This lentil tomato stew is one of my favourite camping recipes. You can of course make it at home on the stove, but I love how easy it is when out camping.
Commissioned recipe.
This one-pot lentil and tomato stew is perfect to make while camping. It’s quick, easy, nourishing and filling. We make versions of this stew all the time at home, but I’ve added a few tweaks to it so it’s simple to make outdoors. Camping recipes need to be easy but worth the effort, and this one ticks those boxes.
I like to prepare my chopped vegetables before heading for the campsite. You can of course bring a chopping board and chop your veg while you’re there, but I always chop them up and stick them in a ziplock bag to make sure cooking at the campsite is extra easy. You can add all the ingredients for each meal into one bag and label it, repeating for all other meals.
Tips for camping recipes:
- Pre-chop ingredients for each meal and put them in labelled ziplock bags.
- Use onion and garlic powder for extra flavour and to save fiddly chopping.
- Buy cans with pull tab openings so you don’t have a problem if you forget the tin opener.
- Take pre-washed bagged spinach and salad to save the trouble of washing the leaves.
- Bring frozen pre-prepared soup or stew, so you’ll have a meal ready on the second day when it thaws.
- Sachets of pre-cooked rice are easy to transport and can be reheated in a frying pan or pot.
- Spray oil is easy to use and won’t leak.
Get the recipe for Lentil Tomato Stew with Spinach
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Lentil Tomato Stew
Ingredients
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1 clove garlic finely chopped (or 1 tsp garlic powder)
- 100 g mushrooms roughly chopped
- 1 red pepper sliced
- 1 can chopped tomatoes (400g/14oz can)
- 100 ml water
- 1 vegetable stock cube
- 1 puy lentils (400g/14 oz can), drained and rinsed (or 250g sachet of cooked puy lentils)
- salt and pepper
- 300 g spinach
- small handful fresh parsley roughly chopped (optional)
- Fresh bread to serve
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large pot and add the garlic (if using the powder, add with the tomatoes). Cook for 1 minute, then add the mushrooms and peppers and cook for a further 4 minutes.
- Add the tomatoes, water (cold is fine), stock cube and simmer for 8-10 minutes to allow it to reduce slightly.
- Add the lentils and cook for another 5 minutes.
- Stir in 3 large handfuls of the spinach and allow it to wilt.
- Divide into bowls and garnish with the parsley.
- Optional: Serve with fresh bread and a salad using the leftover spinach.
Nutrition Information
Camping Cooking Products
Millets kindly sent me loads of great camping cooking products. I love this Eurohike Basecamp storage table. It folds down compactly, but provides a fab flat surface for cooking. It’s stable for the stove, and also lets us have space to chop, serve and prepare. It has telescopic legs so you can adjust the height and a mesh cupboard space for food and crockery. Whether we go for overnight camping trips or spend a few days at a festival, this table is definitely coming with us. Last year we had a stove on the grass, this year we’ll be cooking in style! It’s a real pleasure to use.
The Outwell Jimbu portable two-burner stove is fantastic. I love the windshield sides, that the two burners are independently controlled and the grill surface – all great touches. It’s very solid and robust with 3500w burner and 1500w grill with removable, easy to clean grate and drip tray at stove base.
I’ve only ever had small camping pans before, so it was a joy to use the Vango 8-person non-stick cookset. The nesting set of pans are a great large size, but they still fit easily onto the camping stove. They really are non-stick so super easy to clean – even if there’s no hot running water on site.
We loved the pretty melamine Seychelles 16 piece dinner set. It has all the plates, side plates, bowls and cups that we needed. The Vango cutlery set in a roll was also durable and useful. I like that we can roll it all up so the cutlery doesn’t go astray in our equipment box and it stays clean. The Eurohike whistle 2.2L kettle is a sturdy and a great large size – perfect for cooking and groups. All products available from Millets.
Check out more camping fun from Millets on the hashtag #homefromhome
I’ve also recently tested out this Eurohike Buckingham 6 Elite tent from Millets. It’s a lovely big family tent that’s easy to put up. We timed it and our first try only took 20 minutes! Check out my family camping product guide.
Looking for more healthy camping recipes? Try my red lentil dahl, miso soup with ginger and udon noodles. The Hedgecombers also has this very popular cowboy stew camping recipe. I love how you can really adapt so many of your favourite stovetop recipes to make when camping. There’s no need to stick to porridge and instant noodles!
Disclosure: Thanks to Millets for providing me with products to review for this post. All opinions are my own. Thanks for supporting the brands that make it possible for me to write Veggie Desserts and be a UK Food Blogger.
Leah
Great recipe! We often cook this sort of meal at home, but I hadn’t made it camping before. I had everything on hand so saved the recipe on my phone and made it at our campsite. Really easy and even my picky son ate it.
Kara
That looks like a hearty recipe to keep campers going (and to warm them up if it gets chilly)
Kira
I haven’t been camping in such a long time! Really been thinking about it a lot recently so thank you for the tips! I only ever think about taking tinned food when camping so properly making a nice meal sounds lovely!
Helen
Oh yum! I love lentils and this sounds a really filling, warming meal.
I’ve only ever camped at festivals so have never tried cooking outdoors before.
Ami Rose
I love how easy this is! I camp often so I’ll definitely be making a note of this one!
Ami xxx
Laura
I always see camping food as just tins of baked beans reheated great to see how much else you can do.
Elizabeth
Those are such good camping hacks, thank you! I normally just end up frying stuff when camping so this is a great idea for a wholesome tasty meal.
Rhian Westbury
This camping food is so much nicer than anything I’ve had before, I never think about prepping things before to cook x
Jennifer Durrans
This looks delicious! I really need to start cooking again and I miss eating lentils! So yum!
Tara
Yum! Such a wonderful, freshly made meal for camping. I love all the tips you included and the guide for equipment. Your set-up looks amazing.
Monica | Nourish & Fete
This looks delicious, and I love all your tips on camp cooking! We don’t camp very much right now, but it’s one of the things I am most excited to do when we move back to the US in another year. I hope I can put all this advice to good use! 🙂
Sarah
These tips are amazing!! I don’t cam often, but I DO spend a lot of time at the lake…I can use all of these helpful hints up there too – thanks so much!
Alyssa
I’ve been having a lentil craving lately! I hardly ever cook with them but they’re popping up all over my feed, this looks simple and quick enough!
Jagruti
What a beautiful and flavoursome lentil stew. Great tips on camping.
Kate Hackworthy
Thanks! It’s definitely flavoursome.