Homemade Camping Pancake Mix (Make-Ahead, Just Add Water)

This is a dry pancake mix you make at home, portion into labeled bags, and bring camping. At the site, you add water or an egg and water, stir, and cook. No measuring, no digging through a spice kit, no forgetting the baking powder.

It takes about 10 minutes to make four bags at home. Those four bags will cover two or three mornings of pancakes for a family without any additional thought. That’s the whole value of it.

Two versions below — a classic mix that needs an egg and water at camp, and a just-add-water version built with powdered eggs and dry milk that needs nothing from a cooler. The just-add-water version is the one to use for backpacking or any trip where cooler space is tight.

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• All measuring happens at home — nothing to weigh or portion at the campsite
• Shelf-stable for up to 6 weeks sealed, longer for the just-add-water version
• Make 4 bags in the same time it takes to make one
• Tastes significantly better than boxed mix
• No cooler needed for the just-add-water version

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Ingredients

Each bag makes about 8 medium pancakes — enough for 2 hungry adults or 3 lighter eaters

Classic Mix (needs 1 egg + water at camp)

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder — fresh is critical here, see notes below
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

What to add at camp: 1 large egg + 3/4 to 1 cup water + 1 tablespoon neutral oil or melted butter

Just-Add-Water Mix (needs nothing from a cooler)

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons instant nonfat dry milk powder — available in the baking aisle of most grocery stores
• 2 tablespoons whole egg powder — less common at grocery stores; find it at REI, on Amazon, or at bulk food stores. OvaEasy and Bob’s Red Mill both work well
• 1 tablespoon powdered butter or coconut oil powder — optional but improves flavor noticeably. Anthony’s powdered butter is easy to find online

What to add at camp: 3/4 to 1 cup water only

Buttermilk Upgrade

In either version, swap the dry milk powder for an equal amount of buttermilk powder. The pancakes come out tangier and more flavorful — noticeably better if you’re car camping and pack weight isn’t a concern. Saco and Bob’s Red Mill both make cultured buttermilk powder. Most grocery stores carry it near the dry milk.

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How to Make the Mix

Step 1 — Whisk all dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

Whisk for a full minute. You’re not just combining — you’re distributing the baking powder and baking soda evenly through every part of the mix. If either leavening sits in a clump and someone hits a pocket of it in their pancake, that bite will taste bitter and chemical. A thorough whisk prevents that.

If you’re making multiple bags at once, multiply everything out and whisk it all in one large batch first, then divide. It’s faster and more consistent than making each bag individually.

Step 2 — Portion into bags.

One batch of the recipe above fills one quart-size zip-lock bag. Press the air out before sealing.

If you’re making four bags, weigh the total mix on a kitchen scale and divide by four rather than trying to eyeball equal portions. It takes 30 extra seconds and means every bag cooks the same.

Step 3 — Label every bag before you forget.

Write directly on the bag with a permanent marker. Include:

• What to add: “1 egg + 3/4 cup water + 1 tbsp oil” or “3/4 cup water”
• The date you made it
• Any add-ins you packed with it (see below)

This sounds like overkill until you’re standing at a campsite at 7am holding a bag of white powder with no idea what goes in it.

Step 4 — Store correctly.

For trips within a few weeks, the sealed zip-lock bags are fine on their own. For longer storage, transfer each bag’s contents to a sealed mason jar and keep in a cool dry cupboard away from heat and steam.

Moisture is what kills dry mix fastest. A few cycles of steam near a stove — from a kettle, from cooking — will shorten the shelf life significantly even through a sealed bag. Keep it away from the stove.

The classic mix lasts up to 6 weeks at room temperature. The just-add-water version, with no fresh dairy in it, is good for closer to 3 months.

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Tips and Variations

Baking powder freshness is the most important thing in this recipe. If your pancakes come out flat and dense, it’s usually the baking powder before it’s anything else. Test it before you pack: drop a teaspoon into a cup of hot water. It should bubble vigorously and immediately. If it barely fizzes, replace it. An opened container sitting near a stove degrades faster than the label suggests — 6 to 12 months is the general shelf life, but humid kitchen conditions shorten that.

Don’t scale up the leavening when making large batches. If you’re doubling or tripling the mix for multiple bags, multiply everything proportionally — flour, sugar, salt — but keep the baking powder and baking soda amounts proportional too. Some recipes suggest keeping leavening flat when scaling up but that produces inconsistent results bag to bag. Scale everything equally and the bags will all cook the same.

Whole wheat swap: Replace up to half the all-purpose flour with whole wheat. More than half and the pancakes get noticeably dense and heavy. White whole wheat flour is a gentler substitute — more nutrition, less impact on texture.

Gluten-free: A 1:1 gluten-free flour blend works without any other adjustments. Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 and King Arthur Measure for Measure both perform well here.

Add-ins you can pack inside the dry mix bag: A half teaspoon of cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg mixed in at home make a real difference for almost no effort. Mini chocolate chips in a small bag tucked inside the main bag is the one my kids always ask for. Dried blueberries hold up better in the mix than fresh — add fresh ones at camp right before cooking if you have them, pressed into the top of each pancake after pouring rather than stirred into the batter where they sink and scorch.

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Using the Mix at Camp

Pour the dry mix into a bowl or directly into a wide-mouth water bottle. Add the wet ingredients. Stir or shake until just combined — you want it lumpy, not smooth. Lumps are fine and disappear as the pancakes cook. Overmixing knocks out the air and makes flat, dense pancakes. Stop as soon as you don’t see dry flour.

Let the batter rest 2–3 minutes before you pour — the leavening needs a moment to activate. Don’t wait much longer than that or it starts losing lift.

Cook in a buttered skillet over medium-low heat. The pan is ready when a few drops of water flicked onto the surface sizzle and evaporate within a second or two. Pour about 1/4 cup per pancake. Flip when the bubbles across the surface start popping open and staying open, and the edges look matte rather than shiny — usually 2–3 minutes. About a minute on the second side.

If you’re using a cast iron griddle, give it at least 4–5 minutes to preheat rather than 2–3 — cast iron takes longer to heat evenly and if you rush it you’ll scorch the center while the edges stay pale. A two-burner propane stove lets you run two pans at once, which is the only way pancakes for a group of four don’t take 40 minutes.

The water bottle method is worth knowing about: mix everything in the bottle, shake to combine, and pour batter directly through the opening onto the pan. One less bowl to wash at the water spigot.

Don’t mix batter the night before expecting it to wait until morning. Once wet ingredients hit dry, the leavening starts working and is mostly spent within an hour. Mix it at camp, right before you cook.

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Storage Summary

• Classic mix (flour + leavening + sugar + salt): Up to 6 weeks sealed at room temperature
• Just-add-water mix (with dry milk and egg powder): Up to 3 months in a cool dry place
• Mixed batter: Cook within 30–45 minutes — it doesn’t store
• Cooked pancakes: Wrap in foil, reheat in a dry skillet a minute per side the next morning. Fine, not great

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Make the bags at home the night before you leave. That’s the whole recipe. Everything else is just pancakes.