I cook about the same in the van as I did in a sticks & bricks home. The main challenges are:

  • the requirement to carry fuel
  • the absence of endless shore power (wall plugs)
  • no standard oven

goals

humans must eat

We must eat, and anyhow I rather enjoy it.

food cost frugality

Cooking for oneself is much less expensive than eating out or buying fast food, especially if one is able/willing to make good use of leftovers.

fuel conservation

Fuel conservation drives many of my cooking decisions. From lowest-to-highest fuel cost:

  1. Excess solar power is free. Free is good.
  2. unleaded is cheap but fouls the innards of stoves - I do not cook much on unleaded for that reason.
  3. Coleman Fuel (aka white gas or CF) is economical, compact and easy to store. By the BTU CF is about 1/2 the cost of propane, and the walmart brand is typically a couple bucks cheaper.
  4. Propane requires a large bottle, decanting, and refilling at specialized locations.

recipes

Recipes are in the sidebar (or over here).

cooking gear

refrigerator

Alpicool C20 12v compressor fridge. The C20 is the C15 model with an extended lid. I find the Big Lid model much easier to live with. Tall Boys and longnecks stand up. I can stack a bag of cheese or something on top of the filled items.

I had a C15 for about 3 years until I dropped it (fully loaded) onto concrete while reorganizing the van. :-(

electric cooking

Update: see this RVwiki article on using a router speed control to reduce appliance wattage.

I have ample solar in order to assure sufficient charging under marginal conditions. A pleasant side effect is having excess power under normal conditions. I put this excess power to use running the following implements off the panel:

Power observations below taken with a kill-a-watt p4400

crockpot

immersion heater

  • immersion heater. (rated 300w, measured 260w) A bit overpowered, would rather have a 200w one with a longer shank.

rice cooker

  • rice cooker (rated 300w, measured 271w cooking, 34.5w hold warm), an Aroma 6-cup model (ARC-363NG). $5.59 from a thrift shop.

hotplate

  • surplus laboratory hotplate (rated 330w, observed 285-290w), $20.39 + shipping from eBay. donated to Goodwill after figuring out the router speed control hack in the link above
  • IMUSA hotplate. Rated 1100w, observed 928w. I derate with the speed control from 200w to 600w depending on what I’m doing. Simmering, warming, boiling, sauteing, etc.

dash

instant pot

related RVwiki article

stoves etc

I prefer to cook outside when weather permits. My main weapon for outdoors is the MSR Dragonfly, a skeleton-style “roarer” stove that will burn coleman fuel, unleaded, or kero (change jets).

When weather doesn’t permit or I want to warm up the van I cook indoors on a generic bottle-top propane camp stove.

For emergency backup I carry a Coleman 550 Exponent, sadly no longer produced. I think only the 533 is available, but I’ve had good service from those as well.

cookware

Living in 76 square feet requires having exactly what you need with no extraneous items. Unless noted otherwise all items were bought used from thrifts.

Pretty much everything stacks or nests to conserve space.

  • 4qt mirro pressure cooker. With the lid off it doubles as the pasta pot.
  • 3qt anodized sauceman w/generic lid
  • 1.5qt anodized sauceman w/generic lid
  • small saute pan for eggs,etc
  • flat naan pan for toasting/grilling from an Indian/Pakastani store.
  • folding toaster rack repurposed as a trivet and vented lid
  • dogbowl oven made from stainless bowls from Amazon
  • small carbon-steel wok. Seems frivolous, but I do everything in it from wok-related stuff, to frying bacon, to making popcorn.

dishes and utensils

I tend to eat right out of the pot, caveman-style. Sometimes I use paper plates or a ceramic bowl.

I have two different sizes of insulated steel Walmart camping mugs and some thrift store flatware.

Rival UltraBlend handheld blender, 120w. $6.60 at a Salvation Army thrift.

tips and tricks

Allow leftovers to cool a bit before placing them in the fridge. I force-cool them with a fan blowing directly over the packaged food.

If you are shameless like me, bring ziplock freezer bags into restaurants with you instead of using a doggie bag. The ziplock will slip in your pocket and will not require repackaging (and disposing of the doggie bag trash) once back in the van.

If you have alternator charging installed, then cooking in a crockpot or rice cooker while driving is a freebie! RV folks have done this for years, placing the crock in the kitchen sink underway to hold it in place.

1 New Old Stock