How to Master Grilling Food on a Fire Pit

This article was published in partnership with 5-hour ENERGY

Whether it’s at camp or in the backyard, a fire pit can take the chill out of the evening. And while you’ve roasted marshmallows over one, and maybe even a hot dog on a stick, that’s really just a fraction of what a big, open fire can do. With the right approach and gear, a fire pit can be as useful as a charcoal grill , searing hot and fast or acting more like an oven while it slowly simmers stew or braises tough cuts of meat.

Why Grill on a Fire Pit?

At every stage of its development, the fire in a pit is a useful source of energy, beyond warmth. In the early stages of combustion, a fire perfumes meat with a smokiness before full ignition releases maximum energy. The heat from that fire cooks with conduction (think grill marks left by hot metal on a burger) and with plenty of infrared energy pumping out of the glowing logs and coals, which is responsible for that charred flavor. There's a bit of convection happening, too. Even when the fire burns down the coals, it remains an excellent source for keeping food warm.

“I used fire pits for over 10 years, have a couple in my backyard, and take them when I go camping,” says pitmaster Christie Vanover of Girls Can Grill . “Before those I would just use a rock pit at a campground with wood in the middle.” Just like a grill, you have a two-level fire, which adds a lot of versatility, either at the campground, in a masonry-style pit in your yard, or a smokeless fire pit.

“I’ve done lobster tails, burgers, and hot dogs, so you can make it as easy or as fancy as you want,” she says. The only limitation is breakfast. Getting a fire going can take a while—a bit too long to wait for eggs, pancakes, and coffee. If you’re camping, you might still want to pack a portable gas stove to handle quicker meals.

What You Need to Grill on a Fire Pit

If you’re cooking over an open fire, cast iron is a good choice for pans, Dutch ovens, and griddles, though carbon steel will work, too. Some Dutch ovens have stubby legs underneath designed to sit just above coals (no rack required) and come with a lid with a lip, which you can load coals onto, turning it into a portable oven. You’ll need to outfit your pit with some hardware to make those pots and pans useful. With a smokeless fire pit, many manufacturers offer a series of racks, grates, and hanging rings to turn it into a grill.

If you’re camping, or have a masonry pit, which tends to be larger than the smokeless kind, you’ll have to pay closer attention to sizing for these parts. A steel grate you can nestle down above the coals supports pots and pans. A wider one that stretches across the top of the pit does the same thing and acts as a grill grate. You can also mix and match, by making half the pit a grill and the other half a griddle, or have two grills at different heights.

Manufactured or built, both styles of fire pits can accommodate a large range of hanging rods and hooks, to suspend kettles and racks. “If you’ve got hooks over the pit, the kind to hang kettles on, I hang meat from that,” Vanover says. “I'll hang a beef shoulder over the fire for a couple hours, over indirect heat, then finish it in a Dutch oven with some kind of braising liquid for shredded beef.”

How to Prep for Cooking on a Fire Pit or Open Flame

Cooking at camp takes a bit more planning than firing up a pit a few steps away from your kitchen. For chef Steve Corso, founder of Outdoor Eats , the performance of a cooler, and how many days it will keep ice frozen, is a big deal. “For shorter weekend trips, freezing protein isn’t necessary as most coolers will keep meat chilled for a few days,” he says. “For longer trips, freezing prior is helpful but not mandatory.”

To prep a meal at camp, Corso usually packs a flexible cutting board, chef’s knife, smaller paring knife, and a serrated knife, along with tongs, mixing spoons, and both metal and silicone spatulas. During prep, he relies on a few mixing bowls to bring things together. He suggests setting up a prep station near a trashcan you’ve got, where paper towels, soap, and hand sanitizer are near a water bin or station.

Planning meals ahead of time, which can simplify things at camp, provides the opportunity to handle what you can while you’re in your kitchen. “Consider pre-cutting your fajita or stir fry veggies for quick cooking once you’re ready to go at camp,” he says. “Fine herbs can be chopped prior but can only last for a day or two before they lose a lot of their freshness and mushrooms can also get a little slimy if they sit for too long”

Pack a few pantry staples, which don’t need to be refrigerated, are easy to dispense from bottles or shakers, and pack big flavors. Along with essentials like salt, Corso’s standard lineup usually includes garlic powder, Italian seasoning, Mexican chili powder, ginger powder, mustard, soy sauce, sesame oil, and hot sauce.

How to Light a Fire Pit

The most important part of successfully grilling over a fire pit is building a good, coal-generating fire. If you have a fire pit, portable or built-in, then it's a bit easier to get going than in a fire ring or at a campsite as they are constructed to make fires burn faster and hotter, plus you'll most likely have lots of combustible material at hand.

"To grill over a fire pit, it’s best to use charcoal briquets or lump charcoal," says Vanover. If you don't have a charcoal chimney (which we highly recommend), pile the coals in the fire pit in a mound. Then stick one to two fire starters into the coals and light them with a long-handled lighter, she says. "As the coals burn, they will start to ash over and turn gray. Once this happens, you can use long-handled tongs to spread them around the bottom of the pit." For a two-zone fire, spread the glowing charcoal to one side of the grill and leave the other portion empty. Finally, lay your grill grate on top and wait a few minutes for it to get hot.

How to Build an Open Fire

To create an open fire at a campsite without charcoal, you'll want to gather downed wood from around the site. You'll need three things: tinder, kindling, and logs. Tinder is small, easily combustible material like pine needles, bark, or twigs—newspaper, if you have it, is also a great option. Kindling are larger dry sticks that are still small enough that it catches easily. Thomas Coyne, an expert from Coyne Survival Schools recommends pieces of dead wood ranging from the size of a pen to the handle of a hammer. Logs, or firewood, can range in size from an axe handle up to large logs—hardwoods vs. evergreen or pine logs are generally your best bet for cooking.

Once you're ready to burn, try a teepee-style structure, says Coyne. Simply place the tinder in the center of your fire ring, then arrange the kindling around the tinder, and then the logs around the kindling, all in a conical shape that looks like a teepee. Once you light the tinder, the flame heats the air and it rises quickly, drawing in surrounding air and supplying the fire with oxygen. “This forms a convective current, which some woodsmen call a self-feeding fire,” says Coyne.

To keep your fire alive after the initially teepee collapses—and to build a great bed of coals for cooking on—Coyne recommends switching to a log cabin-style. “Once you have a nice bed of red-hot coals built up in your pit, you can begin to lay your wood on the fire more horizontally, in a log cabin fashion, so it burns slower,” he says.

Creamy Campfire Skillet Mac and Cheese Recipe

With this campfire skillet mac and cheese recipe, you can make the ultimate comfort food at home or at a campsite in a jiffy. "It's one of my go-to recipes because it’s so easy to make, yet so deliciously creamy," says Vanover.

Ingredients

• 4 slices bacon, chopped
• 2 tbsp onions, chopped
• 1 jalapeño, chopped
• 1 cup milk
• 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 2 cups cooked macaroni noodles
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Light the campfire. Place a grill grate on top of the campfire ring, over the fire. Place a 12-inch cast iron skillet on the grate. If cooking indoors, place the skillet on the stove over medium heat. (Pro tip: You can also make this recipe without a campfire. Just place the skillet over medium heat on a stovetop or grill.)
2. Add the bacon to the skillet and cook until crispy. Add the onions and jalapeño and cook for about 1 minute, stirring often.
3. Move the skillet to the edge of the grate to reduce the heat or reduce the stovetop heat to medium-low. Add the milk and cheese. Stir until melted. Add the pre-cooked noodles and cook until warmed through. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Pro tip: When moving the skillet to indirect heat, be careful not to tip over the grate. Sometimes they can be a little wobbly and the shift in weight can make them unstable.

Notes

• To pre-cook macaroni, heat a pot of salted water over high heat. Bring it to a boil. Add 1 cup of uncooked pasta to the water. Cook stirring occasionally for about 7 minutes. Drain. Cool the noodles and store them in an air-tight container in the refrigerator until you're ready to use them.
• For a little heat, use 1 jalapeño. Remove the seeds to make it less spicy or use a mini sweet bell pepper for a mild flavor.
• Whole milk will create a rich, cheesy sauce, but you can also use a lower fat milk. Or add more fat with a dash of heavy cream.
• For classic mac and cheese, I like sharp cheddar. But honestly any good melting cheese will work with this recipe.
• Substitutions: Instead of bacon, you can also use 1 tablespoon of oil, butter, or another meat like ground sausage or diced kielbasa. In place of elbow macaroni, you can use shells or orecchiette noodles.
• Once you master the recipe, which you’ll get on your first try, you can play around with the flavors by adding other seasonings like onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, or even dry mustard powder or Dijon mustard.

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Best Gear for Grilling on a Fire Pit

ThermoWorks Thermapen ONE

ThermoWorks Thermapen ONE is known as the one of the best instant-read thermometers you can use for grilling, and the reason is clear. It's a durable, easy-to-use thermometer that won't fail you when having to check on multiple meats cooking over an open fire. The plastic case is tough and feels great in your hand, plus the quickly deployable stainless-steel temp probe turns on immediately when you rotate it out. Temperatures—which pop up a second—are easy to see, even in the dark with the backlit digital screen. It comes with a five-year warranty.

New West Knifeworks Tactical Outdoor Chef Knife

If you need to only bring one knife out for handling all of your outdoor cooking tasks, make it the tough and versatile New West Knifeworks Tactical chef knife . The unique blade shape is a mashup of a petty knife, slicer, and chopper, plus the unique handle is made from G10 and a rubber composite to limit slipping or sliding when getting into juicy, just-cooked meat. Made in Montana with a CPM S35VN "super-steel" blade—rated for excellent hardness and toughness—TOC is a high-quality knife that can handle any culinary duties near an open fire. It's backed by a lifetime warranty and lifetime sharpening.

Le Creuset Alpine Outdoor Collection Skillet

There's always the old fallback of a Lodge cast-iron skillet, which is definitely a great choice for cooking on a fire pit grill grate, but if you want to step up your cast-iron game, check out the 10-inch Le Creuset Skillet . It's specifically designed for cooking over an open fire or on a fire pit, and is excellent for searing, sautéing, and griddle-specific cooking. Its has angled sides that make it perfect for flipping and holding onto food, while the small diameter allows for grilling other items in tandem. And the large handles let you easily manipulate the pan with bulky fireproof gloves on. Unlike traditional cast iron, this enameled skillet is dishwasher safe.

Breeo Leather Fire Gloves

Before you start grilling on an open fire or fire pit, you're gonna want a good set of grilling gloves. We've tried many gloves over the years, from bumpy rubber to heat-resistant textile to thick silicone, but these cowhide leather beauties from Breeo are a joy to slip on. They're easy to manipulate, save for the most delicate grilling tasks, and have a soft, insulated cotton lining. For extra protection, they include an air-isolated aluminum foil layer on the grip side, which allows them to handle 550 degrees for 30 seconds and 1,000 degrees for 15 seconds.

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