This recipe is published by the U.S. National Park Service — the Freezer Breakfast Burrito recipe on nps.gov, written for campers who want a grab-and-go breakfast they can cook at home in bulk, freeze, and reheat over a campfire once they’re out at a park.
Ingredients
- 12 eggs
- 1 pound bacon (optional)
- 1 pound breakfast sausage (optional)
- 1 pound hash browns or breakfast potatoes (frozen or homemade)
- 1 16-ounce jar green chili
- 10–12 flour tortillas
- Shredded cheese
- Green onions (optional)
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper, to taste
Method
Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat and cook the breakfast potatoes until golden brown. In a separate pan, cook the bacon and/or sausage to your desired doneness. While those are going, whisk the eggs in a large bowl to scramble them, stirring in chopped green onion if you’re using it.
Once the potatoes are done, either remove them from the skillet or add the scrambled eggs directly in with them, and keep cooking until the eggs are cooked through. Lay the tortillas out and divide the eggs, hash browns and meat evenly between them. Top each with cheese and as much green chili as you like, season with salt and pepper, then roll the tortillas up and wrap each one in foil. NPS notes you can eat them right away or freeze them for later.
The Freeze-and-Reheat Point
What makes this a camping recipe rather than just a breakfast burrito is the assembly-line approach: NPS frames it explicitly as a make-ahead meal, built at home, wrapped in foil, and frozen so it’s ready to grab on the way out the door. At the campsite, the same foil wrapping that made it freezer-safe doubles as the cooking vessel — set the burrito over the campfire to heat it through, or microwave it if you’re reheating at home instead. Because the filling is fully cooked before it ever goes in the freezer, campfire time is about restoring heat evenly, not finishing raw ingredients over an open flame.
Customizing the Filling
NPS lists both bacon and sausage as optional, and either can be dropped for a vegetarian version built around eggs, potatoes and cheese, or swapped for just one meat instead of both. The green chili is doing a lot of the flavor work in this particular version — leave it out for a milder burrito, or add hot sauce at serving time instead. Because the recipe makes 10 to 12 burritos from a single batch, it’s easy to build a mixed tray — some with bacon, some with sausage, one or two meatless — and label the foil before they all go into the freezer together.
Cooking and Reheating Safely
Two separate USDA rules apply here, one for the initial cook and one for the freezer-to-campfire reheat. On the stovetop, eggs need to be cooked “until yolk and white are firm” — a loose, wet scramble isn’t done — and USDA’s minimum internal temperature chart lists 160°F for ground meat and sausage, which covers the breakfast sausage in this recipe. Bacon is judged differently: USDA’s bacon-specific guidance says it’s hard to take a meaningful thermometer reading on a thin strip, so cook it until crisp rather than to a specific number, and expect it to stay pink from the curing process even once it’s safely done.
Once the burritos are frozen and foil-wrapped, the campfire reheat is functionally a “keep hot food hot” situation rather than a fresh cook: USDA’s general guidance is that cooked food should be brought to and held at 140°F or above, and that nothing should sit out of refrigeration for more than 2 hours — or more than 1 hour above 90°F — before it’s either eaten or put back in a cooler. A burrito that’s only warm in the center after time on the coals hasn’t cleared that bar yet.
Keep reading
- Taste of Home’s Campfire Cheese Hash Brown Packets
- NPS Campfire Meals in Foil: Recipe and Safety Notes
- Weber’s Ham and Egg Breakfast Sandwich on the Griddle
- Griddle Breakfast Potatoes: Two Published Methods