Cooking is, for many people, one of the more enjoyable parts of camping, because you get to indulge on all those great camping foods that you wouldn't normally have at home. But before you can stuff your face with the good stuff, you need to cook it, and that often involves camping pans.
Camping Pans
Features to watch for when looking for camping pans.- Material - The weight of your camping pans will largely be determined by the material they are made out of. And if you have to carry those pans around in your backpack, you should care very much about their weight. Titanium is typically the lightest, though it is also typically the most expensive.
- Size - You also want to pay attention to how big the pan you are buying. If you will be needing to cook for two, then a single serving pan probably wont cut it. Similarly, make sure your pan is big enough for the kinds of foods you like to cook. You will be very disappointed if you get to cooking and realize your Mr. Noodles doesn't fit in your pan.
Best Camping Pans
A few of the very best camping pans you will find on the market.- MSR Flex Skillet - The Flex Skillet is a non-stick, aluminum pan ideal for cooking a wide variety of meals in. It has a 9 inch diameter and 2.5 inch depth, which gives you plenty of space to cook up a good meal. It weighs 7 ounces, or 198 grams, and comes with a removable handle that clips in to an exterior bracket. The teflon coated interior makes the Flex very easy to clean, but be sure not to scratch it.
- MSR Duralite Frypan - The Duralite frying pan is much like the Flex skillet above, but lacks an exterior bracket for a handle. This is ideal if you have your own handle already, but this is also a teflon coated camping pan, and so you will not want to scratch it at all, with a metal handle, for instance. It's also slightly smaller than the Flex, at only 7.2 inches in diameter, but also weighs a bit less, at 5.4 ounces, or 153 grams.
- Snow Peak Trek 1400 Titanium Cookset - If you want versatility, the 1400 Cookset is perfect for you. It's a pot and lid set, but the lid also doubles as a pan. As the name suggests, it's titanium, and the complete set weighs 7.4 ounces, or 210 grams. The pan is a fair bit smaller than the other two from MSR, however, at 5.75 inches across and 1.5 inches deep. It's more of a single serving, whereas the other two could conceivably hold two portions, but you get more versatility and less weight, which is a real bonus. It's also not non-stick, though titanium holds up well to a vigorous cleaning.
Accessories for Your Camping Pans
With most metal pot grippers you run the risk of scratching your teflon coated pans. If you have titanium then you don't to worry, but if you do have a telfon pan that does not have a built in handle, like the MSR Duralite above, then you might be interested in the GSI Microgripper.And for cooking in your telfon coated pans without scratching them up, there is the MSR Alpine Spatula, though non-metal utensils would work equally well.
