One of the many benefits that traveling in an RV brings is the ability to cook your own meals. There are plenty of reasons why this can be a good thing. It allows you to save money as you travel by cooking for yourself. You can be more cautious about what you eat. And if you’re not comfortable going into restaurants with crowds of people or you just don’t want to worry about finding a place to eat, you have everything you need right with you.
But cooking in an RV isn’t always like cooking in your residential kitchen. This can catch you off guard if you’re not prepared. So, here are ten tips to help you bake and cook in your RV kitchen.
1. Have the right equipment
Many RVs don’t have residential-sized appliances. That means if you try to bring your dishes from home, they may not fit well or at all. Take time to measure the interior size of your appliances so you can find pans and dishes that work. Remember you don’t want to choose a pan that barely fits because it’s going to be a lot harder to take in and out once you have food on it or it’s hot.
In addition, before you leave home, think about what meals you want to prepare on the road. Then think about what you need in order to make those dishes. Do you have measuring cups? Sharp knives? Cheese grater? Corkscrew? Think through the things you take for granted having at your fingertips when you’re at home.
2. Level your RV
This is another area we take for granted when cooking at home. If you try baking a cake or cooking something with liquids in it, you’ll easily be able to tell if your RV is not level. If you’re parked somewhere that your RV can’t be perfectly leveled, think about what you can do to offset the difference as you cook.
In addition, it’s important to remember that if you stay in one place for an extended time, your RV might start to settle a little. This means over time, you can end up off level again. You may need to check periodically.
3. Come up with a list of staple recipes
We all have that list of go-to meals that we make over and over again at home. It’s helpful to have a list of go-to meals that you cook when you’re on the road. This helps assure that you’ll have what you need and you can keep the process simple. It’s also helpful to choose meals that have ingredients in common. You may have limited space to work within the kitchen so you need to pick and choose carefully.
4. Prep ingredients before you leave home
If you’re not living in your RV but simply going on a trip, it can help to prep everything possible at home. If you need a bunch of chopped veggies, do it at home and keep them in storage bags or containers. They even make reusable food storage bags so you can choose something that’s environmentally friendly.
If you have access to a freezer in your RV, you can even make freezer meals that allow you to prep the entire meal before you leave home. This way all you need to do is thaw it in the fridge in advance put it in the pan and cook it before dinner. This helps reduce the amount of kitchen prep items you need to bring with you along with reducing the amount of time you spend in the kitchen.
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5. Find stackable everything
When storage space is precious in your RV, it can feel hard to squeeze in everything you want to bring in your kitchen. Thankfully, they make lots of kitchen equipment now that is foldable, stackable, and bowls and tubs that nest within each other. Think of your cabinets like a Tetris game. You want to utilize all the space you can.
6. Use a baking stone
Burning food is a common issue for new RVers. One of the secret tips that experienced RVers know is that it’s helpful to place a baking stone on your bottom rack in the over. This helps to disperse the heat so your food will cook more evenly. If you skip this, you may end up with all your food being burnt on one side and undercooked on the other or burnt outside and uncooked inside. You don’t want to bite into a muffin with a gooey middle.
7. Keep an eye on your propane
This seems like an obvious one, but it’s one that’s easy to overlook too. If you’ve been RVing for an extended period of time or you’re new to RVing, it can be easy to forget until you run out. You don’t want to run out when you’re in the middle of trying to get dinner on the table for a hungry family.
8. Test it out
The holidays are coming up fast and if you’re going to be RVing for the holidays, you might want to make a special meal. We encourage you to make sure you test out your oven and get familiar with it before jumping into a special meal. Use an oven thermometer to find out what the temperature actually is. Get familiar with the differences in the time between cooking in your RV verse cooking at home.
Don’t forget to take advantage of the outdoors
While cooking on the road, remember to take advantage of getting outside. If your RV has an exterior kitchen, you can use the grill or the fire pit in a campground. You may not want to cook every meal outside, but it can be fun to do on occasion.
If you’re looking for a new or pre-owned RV with the kitchen of your dreams, call us at Sky River RV.
