Cooking Merit Badge

Cooking Merit Badge is a great Eagle-required Merit Badge for scouts to start thinking about early in their scouting career. Home cooking should be done at home (!) and does not require troop involvement, so it can be done at the scout’s own pace.

Many counselors accept trail cooking completed on non-scouting outings, and some even accept portable outdoor cooking on non-hiking activities (e.g., canoeing or hunting). And some counselors allow non-troop camping outings to count towards Cooking Merit Badge. As always, check with your counselor IN ADVANCE if you have any questions or are counting a particular outing to complete your badge.

Check out our resources including meal planning tips and recipe suggestions, the MyPlate calorie calculator and daily meal plans, and recommendations for dealing with food allergies and intolerances.

Meal Evaluations

You are welcome to use the meal evaluation worksheets in the Merit Badge Workbooks. Here is another variation to help you capture key information about each meal you prepare.

Meal Planning Tips and Recipes

• Scouter Mom’s helpful links and recipes
• ScoutSmarts’ Ultimate Guide to the Cooking Merit Badge including a detailed requirement-by-requirement
• Troop 204’s Backpacking Recipes
• BSA Cooking’s blog dedicated to the Cooking Merit Badge (check out their Trail or Backpacking meal ideas)
• TrailCooking.com’s food, recipes, gear, tips & trips
• Troop 777 Resources for Cookmasters (including instructions for Backpacking Cookmasters, a Backpacking Carry List, and suggestions for simple backpacking meals).
• Troop 26’s Backpacking Food Ideas
• LoveTheOutdoors.com’s camp cooking tips
• Mountain House’s guide to how to prepare freeze dried food
• Pre-trip Food Prep tips for boating and other portable-cooking outings
• Troop 219 Outing Menu Planner – cooking methods, menus, cleaning tips, budgeting and shopping guides

Healthy Eating and the USDA’s MyPlate Program

To learn about healthy food choices, you can use the USDA’s MyPlate calculator below to determine your daily caloric needs, and then find the appropriate MyPlate Plan planner for your recommended daily intake and age:

Allergies and Food Intolerances

Here are some references for parents and scouts interested in learning more about food allergies:

• BSA’s Guidelines for Managing Food Allergies (last revised 2013)
• The Helpful Scout’s Guide to Camping with Scouts with Allergies