This easy camping dinner cooks up in one pot on a propane stove and will feed the entire family.
When we’re camping, I’m always looking for ways to feed my family delicious food, without the hassles of packing a ton of ingredients, spending a ton of time cooking, or having to do a lot of dirty dishes.
One pot meals are the perfect camping dinner because all the ingredients are added to the pot and cook together. No straining, transferring or preparing multiple dishes.
This one pot meal is made with ground turkey, seasonings, a jar of pasta sauce, chicken broth, pasta, and spinach. It truly is a complete meal in one! Best of all, ALL of my four kids (plus my husband and both of my parents) really enjoyed it.
This easy camping recipe is definitely a keeper!
How to Cook One Pot Camping Meals on the Propane Stove
A propane stove works perfectly to cook up a one pot meal, you just want to be sure you have a large enough pot or pan to hold all of the ingredients.
I also prefer to use a heavy bottomed pan to avoid scorching. A cast iron pan works well to distribute the heat, but I prefer not to use my cast iron when cooking with tomatoes and sauces (like in this recipe) because of the acidity.
To make cooking your camping dinner even easier, you can pre-cook the ground turkey, onions and garlic before your trip. You can also add the seasonings (Italian and garlic powder) at this point so you don’t need to pack those extra spices.
Just let it cool completely and then freeze the meat in a ziplock bag or container. Pack the frozen meat in your cooler and then add it to your pot with a little bit of oil.
a note from Jenny
I almost always pre-cook meats before our camping trips. This helps me to avoid packing raw meat in the cooler, and it also saves so much time and mess when cooking at camp.
Ingredient Notes
- Ground Turkey: Pre-cook the turkey with the onions and garlic to consolidate packing ingredients and save time while cooking!
- Fresh Basil: You can substitute the fresh basil in this recipe with 2 tsp. of dried basil.
- Pasta: I use cavatappi pasta because I like the larger noodles that don’t require extra cook time, but you can honestly use any type of pasta. Just alter the cooking time depending on the type you use.
- Parmesan: Freshly grated parmesan will give the best flavor, but you can substitute with the shelf stable kind to free up room in your cooler.
- Chicken Broth: This gives the added liquid needed to completely cook your pasta while adding extra flavor. You can replace with water if needed.
- Sauce: Using jarred pasta sauce makes packing and cooking this so easy!
- Fresh Spinach: I prefer to lightly chop or tear the spinach, but you can also leave it whole. It will wilt down in the sauce.
This Marry Me Chicken One Pot Meal is another delicious one pot camping meal (it’s my personal favorite). You can also find all my other campfire dinner recipes here!
Steps to make One Pot Ground Turkey Pasta
In this section you’ll find a step by step tutorial of how to make this recipe with photos. The full recipe with exact measurements, steps and a printable card can be found at the bottom of the post.
Scroll through the step by step images ->
1. Cook the ground turkey
Cook the onion, garlic and ground turkey in olive oil. Add salt and pepper to season. (Or, do this before your trip!)
2. Add seasonings, liquid and pasta to pan
Add garlic powder, basil, Italian seasoning, chicken broth, pasta sauce and pasta to the pot and stir to combine. Be sure the pasta is covered in liquid. Cover and bring to boil.
3. Boil and add spinach
Boil for about 5 minutes with the lid on, stirring occasionally to prevent burning. Add the spinach and stir to incorporate. Continue boiling, with the lid removed, until the pasta is cooked and the liquid is reduced.
4. Add parmesan and serve
Remove from heat and top with parmesan cheese.
One Pot Ground Turkey Pasta
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 lb ground turkey
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 2 tbsp fresh basil, chopped
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- 14.5 oz chicken broth
- 24 oz marinara sauce
- 3 cups cavatappi pasta
- 3 cups spinach, loosely chopped or torn
- 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a 3 quart sauce pan. Add ground turkey, salt, pepper, onions and garlic; cook until the meat is browned and cooked through.
- Add basil, Italian seasoning and garlic powder and stir combine.
- Add marinara sauce, chicken broth and pasta to the pan.
- Bring to a boil, cover, and cook for about 5 minutes.
- Remove the lid and stir in fresh spinach. Continue boiling for about 4 more minutes until the pasta is tender. (Keep the lid off during this time to reduce the liquid.)
- Remove from heat. Top with parmesan cheese and serve.