Lightweight Camping Cookware for a Family of Three

When I used to solo canoe trip, it was easy to pick cookware. I’d just go with the lightest cookset that made sense for the time of year and trip. As my family has grown from one to three, I’ve found that it’s a little harder to balance lightweight camping cookware against ease of use and the desires of everyone on the trip. While I’m willing to forego special treats on a solo trip, it might make the night better for my kid if we have pudding after dinner. That means more lightweight camping cookware to haul along. The weight adds up. Still, we have managed to refine our selection of gear down to a low weight while keeping everything durable and meeting our families needs. Here’s what we carry.

Lightweight Camping Cookware for Three Gear List

• 5.8 oz. – Snow Peak 34-fl.oz. Titanium Pot and lid (comes in the Multi Compact Cookset)
• 4.8 oz. – Snow Peak Trek Titanium Bowl (1.6 oz. each)
• 2.5 oz. – Optimus Crux Lite Stove
• 0.6 oz. – Light My Fire Sporks (0.2 oz. each)
• 1.8 oz. – Light My Fire Firesteel 2.0 Scout
• 9.6 oz. – GSI Infinity Insulated Mugs (3.2 oz. each)
• 0.64 oz. – GSI Compact Scraper
• 0.1 oz. – Mini Bic Lighter
• 4.0 oz. – Pacific Outdoor Equipment Bear Bag Throw Line (not made anymore)
• 2.8 oz. – Sea to Summit UltraSil Dry Sack for food storage (1.4 oz. each, usually 2)
• 4.1 oz. – Morakniv Companion Fixed Blade Outdoor Knife
• Total weight: 33.94 oz. Links to each product are above if you want to see the costs and such. If you buy something from the links, I earn a small commission. So, buy early and buy often.

The first part of the list is what we use to cook with and eat out of. Luckily, I had the Snow Peak cookware already. So, we didn’t have to buy anything new except for a third Trek Titanium Bowl. This all nests together with the lighter, firesteel, scraper, stove and canister. We keep the sporks in the same stuff sack as the cookware. I’m not completely sold on the Crux Lite, but it is light and stable. The stability felt important when having a kid around.

We use the GSI mugs for hot drinks. It’s a fun treat to have hot chocolate in camp. That’s not something we drink at home, so my kid enjoys it. The separate mugs are easier to clean than cleaning our regular water bottles. These mugs are especially important during the shoulder seasons when it is cold.

We camp in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness most often, and the USFS requires bear bagging. So, we carry the throw bag with a replacement line that doesn’t stretch. The original line stretched like a rubber band. The dry bags carry our food and seem to hold up. Although, one has a hole in it now.

The knife might seem excessive, but it offers versatility. The blade makes cleaning a fish easy. Because it is fixed, there’s nothing to snap back on your fingers when closing it or using it. It works well for spreading peanut butter, and if we need to split wood for a fire, it does that, too. Overkill when a smaller knife might be able to do the same? Sure, but I like it.

What This Doesn’t Include

This list doesn’t include a few items that aren’t really lightweight camping cookware, but I consider them part of the kitchen. We each carry a Nalgene water bottle at 6.4 oz. each for 19.2 oz., and we also carry a gravity filter system. I’ll write another post on the gravity filter system, because it is one that I put together myself instead of buying a kit.

We could switch to a Platypus SoftBottle for 1.2 oz. each. That would be 3.6 oz. and save us nearly a pound of weight. The reason that we haven’t is emotional. Nalgene bottles are so durable that we decorate them with stickers and there’s a family connection between the stickers that we have picked. These bottles are also easier to deal with in the canoe than a soft bottle. They also take the punishment that a four-year-old can give.

The gravity filter system is heavier than the Sawyer Mini Filter we used to use, but it saves us so much time that the extra weight was worth it for us.

What I’d Like to Change

The biggest downside to this kit is the mugs. They take up a lot of room in the pack and don’t pack well. They don’t have an easy way to store them and they don’t nest together. I’d love to find a similar insulated mug that nests together. If you have any suggestion, please, leave them in a comment. I’ll check them out.