Autumn is arguably the best season to sleep outdoors: cooler air, empty trails, and foliage doing its thing. The only thing missing is seasonal food, and Backpacker has fixed that with a roundup of 14 fall-themed camp recipes pulled from its archives — everything from breakfast pancakes to fireside cocktails, all built around pumpkin, maple, squash and apple.
The collection splits neatly into a few camps. For mornings there are spiced carrot cake pancakes, maple-bacon grits for anyone bored of oatmeal, and a DIY pumpkin spice latte made from instant coffee, powdered milk, spices and powdered pumpkin — no café required, which is lucky because there won't be one for miles.
Dinner options lean cozy. A pumpkin-peanut soup mixes peanut butter, canned pumpkin and shredded cheese into something warm and slurpable, while a sweet potato pie flatbread bakes on a hot stone over campfire coals for a crust that's part crispy, part chewy. There's also a pumpkin pasta for the hearty appetites.
Dessert gets the most attention, sensibly. A backcountry apple crisp comes together in minutes on a canister stove if you pre-chop the apples at home. If you'd rather not chop at all, an apple pie campfire wrap uses the same ingredients — granola, apples, brown sugar, spices — rolled and roasted. Baked apples cooked in the coals get a shout-out as an underrated classic, and reader-submitted apple pastries cheat with store-bought crescent roll dough and canned pie filling. The s'mores upgrade is a pumpkin pie won't-pie: layers of pumpkin puree, crushed graham crackers and toasted marshmallows, no pie pan needed.
Then there are the drinks. Boozy ginger apple cider mixes cider, mulling spices, vanilla vodka and ginger liqueur — with a shortcut available if you pack powdered cider instead of the liquid stuff. The most ambitious entry is a pumpkin-spiced tequila number requiring añejo tequila, cream and hazelnut syrup, which the editors admit is a haul but defend as worth it.
The practical thread through all of these is that fall camp cooking doesn't require fancy gear: a canister stove, one decent pot, fire coals, and a bit of prep at home will cover nearly the entire list. Fresh fruit and vegetables are a rare luxury on long trips, so recipes built around apples, squash and sweet potato work especially well on night one or at a resupply point.
If you're heading out for a shoulder-season hike, a fall car-camping weekend or just a backyard firepit night, this is a ready-made menu — pick one breakfast, one dinner, one dessert and one drink and you've got a complete seasonal evening in the woods. Those who like their comforts will appreciate the PSL and cocktail entries; ultralight hikers can stick to the no-chop wraps and soup.
Full recipes and ingredient lists are on Backpacker.
