Cooking in (or out of) a vehicle presents certain challenges and opportunities that you may not expect when compared to cooking in a conventional sticks and bricks home.
Cooking for oneself is a great way to save resources and therefore spend less money. Some folks set up on a tailgate or on little table at the rear of the vehicle under the open hatch, or with the rear door open and blocking view/wind. At parks stoves can be set in a bbq grill or on a concrete picnic table.
For folks looking to save more on food expenses, there are cheap but tasty approaches.
Cooking equipment
Cooking with fuel
Cooking with electricity
Cooking with electricity requires significant amounts of power. Be sure your electrical system is sufficient to handle the load. Some things can be cooked while driving to take advantage of alternator-produced power.
Cooking with a slow cooker or pressure cooker can reduce your electricity usage.
Solar water heating
Solar water heating allows you to use the sun to heat water for showers, cooking, making coffee, and other uses. By using solar energy directly, instead of first converting it to electricity via solar panels, you can generally heat water more efficiently. This method also doesn't use any fuels like propane, but it does depend on fairly sunny weather. You could cook eggs or hot dogs directly inside a portable solar water heater, or pour the heated water into another container for cooking.
Cooking tips
- Since carrying measuring cups and spoons can be unwieldy in a vehicle, you may want to cook by weight instead of volume.
- use minimal water for cooking pasta. See this example
Cleanup
In a vehicle, water is often a limited resource. To conserve water:
- Focus on single-pot meals so only one pot is dirty. Eat out of the pot.
- "Deglaze" a hot pan with a small amount of water/broth/wine/etc. to get as much flavor into your dish as possible[1]
- Clean or soak dishes quickly after use to prevent dried-on food.
Scrambled eggs are notoriously difficult to get off pans. Some techniques:
- don't eat scrambled eggs :-) consider poaching or hardboiling eggs to minimze cleanup
- heat the pan, then add a bit of oil and allow to heat. Spread evenly, cook.
- after cooking, scrape off what you can with a flat wooden implement, then put a small amount of water (doesn't have to be potable) back into the pan and bring to a boil. Simmer or allow to soak. Scrape again.
Resources
| Resource | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| RV Cooking Group | Subforum of GoodSam Community | |
| Campervan stoves | Stoves and cooktop ranges for your vehicle from Nomadic Supply. | |
| Food and cooking forum | A sub-forum of VanLivingForum.com | |
| Search forums and groups | Search van life discussion groups for "cooking" | |
| Search related sites | Search van life sites for "cooking" | |
| Search NomadLife.wiki | Search other pages on this wiki for "cooking" |
Some or all of the content on this page was originally sourced from RVWiki