its own marinade instead of drying out over coals. Sugar plus coals means scorching, so rotate the oven and the lid in opposite directions every quarter hour and nothing sits over one hot spot long enough to burn. Leftovers slice cold into tortillas the next day.
Packing
Mix the marinade and bag the meat before you leave the house. That turns camp prep into opening a cooler. Bring a cutting board and a real knife; tri tip needs to be sliced against the grain or it eats tough.
Variations
- No dutch oven: seal the pan under foil and cook it over a grill grate on indirect heat, same hour.
- Simmer the leftover pan liquid down uncovered for ten minutes and it becomes a glaze for the next morning's leftovers.
https://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/recipe/tri_tip_teriyaki-1227.asp