Hobo Dinner

This Recipe for Hobo Dinner is the best meal idea. It is easy to clean up and you can load the foil packs with different vegetables. Everything you need for an easy and flavorful meal made on the grill or in the oven.

If you love foil pack dinners, try Chicken Hobo Dinner and see more Best Foil Pack Recipes for more ideas.

What is a Hobo Dinner?

Hobo dinners date back to the depression era when the people without homes roamed the country and cooked dinner over an open fire. They contain a meat and loaded with vegetables and seasoned and then wrapped in foil.

This meal doesn’t require any fancy dishes or pans. You can make it with just the foil and cooked while camping, on a gas grill at home and toss it in the oven.

Why We Love This Recipe

These Hobo Dinners are also great for camping. This hearty meal is always a family family because of all the flavors. The hamburger patties are topped with shredded cheese make them so juicy and flavorful.

Add your favorite vegetables and seasoning to make this Hobo Dinner so delicious. Make these Hobo Dinners ahead of time to feed your hungry family or a crowd. Easy cleanup makes the best weeknight dinner.

Ingredients 

Scroll to the bottom for the full recipe and ingredients in the recipe card.

Variations and Substitutions

• Cooking Hobo Dinner – These Hobo Dinners can be cooked while camping, on your grill at home or in the oven.
• Change Seasoning – We used simple seasoning when making this recipe. Feel free to change the seasoning to what you prefer. Italian Seasoning and other herbs would be great as well.
• Potatoes – Use any type of potatoes that you prefer. Russet potatoes, red potatoes, sweet potatoes, or yellow gold potatoes are great recommendations. You can slice or dice the potatoes just as long as they are about the same size.
• Carrots – You can use baby carrots or regular carrots. For the regular carrots we peeled and diced them in about the same size.
• Butter – We love to top the ingredients with a slice of butter. It adds flavor and keeps the ingredients juicy. This helps to prevent sticking while the ingredients cook. You can also drizzle with olive oil.
• Change the Meat – If you prefer you can use ground turkey, pork, sausage, or ground chicken breast. You can also combine ground turkey and ground beef and make patties.
• Green Beans – Green beans would make a great addition to this Hobo Dinner.
• Corn – Corn is also a great addition to this dinner packet.

How to Make Hobo Dinner

Step 1 – Combine the ground beef with the garlic salt and form the beef into four patties and set aside.

Step 2 – Coat 4 large pieces of heavy duty foil with non-stick cooking spray. Place one potato (peeled and sliced) in the middle of each piece of foil.

Step 3 – Place about ¼ of the diced carrots and sliced onions on top of the potatoes.  

Step 4 – Place a beef pattie on top of the potatoes, carrots and onions on each piece of foil.

Step 5 – Top each foil packet with a tablespoon of butter, and season with salt and pepper. Fold up the sides of the foil. Then fold up the other sides to seal the edges to make a foil pack. The foil packets are ready to cook.

Step 6 – Place on the grill on medium high heat (or a campfire) for approximately 30 minutes-40 minutes or until the hamburger patties are cooked through. Top with shredded cheese and serve.

Expert Tips

• Ingredients are Optional – We like to make these because they are kid friendly. We set out the vegetables that we have and seasoning and let kids build their own Hobo Dinner.
• Aluminum Foil – We recommend using heavy duty aluminum foil when making Hobo Dinners. The grill is so hot that you don’t want your foil to burn through or tear.
• Cutting Vegetables – When cutting potatoes and carrots, make sure they are cut about the same size. This ensure that they all cook tender about the same time.
• Opening Foil Packs – Make sure when you open the dinner packs that you do it carefully. These packets are extremely hot and steam will come out of it.
• Ground Beef – We recommend using lean ground beef as it taste the best and it is less greasy.

How to Make Hobo Dinner in the Oven

You can make this delicious easy hobo dinner foil packet meal in the oven. I would assemble the hobo dinners like normal but instead of placing them on the grill I would place on a sheet pan and bake.

• Bake these hobo dinners packs in the oven at 375 degrees F for 45-50 minutes. The Hobo Dinners are done when the beef reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees F.  
• Use a meat thermometer to check to make sure hamburger is done.
• Open foil packet carefully and top with cheese. Place back in the oven for a few minutes to allow cheese to melt.