Cooking in Your RV

Your RV provides you with a comfortable and spacious home away from home, and one of the top features contributing to this experience is the kitchen. However, when you’re on vacation, you don’t want to spend all of your time cooking. Even if your camper kitchen is outfitted with residential-style appliances, the limited space can make cooking a little more of a challenge than it is at home.

Fortunately, help is here! Here are our top tips for cooking delicious meals in your RV with as little fuss as possible.

Plan Ahead

Making a concrete meal plan in advance of your trip is one way to cut down on the stress of preparing food. Poll your group of travelers to see what meals they most enjoy and figure out the proportions of ingredients you’ll need for each one. Use your meal plan to determine ways you can use leftovers or batch-cook larger portions of staple foods in advance, like rice or pasta. Once you have a plan in place, your pre-trip grocery shopping will be much easier.

Cook In Advance

Since you’ve got the space at home, why not make use of it to prepare your meals in advance? Gather the family together to prepare large batches of lasagna, stew, soup, casseroles and other dishes that will keep well in the freezer. Store individual portions in Tupperware containers and fill up your RV fridge right before you leave so that you have filling meals at the ready. You can either use the oven, the stove, or a microwave to warm up foods.

Use Your Slow Cooker

One way to save yourself time when preparing a hot meal is to pull out your slow cooker, plug it in, and fill it up with ingredients. You can do this in the morning before you head out on a hike or go for a swim: just chop up the vegetables, put in your cuts of meat, add liquid and spices and close it up. When you return, you’ll have a hot dinner waiting for you and you can add some bagged salad and sliced French bread to complete it.

Clean As You Go

The limited counter space in a camper kitchen means that you’re going to need to be tidier than you might have to be at home. You’ll want to put pans aside to soak as soon as you can and make sure that you’re rinsing knives and cutting boards as you go. Wipe down counters, put away spices, and compost your vegetable cuttings while you’re waiting for the oven to preheat. Not only will cleaning as you go make it easier to find space for food preparation, but it’ll also save you time after dinner to allow you to relax and unwind instead of scouring the kitchen.

Cook Less

Not every meal has to be a big production and involve the dirtying of every dish and pan you have in your RV. Plenty of delicious foods can be prepared without ever turning on a burner or preheating an oven! Try making judicious use of leftovers for cold lunches the next day, like fixing a pasta or green salad with chopped grilled chicken from last night. 

For breakfast, skip the bacon and eggs and go for a healthy yogurt parfait with crumbled granola and chopped fresh fruit. Have a sandwich buffet for dinner, with a jar of pickles, a bag of chips and plenty of washed lettuce, sliced tomato, condiments and cold cuts for everyone to assemble their own meal.

Searching for RVs near you? Visit JR Motors in Lake Havasu City and Parker, Arizona. We also proudly serve those in Blythe, Arizona.