Why a Camp Stove Beats a Tenner a Meal

By Saturday afternoon, the queue for a tray of noodles is forty deep and the price has somehow crept up again. Festival food is part of the fun, but three meals a day at those prices will empty your wallet faster than the bar tent. Cooking at camp isn't about being stingy — it's about eating well, eating cheaply, and having a hot mug of something at 2am when everything else has shut.

The good news: you don't need a full kitchen. A single gas stove, one pan and a kettle will cover everything in this article. Prep what you can at home, cook the rest in one pot, and keep the washing up to an absolute minimum.

Your Camp Kitchen Kit

Keep it small and keep it in one bag, so you're never hunting for the tin opener in the dark.

• One gas stove with a windshield, plus a spare canister
• A lidded pan and a small kettle, or a pan you can boil water in
• A sharp knife, a flexible chopping mat, a wooden spoon, a tin opener
• A lighter or matches in a zip bag
• Spices decanted into tiny pots — an empty pill organiser is perfect
• A cool bag with frozen water bottles, which double as drinking water as they melt
• A bottle for washing water, a sponge and a bin bag

Couscous Salad: Five Minutes, No Real Cooking

Couscous is the single best festival food there is. It needs no hob, no draining and no attention — just boiling water. Use roughly equal volumes of couscous and water: a mug of each makes two generous portions.

At home, chop your vegetables and bag them up. At camp, tip the couscous into a bowl, pour over the boiling water, add a glug of olive oil and a good pinch of salt, cover and leave for ten minutes. Fork it through to fluff it up, then stir in the rest. Try cucumber, tomato, red pepper, olives and feta with lemon juice and torn mint, or chickpeas, roasted peppers and harissa with a spoon of yoghurt. Pesto and sun-dried tomatoes work a treat too.

It's brilliant cold, it doesn't mind being squashed at the bottom of a rucksack, and it costs about £1 a portion. Make double and tomorrow's lunch is sorted.

Breakfast Wraps That Keep You Going

Tortilla wraps survive a weekend in a rucksack far better than a loaf of bread, which turns to crumbs by Friday night. They're also a brilliant vehicle for whatever you've got.

For a hot version, fry a chopped onion with a couple of sliced mushrooms or a veggie sausage in a little oil, pour in two beaten eggs and stir until just set. Pile onto a wrap with grated cheese and a handful of spinach, roll it up, then warm it briefly in the dry pan. Two minutes, one pan, and nothing to wash beyond a quick wipe.

If you can't face the stove first thing, go cold: peanut butter and banana, or cream cheese with cucumber and a grind of pepper. Both travel well and both cost pennies.

Porridge fans should bring oats, dried milk and a bag of raisins — a kettle of hot water and a covered bowl gets you a hot breakfast without touching the pan at all.

Lentil Curry: One Pot, Feeds Four

Red lentils are cheap, quick and need no soaking, which makes them ideal camp food. This takes about twenty-five minutes and one pot.

Soften a chopped onion in oil, add garlic, ginger and a heaped tablespoon of curry powder, then tip in a tin of chopped tomatoes, a mug of red lentils and two mugs of water or stock. Simmer for twenty minutes, stirring now and then, until the lentils collapse into a thick, spoonable curry. Finish with a spoon of peanut butter or a splash of coconut milk for richness, and season well.

Serve with a pouch of rice, a flatbread, or just eat it as a soup from a mug. Make it at home in advance, freeze it flat in a bag, and it doubles as an ice block in the cool bag on the way down — then it's ready to reheat on the first night.

Storing, Reheating and Staying Safe

• Keep the cool bag off the ground, in the shade, and open it as little as possible
• Freeze meals flat so they stack neatly, and eat them in the order they thaw
• Reheat leftovers until piping hot all the way through, and bin anything kept more than a day
• Keep dry goods in a sealed tub — wasps and gulls are relentless
• Wash up with a little hot water and a drop of soap, then leave everything to dry in the sun

Do all that and you'll eat better than most of the field for a fraction of the price, with enough left in your pocket for the things that really matter.