Campfire Salmon Recipes: Foil Packs & Mountain Pies

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One of the best times during the year is when the weather breaks and folks can begin planning their yearly camping trips. Along with tents, sleeping bags, pillows, and lanterns, you can’t have a successful camping trip without some classic campfire eats.

After a long day of hiking, fishing, swimming, or stone skipping in the sun, your crew will be craving a hearty meal. The two salmon camping recipes below will give you the fuel that you need to keep enjoying your trip, and can even be cooked in just 8 minutes!

What food do you bring on a camping trip?

Some of the typical foods to bring on a camping trip include dry items like cereal and bread, along with fuel foods like eggs, meats, soups, and vegetables. Chef Nicole’s coolers are always packed with her essentials: bacon, eggs, potatoes, lunch meats, spice mix, and sockeye salmon. That’s right, sockeye salmon is the perfect addition to your cooler as you decide what food to bring on a camping trip. 

Not only is salmon versatile and easy to prepare, cooking salmon over the campfire brings the great outdoors full circle. When hungry campers come back from a long day in the sun, all you need are some vegetables, spices, and sockeye salmon to really hit the spot.

Campfire Salmon Foil Pack with Tomatoes and Zucchini

Some of the best recipes for camping include the classic foil pack. Using those hot coals that have been hanging in the fire pit all day long, foil packs are a quick and easy way to prepare a whole meal with minimal clean up. Chef Nicole recommends making a seasoning mix at home that you can keep in the picnic basket to make spicing up your meal by the fire even easier!

Foil packs allow all of the juices from veggies, meats, and spices to combine and make a satisfactory meal. When cooking salmon in foil, it comes out particularly tender and perfectly cooked. Using Chef Nicole's spice mix, along with some fresh zucchini, tomatoes, and wild sockeye salmon, this foil pack comes together as the perfect savory dish - one that you may want to make even when you can't go camping!

Campfire Salmon Foil Pack

Ingredients and Equipment

• Zucchini 
• Tomatoes 
• 4 -6 portions of Pride of Bristol Bay Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon Portions 
• Foil

Spice Mix

Ingredients (combined previously before camping trip)

• 1 Tbsp Brown Sugar
• 2 tsp Paprika 
• 1.5 tsp Salt 
• 1.5 tsp Onion Powder
• 1 tsp Dry Thyme
• 1 tsp Black Pepper
• ½ tsp Garlic Powder
• ½ tsp Dry Mustard 
• ½ tsp Curry 
• ½ Chili Flakes (optional)

Directions

1)  Cut foils squares large enough to wrap around each portion of salmon and line each square with parchment paper. 
2)  Laying the zucchini on its side, cut the ends of the zucchini and then cut in half, stand the zucchini up and slice thin.  
3)  Slice tomatoes about ⅓ inch or preferred thickness.
4)  On each parchment paper place 3 slices of zucchini down and 2 slices if tomatoes, season with salt and pepper or the spice mix. 
5)  Place salmon down on top of the tomatoes and season well with the spice mix.
6)  Bring the long ends together and roll them tight together to the salmon in foil*. Do the same for both ends. *Chef Nicole often wraps the foil packs again with another piece of foil here to ensure the salmon is protected and ash will not get inside the foil. 

7)  Place the packs on the embers and cook for 8 -10 minutes, depending on how hot your fire is and where you place them in the firepit. Pay attention to the cooking process at all times in order to prevent the foil packet from burning.
If you aren’t camping and want to give this recipe a try, you can bake or grill the salmon skin side down on an oiled pan or grill racks for 375 degrees F for 5-8 minutes for portions and 12-15 minutes for fillets!

Put your Leftovers to Good Use with Sockeye Salmon Mountain Pies

If you find yourself with some leftover salmon, you can engage in one of the best camping traditions there is - making mountain pies!

Whether you know them as hobo pies, camper pies or campfire pies, you know that mountain pies are a staple camping trip snack. They are made by taking two slices of buttered or oiled bread and filling with your favorite sweet or savory mix (many use fruits for sweet or a source of protein and cheese for savory).

Then, a long-handled, metal tool known as a Mountain Pie Press is used to hold the concoction over a campfire until the ingredients are heated and the bread and filling are fused together, similar to a pie. A campfire sandwich press can be used in place of a Mountain Pie Press. 

This simple recipe combines sockeye salmon, cheese, tomatoes, and bacon and makes for the perfect lunch for your adventure crew on your next camping trip!

Sockeye Salmon Mountain Pie 

Ingredients and Equipment

• Pride of Bristol Bay Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon (must be pre-cooked)
• Cheddar Cheese, or cheese of choice
• Tomatoes 
• Bacon 
• Oil or Butter
• Mountain Pie Press or campfire sandwich iron

 Directions

1) On each side of the press add oil or butter.

2) Put your slices of bread down on each side.

3) Layer the mountain pie, starting with cheese, then bacon, tomatoes, pre-cooked Pride of Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon, and more cheese. 

4) Press together and place on the embers for 3-5 minutes on each side. Be sure to have someone pay attention to the cooking process at all times in order to prevent the mountain pie from burning.

Author Profile 

Nicole is a Recipe Developer and Food Photographer from Allentown, Pennsylvania with an Associate degree from The Culinary Institute of America. Her first memories are of planting seeds with her father and grandfather in their elaborate gardens and sharing their abundant harvests with friends and neighbors. The spark of both pride and joy she felt when sharing this food with others and seeing the happiness it brought them was what inspired her to pursue the culinary arts from a young age. Nicole has spent time exploring the Hudson Valley and Philadelphia food scenes, but her current home in the rolling hills of Central PA is where she most enjoys combining her two passions; exploring the outdoors, and good food.