23 Favorite Mountain Pie Recipes

My favorite thing about going camping is cooking over the fire.  The smell of wood smoke, the warm bath of heat as it turns your face pink.  There is nothing that feels quite so primal as cooking on the fire.  Mountain Pies are one of my favorite meals.  They have several names in different areas such as hobo pies, mountain pies, or pie irons.  I have seen the irons advertised as snack makers.   They’re easy to make for picky eaters; they can just omit the things they don’t like.  The sky is the limit with this dish; anything you can fit between two pieces of bread is fair game.

Mountain pies are a type of hand pie.  They are usually made with two buttered slices of bread and some sort of filling.  Traditional flavors include fruit pies such as apple or cherry and pizza.  Mountain Pies are made with a pie iron.  Irons can be made from aluminum or cast iron.  I feel that the cast iron ones produce more consistent product.

Every pie you make is going to be slightly different based on the fire you have built.  Building a cooking fire and creating a nice hot bed of coals will produce the best results.  Your fire can be too hot as well; you can burn the outsides without the insides cooking the whole way through.  The unpredictable nature of the fire is why I always make mountain pies with pre-cooked ingredients.  Mountain pies always work best if the pie iron is hot before you build your sandwich.  You must handle your iron with care!  We usually make mountain pies on the bench to the picnic table.  We want to use something sturdy that we cannot melt with the hot iron.  I always use paper plates for the same reason.

These are the basic steps to making a delicious mountain pie.

1. Be sure to collect all of your ingredients first.
2. Apply butter. You can butter the iron itself and set your bread on the iron, or butter the outsides of your bread before placing them into the iron.  If you decide to butter the iron, you can use the spray butter or you can just use a stick of butter and rub it right on the hot metal.  Some of these recipes call for specific types of butter; these are meant to substitute for regular butter on the outside of the sandwich.
3. If the recipe you are using calls for sauce, put sauce on one piece of bread.
4. Stack the other sandwich ingredients.
5. Press the pie iron together. Some irons have a little hook that helps to keep the pressure on the sandwich.  If yours does, you want to make sure that the hook is up near the handles so you don’t burn yourself when you remove the pie from the fire.
6. Cook your pie! When you stick it in the fire, you don’t want to roast it like a hot dog or a marshmallow.  That iron was meant to be in the coals!  Find a spot in the fire that looks like a little oven and plop that baby in there.  In most of my fires, pie irons only take about four to six minutes to cook.  Last weekend, our fire builder had the fire going so well that they only took about ninety seconds on each side.  Half way through, you want to turn your pie iron over.  Its okay to open the iron up and check on the sandwich.  If the bread doesn’t peel away from the pie iron, it is likely not done yet.  The crust should be a pretty, golden brown, and the edges should have sealed together.  Not every mountain pie is going to be perfect, but they all taste great.
7. Removing your pie is one of the trickiest parts. When possible, I like to use the wooden bench to the picnic table.  Place a paper plate on the table.  Place the hot iron on the plate and open it.  Your pie should slide out onto the plate.  If it gets stuck, a rubber spatula is the best and safest thing to use to remove the pie without damaging the iron.  I don’t usually carry a rubber spatula with me, so we usually use plastic forks.  You must be careful with the forks though; they’re easily melted!  You can’t touch it to the iron or your poor sandwich will be inedible!

Like most cast iron, you do not wash pie irons with soap and water.  They are cared for the same way you care for cast iron skillets.

1. Pizza Mountain Pies

This has to be my number one recipe because it is my absolute favorite!  I could eat these for every meal for the rest of my life.  The gooey cheese and the smoky crust make the best bite.

2 slices white or Italian bread

2 T pizza sauce

3 oz mozzarella cheese

5 slices of pepperoni

 

2. Fruit Pies

2 slices white bread

2-3 T Fruit filling-use your imagination!  Any fruit that comes as canned pie filling is pretty tasty here!  (Except pumpkin… you need more work for that one.)  We frequently use apple pie filling, but other favorites include blueberry, cherry, and lychee.  Be careful not to over-fill your pie!

 

3. Fruit and Cream Pies

2 slices white bread

2 oz fruit of your choice

2-3 oz premixed cream cheese filing

Before you go

1. mix 1 oz cream cheese with 1 tsp milk and 2 tsp sugar in your mixer for every mountain pie. Store it in a zip-top bag, or in a piping bag.  When you are ready to use it, cut the bottom corner of the zip-top bag or the point of the piping bag to form a hole about as wide as your pinky.
2. Wash or cut the fruit for your pie. For strawberries, peaches, or anything else that needs to be cut, I usually add a sprinkle of sugar to the fruit when storing it.

When you make your sandwich, pipe a line about ¼ inch thick around the outside of the sandwich.  You don’t want to get it very close to the edge of the bread.  You need enough space for the sandwich to form a seal between the two pieces of bread.  Spoon filling inside of cream cheese moat.  My favorites for this are fresh strawberries, peaches, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries.

4. Apple Cinnamon

1 tsp honey butter

2 slices cinnamon raisin bread

2-3 T apple pie filling sprinkled with cinnamon OR ½ of your favorite apple sliced

Making your own filling: core and slice apples, approx. 1 apple for every 2 pies.  Mix with ½ tsp cinnamon and ½ tsp sugar.  I think they’re best when you let them sit overnight.  You get a gooey, apple syrup that tastes amazing.

 

5. Caramel Apple

2 slices white bread

1 T caramel sundae topping

8-10 apple slices

Spread sundae topping on one side of the bread.  Press slices of apples into the caramel in a circular pattern, like flower petals.

 

6. Oktoberfest Pies

2 slices potato bread

1 T cooked sour kraut

3 oz kielbasa

1 slice Havarti cheese

These pies can be as easy or as difficult as you make them.  We initially made them as part of a pie contest.  Two days before you leave, open a jar of sour kraut and strain the juice.  Replace the juice with the beer of your choice.  Let the kraut marinate in the fridge overnight.  The next day, cook the kraut on the stovetop for about 20 minutes, then cool and return to the refrigerator.  My favorite part of kielbasa is the charred edges, so I dice the kielbasa and fry it in a frying pan to make as much of it as possible black and crispy.  Cool the kielbasa and refrigerate until ready to use.

 

7. Pierogie Pies

2 slices potato bread

2 oz sliced cheddar

1 oz fried onions

1 oz sour cream for dipping

 

8. Ham and Cheese

2 slices your favorite bread

2 slices American cheese

2 oz chipped ham

 

9. Breakfast Pies

2 slices your favorite bread

1 cooked, scrambled egg

This pie is difficult to make a recipe for, because they’re just like omelets!  Spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, bacon, feta, cheddar, mozzarella, turkey bacon, sausage, ham, or anything else you like on your eggs are great choices.  Any veggies or meats you use must be sliced or diced before adding them to your sandwich.  You can add condiments such as salsa, ketchup or mayo to the sandwich, or dip into them after your sandwich is made.  My favorite is cheddar, salsa and sausage on wheat.

 

10. Pigs in a Blanket

2 prepared pancakes

3 oz diced breakfast sausage

Drizzle maple syrup over sausage, use more for dipping.

 

11. Chicken Alfredo Pies

1 tsp garlic butter (use instead of regular butter)

1.5 oz canned chicken

1 T canned alfredo sauce

1 slice asiago cheese

3 cherry tomatoes (optional), quartered

 

12. Nutella and Fruit

2 slices white bread

2 oz Nutella

Sliced fruit of your choice

These chocolatey desert pockets are like warm cookies right out of the oven!  I think they’re best with bananas, canned cherries or strawberries.  Spread Nutella on both sides of the sandwich, then place thinly sliced fruit in the middle.

 

13. S’mores Pies

1 tsp cinnamon butter

2 slices white bread

1 T marshmallow fluff

3 squares of Hershey chocolate or 1 tsp hot fudge topping

 

14. Grilled Veggie Pies

2 slices wheat bread

1 tsp garlic butter

2 slices provolone cheese

Baby Spinach

Sliced mushrooms, onions and peppers.

After your fire is started, use the grill and char the onions and peppers.  The mushrooms will cook inside the pie.

 

15. BBQ Cheeseburger

2 slices white bread

2 tsp your favorite BBQ sauce

2 slices cheddar

3 oz crumbled, cooked ground beef

1 oz fried onions

 

16. Sloppy Joes

2 slices bread of your choice

Prepare sloppy joe mix according to instructions on can.

Use about 4 oz prepared mix per sandwich.

 

17. Pulled Pork

2 slices King’s Hawaiian bread

4 oz pork shoulder roast, cooked and shredded

1 T your favorite BBQ sauce.  My favorite is Guy Fieri’s Apple BBQ.

 

18. Reuben

2 slices rye bread

2 tsp thousand island dressing

2 slices swiss cheese

1 T sour kraut – feel free to use it right out of the package or prepare it the same way described in the Oktoberfest pie recipe.

3 oz corned beef

 

19. Beef Taco

2 slices white bread

1 T salsa

2 oz cheddar cheese

3 oz cooked taco meat (prepare according to instructions on seasoning packet before coming)

 

20. Chicken Taco

2 slices white bread

2 oz canned chicken breast

2 T queso

Taco sauce to taste

 

21. Grilled Cheese

2 slices white bread

4 slices American Cheese

You can dress this up by adding ham, bacon, mushrooms or fried onions as well as any of your other favorite grilled cheese recipes.

 

22. Grown Up Grilled Cheese

2 slices 12 grain bread

1 T garlic butter (replaces regular butter)

1 slice or 2 oz shredded mozzarella cheese

2 slice provolone cheese

2 oz prosciutto

 

23. Steak Au Jus

2 slices Italian bread

4 oz roast beef lunch meat

1 slice gryere cheese

1 T canned brown gravy