Pizza, it's not just for cooking indoors anymore.

Before my family and I went camping at Scales Lake in Boonville Halloween weekend, my wife and kids ran to the grocery store to get a few things for us to chow on during the trip. Being a smart woman, my wife let the kids pick the meals, that way we knew they'd eat them. They decided one of those meals would be homemade pizza using ready-made crust. When I asked my wife how she thought we might go about cooking the pizza at our campsite, she said, "On our Camp Chef." Which to her was the obvious answer.

To her credit, she was right. The Camp Chef was the way to go (other than over the fire, but my fear was the heat would be more difficult to control), but without a lid of any kind to cover the pizza, we didn't have a way to circulate the heat created by the burner to cook the top evenly with the bottom.

After some thinking, I decided the best way to make this work was to basically use the old "hobo-style" of cooking. If you're unfamiliar, "hobo packets" are when you take some meat and veggies, wrap them in foil and toss them over the fire. The foil traps the heat created by the fire, evenly cooking the contents inside. I wasn't re-inventing the wheel by any means, and this could seem like an obvious solution to someone else, but I don't come up with great ideas (or even good ones) often, so I was pretty pleased with myself.

Here's how I did it.

As you'll notice, this took place as the sun was going down, hence the reason behind some of the darker photos.

1. Create Your Top and Bottom Layers

(Ryan O'Bryan)
(Ryan O'Bryan)
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If you have heavy-duty foil, one layer should be enough. I had cheap, store-brand foil so I doubled up.

  • Lay two sheets of the same length on top of each other, folding three of the edges together. Repeat with two more layers, making sure to leave one edge unfolded.
  • Bring the two unfolded edges of the segments together and fold over two to three times to "sew" the two segments together. This will be the bottom of your oven.
  • Repeat the first two steps again to make the top.

2. Place Pizza on Bottom Half

(Ryan O'Bryan)
(Ryan O'Bryan)
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Word to the wise here — spray both the top and bottom sheets of foil with cooking spray if available. We did not. Fortunately, the pizza didn't stick too bad once it was cooked, but it did stick a little.

3. Cover Pizza with Top Sheet of Foil

(Ryan O'Bryan)
(Ryan O'Bryan)
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After laying your top sheet over the pizza, fold the edges together 2-3 times over all the way around. Now it's time to transfer your "pizza oven" to your heat source. Keep in mind, aluminum foil isn't super strong, so don't pick it up by the edges, or it will fold in half. Make sure to support it from the bottom with your hand or some type of flat surface (cardboard, whatever).

4. Cook Your Pizza

(Ryan O'Bryan)
(Ryan O'Bryan)
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Place your "oven" on your heat source (in this case, the aforementioned Camp Chef), and keep the heat around medium-low. It should be noted, while you can't see it in the photo above, we have a cast iron griddle with our Camp Chef that covers the burner, providing a little more protection from the direct heat.

Cook for 20-30 minutes.

5. Enjoy Your Camping Pizza

(Ryan O'Bryan)
(Ryan O'Bryan)
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Despite the cast iron griddle, the center portion of the crust was a little more done than the  outer edges, but not to the point it was inedible. I would say it resembled more of a brick-oven style pizza with a few black spots.

All in all, for something we threw together on the fly, I'd say our aluminum foil, "hobo pizza", was a solid success, and not difficult to throw together. It's something we'll definitely keep in mind for future camping trips.

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