Don't Forget This Campfire Cooking Essential When Packing For Your Trip

While camping, nothing tastes better than a hot meal cooked over the fire — especially after a long day of fishing, hiking, or swimming. However, cooking over a campfire comes with challenges, whether that's trying to figure out the best way to start the fire in the first place or how long to cook your food. The latter can be especially challenging because cooking a meal outdoors over an open flame typically takes more time than it would to cook the same meal on your stove at home. Luckily, there's one tool that can speed up the outdoor cooking process — a lid.

Although it sounds insanely simple, making sure that you don't forget the lids to all your pots and pans when embarking on your next camping adventure can make a big difference in the time you will have to spend making a meal. This is because covering your food while it cooks helps keep all the heat in, enabling the temperature inside the pot to rise more quickly. On top of this, using a lid while cooking helps maintain a constant temperature, which will make it easier to cook food evenly.

If you have already embarked on your camping trip and didn't bring a single lid for any of your pots and pans, then you face a choice. You can either accept that your food will take much longer to cook, or, you can try and fashion a makeshift lid. If you have a metal plate, pan, or cookie sheet, it can be placed over your skillet or pot and will work as a lid in a pinch. In fact, according to the Los Angeles Times, baking sheets are often used in place of lids in restaurant kitchens.

However, if you have aluminum foil with you (and you should because it's the perfect camping cooking tool), you can make your own lid. The advantages of a foil lid are that it offers a tighter seal than a simple cookie sheet and can be molded to any size pot. The best way to make a foil lid is to layer two pieces of aluminum foil over each other and then lay them over the top of your pot. Then, simply crimp the edges of the foil around the pot to seal the heat in, and you're ready to start cooking.