Skillet Camp Pizza
Canned biscuit dough pressed flat in a cast iron pan, topped and covered with foil until the cheese goes.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 8 oz
- cal / oz
- 78
- protein
- 24 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 10 min
- cook
- 20 min
- total time
- 30 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
- Campfire coals
- Grill grate
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Refrigerated biscuit dough | 16.3 oz tube | cooler item, keep it cold until it goes in the pan |
|---|---|---|
| Pizza sauce | 1 cup | a pouch or small jar, not a big can |
| Cooked sliced meat | 6 oz | pepperoni or summer sausage, both shelf-stable |
| Shredded mozzarella | 8 oz | |
| Onion | 1 small | sliced thin at home |
| Italian seasoning | 1 tsp | |
| Oil | 1 tbsp | for the pan |
Method
- Build a bed of coals and set the skillet on a grate over them. Flames will burn the crust bottom before the top ever cooks.
- Wipe the pan with oil. Separate the biscuits and press them flat into one continuous crust, pinching the seams shut.
- Cover the skillet with foil and cook about 3 minutes, until the underside sets and stops sticking. Lift the foil and check early. Dough goes from pale to black fast.
- Pull the pan off the coals. Spread sauce over the crust, then meat, onion, cheese, and seasoning.
- Cover with foil again and return to the coals for 10 to 15 minutes, until the cheese melts and the edges of the crust brown. Rotate the pan a quarter turn every few minutes so one side doesn't take all the heat.
- Let it sit 2 minutes off the heat before cutting. The cheese needs to stop moving.
Canned biscuit dough is a shortcut that actually works over a fire. It is already leavened and already portioned, so pressing eight biscuits into one round gives you a crust with no rising, no kneading, and no flour dust in camp.
The two-stage bake is the part people skip. Setting the bottom first means the crust is a solid floor by the time wet sauce hits it, instead of soaking through into raw dough. The foil lid traps enough heat above the toppings to melt cheese, which a bare skillet over coals will never do.
Packing
Biscuit tube and cheese ride in the cooler. Sauce, pepperoni, seasoning, and foil go in one bag with the skillet.
Variations
- No cooler? Swap the biscuits for flour tortillas and skip the first bake. It becomes a crisp flatbread instead of a bread crust.
- Dried onion flakes and a shelf-stable sauce pouch cut the cooler load to just the cheese.
https://camprecipes.com/classic-recipes/camp-pizza