good little skillet

carmen · 08-10-2012, 09:49 AM

We have always just brought some older ones that we barely use in the house and dedicate them to camp cooking. I have caught a few trendy ones online that sell mostly camp gear but is the price worth it, are they really any better?

wvbreamfisherman · 08-10-2012, 10:25 AM

For car camping I have 3 cast iron skillets, and I'm looking around for a decent griddle.

For backpacking, I have a nice GSI group cookset, and a mini-trangia cookset (along with a couple Stainless steel GI Canteen cups.

Grandpa · 08-10-2012, 08:49 PM

Any tool is only as good as the use you put it to. We use cast both in the house and camping. We have a couple of stove top dutch ovens (no legs and domed lids). We also have cast fry pans for both. In fact we recently got a two fisted 16 incher fry pan for camping. But if I just had one item, I would go with a 12 or 14 inch dutch oven as it can also be used as a fry pan with only slight awkwardness because of the sidewalls.

Hikenhunter · 08-10-2012, 11:51 PM

My cookset for car camping is a cheap set of teflon coated cookware I bought at some dollar store about 15 years ago. I removed all the handles and added two pot grippers to my kitchen so the set takes up the least amount of space, but my favorite piece of cookware is my very well used and seasoned Lodge reversable cast iron griddle. I even use this baby at home on top of my gas grill.

Judy Ann · 08-12-2012, 08:05 AM

When car camping I just grab whatever pot I think I'll need or just grab a cast iron skillet and a large chef pan. I can stir-fry, boil shrimp, sauté, and just about anything with the chef pan. When coastal camping I plan on eating seafood- whatever has just been caught and always shrimp.

ghostdog · 08-12-2012, 06:14 PM

One some car camps cast iron is fine. We have a couple of camp ovens and a skillet with a lid. Mostly these only go on Thanksgiving camps or the like.

Now Martha Stuart says a 10&1/4” cast iron skillet is one of the 20 essential kitchen items. After she did some hard time her stock definitely went up in the street smarts department so I agree, this is a must have item and it does work very well in the outdoors.

It is also the best popcorn cooker in the business;

Most of the times we are integrating a little car camping with a lot of backpacking so we take our old MSR Gourmet cook set. It has two pots and one skillet. They all nest, are light weight, non-stick anodized aluminum so they work well for real cooking. It was a bit pricey but has worked out well.

The price can be worth it for a good lightweight pots and pan set or solo pots or pans if you really need light weight and the compact nesting nature when going afoot. If you are car camping, just about any pan you like will do fine.

Boboque · 08-12-2012, 11:45 PM

Love my cast iron. I have a large dutch oven and a chicken fryer with a lid that I take with me when we car camp. Otherwise, I just grab the first light pot I can find to heat water up in.

carmen · 08-13-2012, 09:59 AM

I know I am going to need to look around for a good deal, some of the places in our area are raising prices on everything and kitchen gear is no different. I might check out a few places online too, in the end the deal might be worth it. I guess we need to step it up a bit.