Recipes

The best simple and authentic pesto sauce. Use as a spread in a sandwich, a dressing for a salad or as a rich sauce for your pasta.

Though this is by no means a Chilean recipe, it was the rice dish we made the most in Chile by far, as it uses ingredients which are easy to find all over the country, and only requires one pan. It’s also delicious cold, so we always make double portions, to avoid having to worry about lunch the next day.

Couscous is readily available throughout Chile, and is also the only carbohydrate I know of that doesn’t need to be heated. This comes in handy if you’re looking to save on gas, or if you don’t have a cooker.

I use to make this one all the time back home, when I fancied something creamy and comforting. Here however, fresh mushrooms aren’t so easy to find, plus they aren’t cheap either. ​ If you’re in the south at the right time of year, you may be able to get your hands on some cheap wild mushrooms in the markets. The ones you want are the impressive Loyo mushrooms, from the porcini family. ​ For the most part, we ended up using tinned mushrooms. I won’t try and claim that these are the real thing, however they do have the advantage of being cheap, easy to find, and of course, lasting forever. By all means, use fresh if you can, but if not don’t be afraid to give these a go, you may be surprised. All the other ingredients for this recipe are also long life, so you can think about this one in the supermarket, and then forget about it till a rainy day.​

This has been a go-to meal for years for us, and it has translated really well into Vanlife. I was playing with seasonings one night as I cooked chicken to put in a salad for dinner, and I loved the sweet and savoury heat it added to our salad! The tortilla chips and Ranch really compliment the flavors of this dish. You can modify this salad to your own tastes! Perhaps you’re not a broccoli fan, or you hate black beans. That’s fine! The beauty of a salad is you can toss it together your own way! Play with it, and have fun! If you don’t have all of the ingredients, use what you do have! I often make a simplified version with no black beans, corn, tomato, or avocado-just a simple salad with chicken and tortilla chips on top.

I never would have thought of combining sweet potatoes and guacamole until I saw the idea on Pinterest! The flavors pair together really well, and we love this meal! It’s quick and easy to make on a week night after work. And it’s quite filling, especially with a salad. But, I will sometimes serve it with a side of quinoa, as well.

This soup is pure comfort food, and perfect for a cold night in the van! I love making a big pot of soup, and having the leftovers the next night. I always serve this soup with homemade garlic toast, which I make by toasting bread slices in a pan, buttering them, and sprinkling them with Garlic Salt. Bon Appétit!

This is our absolute favorite cookie recipe! I made it all the time in the early years of our marriage, before we left for Vanlife. And I was delighted to learn that I could make cookies on a propane stove top with a covered pan! If you are like us, and don’t have an oven in your van, you will need a lidded pan to make these cookies. It creates an oven effect on your stove top. If you don’t have a pan lid, perhaps you could try a dinner plate! If you have an electric mixer, you would be fine just using softened butter. I melt my butter to make mixing easier. I didn’t bring my hand mixer, since we boondock most of the time, and rely completely on our solar panels and battery bank. Fellow boondockers, I know you understand!

I have been using this pizza dough recipe for years! I’ve tried new dough recipes since, but I always come back to this one. It is so simple and always turns out great! Imagine my delight when I realized I could make homemade pizza on our propane stove top in the van! When I photographed this recipe, it was during the COVID-19 quarantine, so the grocery store was out of organic all-purpose flour. I tried making it with organic quinoa flour, instead. I didn’t realize quinoa flour is like a whole wheat flour. That’s why the crust has a darker color. I do NOT recommend using a non-white flour with this recipe! The quinoa flour made the dough difficult to work with, and the crust too crumbly. Plus, the flavor was blah at best. This recipe works best with white flour, and turns out ah-mazing every time with it!

Since we are two huge pizza fanatics, this was the ultimate criteria for our vanlife. If we can’t make a pizza without an oven or Omnia, then we would be forced to let our dream of vanlife die. But we wanted to travel so badly! So we sat down, tinkered and finally developed a really cool recipe, which we would like to share with you. And we can now rightly say, especially since we now have an Omnia, that we stick to the pan-pizza method. It is the best pizza you can make in a van! If you want, you can watch our pan pizza tutorial on YouTube in advance (german, English subs are following):

Vegan Shepherds Pie

CHICKEN WITH MANGO & AVOCADO SALSA

BANANA & OAT PROTEIN PANCAKES

RASPBERRY CHIA CHEESECAKE BALLS

The sauce is the boss! My favorite way to make sauces and dressings is to shake it in a mason jar to combine the ingredients thoroughly and easily store the leftovers.

5 Ingredient Chocolate Chip Tahini Bars

Cashew Milk

Bucatini all’amatriciana

This is one of my favourite quick lunches to have in the van. Personally I love the simple margarita but you have endless options to add for additional toppings

A burger-less burger. That’s my idea of heaven. I’m a vegetarian and I don’t eat bread so I am just used to avoiding burgers altogether. These little micro burgers are so useful for bite sized sustenance you can grab and eat when you are busy. They can be made ahead of time and store well in the fridge. Likewise you can freeze the ‘dough’ to make them quickly at will, handy for spontaneous camping trips or BBQs. The addition of quinoa makes them hearty and filling, and their size makes them versatile for snack boards or picnics or sliders. They make a great lunch spread with Handmade Hummus, Summer Tomato Salad and Golden Flatbreads.