On February 22nd 2024, we were lucky enough to be presenting at Vanlife summit about vanlife cooking tips and hacks. For any of you that tuned in you will know there was a lot of information and gadgets that we shared. Although we were available to answer any questions during the session we decided to create this page full of all the relevant information. Access to vanlife summit was free and meant you could view any of the live sessions. If you missed out this time, be sure you don’t miss out in the future!
If you would like to try the recipe we made, you can find it here!
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Vanlife gadgets demonstrated at vanlife summit
If you were impressed with our manual hand held food processor, you are not alone. We quite often whip our Zyliss Easy Pull when we do cooking demos. At one event Mark almost got a standing ovation! This bad boy can blitz vegetables in seconds, and is great for chopping onions, carrots and other veg.
We talked about our pan, the Flavorstone was an impulse buy from a TV shopping channel that Mark couldn’t resist at 1am one morning! The flavorstone is a great vanlife gadget as it is multi-purpose, light-weight and works on gas and induction hobs. It can also be used in an oven if you have one.
One of our smallest and cheapest gadgets in our van is a blowtorch. We use this to light our hob as we have never connected the ignition, and also for many meals in the van. It is the best gadget for perfecting pan pizzas as it means you can get the bubbly crispy crust without an oven.
We also spoke about our Ridgemonkey sandwich toaster. We actually have quite a few products from Ridgemonkey as they are good quality & well suited to vanlife. The XL compact we showed you in the video
Mark is a one pan man in a van and so we do not have an oven. Another gadget we spoke about at vanlife summit was our Omnia oven. This has enable me to bake cakes, bread and pies when in our van. It means I can still do the baking I love. You can see our Omnia recipes here.
Gadgets, gadgets and more gadgets
The vanlife gadget list continues. We have room to sit and eat in our van with all these gadgets, I promise! Which leads is on nicely to our next gadget, the wonderbag! This thermal slow cooker is a great way of cooking meals without using gas. Simply get your meal to a heat where it’s cooking on the gas and then place it in the wonderbag. A few hours later you will have a deliciously cooked meal. However, it is quite bulky, so it has its advantages and disadvantages in vanlife.
Next up is a great gadget for meat lovers. Meater is a wireless thermometer. Pop this little gadget into the meat you’re cooking and bring up the app on your phone. Select which meat you are cooking and how you like it and this clever thermometer will send you a notification when your meal is ready.
Do you know what goes well with steak? Wine! We love our Silwy wine glasses and they have really stood the test of time. These glasses have a magnet in the bottom which allows them to be hung upside down using the magnetic strip they come with. We have travelled down the bumpiest of roads and they have stayed stuck! It’s also a great party trick to stick them on the van when empty but don’t forget to take them off before you drive away!
Ice, ice baby. You may have seen us use ice cube trays for something other than you expected. We use silicone ice cube trays to store van made curry paste, or pancake mixture. This divides it into portion sizes ready for use. This is great for solo vanlifers as it helps use only what you need.
Cooking hacks and tips for vanlife
Ventilate
Be less like us, and make sure you ventilate properly when cooking. If you saw our video you will know we didn’t think ahead when cooking onions ðŸ˜. We have a really useful article on how to ventilate your van, ideally you need to get good airflow. We have a window by the kitchen and a ceiling van to create a good airflow and ventilate the van. If you aren’t stealth camping and the weather is good then you can open the doors, otherwise the window and fan work well. These may need to be things you need to consider when converting your van.
If like us you aren’t prepared and need to get rid of cooking smells, we’ve got you covered too, with this article.
Clean & tidy
In small spaces mess can build up quickly. None of us vanlifers want any friends of the scurrying, squeaky, furry, four-legged variety. It is really important to tidy up as you go along. Not only does this make it easier at the end allowing you to enjoy your meal, it also clears up counter space for you to use. We use an enamel tray in our van to put all our peelings etc on so we can tip it in the bin at the end. Being enamel it doesn’t matter if it drops on the floor when driving!
Happy knife, happy life
A good quality sharp knife can really help when cooking in a van. When using a sharp knife it is actually less likely to make mess with bits of chopped food flicking off in all directions. We like to use our custom Savernake knife. Password is vanlifeknife if you use this link for a secret discount :-)
Space savers
Any space saving products can be great for vanlife. We like to use collapsible measuring cups that can store safely on the wall. We also have a collapsible mixing bowl, which again hangs on the wall. If you home base you may want to consider leaving some things there, do you really need a full cutlery set or 6 plates?
If you are a part-time vanlifer consider partially prepping meals and ingredients in advance. For example, if I know I am going to be baking while we are away in the van I will often weigh the dry ingredients out at home. I put them in a tub or ziploc bag rather than bringing a handful of ingredients which can be bulky.
Multi-purpose
We have already mentioned our Flavorstone pan. This is a great multi-purpose gadget in the van as it can be used for a number of things such as shallow frying, deep frying and steaming. This has meant we got rid of second pan in our van, saving on space and weight. Any products that can be used for multiple things are great vanlife gadgets. It can even be as simple as using a wine bottle as a rolling pin!
Finally…
One of our favourite vanlife cooking hacks is to make some recipes from this very website. There are recipes from vanlifers from around the world
Share your favourite vanlife cooking tips and hacks with fellow vanlifers in the comments below. You can also add your favourite thing to cook in your van so that other vanlifers can try it.
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Sophie x
