Here is how you keep your meat fresh and frozen for at least 3 days while camping

This recipe takes a great deal of prep. It will be so worth it to enjoy your gourmet meals on the campsite. 

WARNING: This requires the handling of dry ice. Please use gloves when handling dry ice, NEVER handle with your bare hands! 

1. Start off with two coolers: one cooler is your "freezer" and the other is your "fridge". Ideally you will only open the freezer a couple times a day. Whereas the cold cooler can and will be opened a billion times over your camping weekend. 

2. The day before, in your home kitchen you will prep your meat and veggies by washing, seasoning and then freezing them in their own separate ziplock bags. I like to do all prep ahead of time so I will not have to do it all on the campsite. Plus the meat marinates in those seasoning and it tastes so so good. 

3. On the day of your trip: line your freezer with dry ice. We get our dry ice from here in the Pilsen area of Chicago. We also grab our regualr ice here too. The dry ice comes in a giant block but you can ask the workers to break it up into chunks for you. How to Pack the freezer cooler: 

   1. First you will put your grocery bags in the bottom and sides of your cooler 

   2. Put the dry ice on top of the grocery bags in the bottom. 

   3. Take your frozen meat and put it in a giant plastic bag, seal it up. 

   4. Place the entire bag inside the cooler on top of the dry ice

   5. Place dry ice around the sides and top of the bag with the frozen meat

   6. Put a layer of bags on top of everything inside the cooler

   7. Close cooler only open it to get the meat or veggies you would like to cook for the day. 

   8. In the pictures above you see the black bag (thats the food) then the ice, and on top is the insulation from the bags. 

4. Pack your fridge cooler with regular ice as you normally would. I like to use a basket on top of the ice to keep certain foods out of the ice and dry, but still cold as the ice begins to melt over time. 

Now let's talk about thawing the meat! 

In the morning, we take the meat (that we will use the next day) out of the freezer and put it in the fridge cooler to thaw overnight. If you don't do this you will have frozen food with no quick way to thaw it. So it is important to remember to take out the meat. This freezer method should keep food frozen for the entire weekend camping! 

If you want to see a visual of this food packing method, take a look at our camping 101 highlight on our Instagram page!