RV Kitchen Essentials

On this page I’ll share all my tips and tricks for cooking in our RV kitchen.

My Set Up – Essential Items

Luckily, my countertop is large enough for my favorite appliances: Cuisinart mini food processor, 3 Qt Instant Pot Duo Mini, and Vitamix blender. My husband even has room for his single serving Keurig coffee machine and Nespresso expresso maker. I have a three burner propane stove top and propane stove that I use daily.

HANDY TIP: I use a baking stone in my propane oven to keep the bottom of the food from burning.

Finally, I have a microwave and Weber Q1000 propane grill, but I don’t really use them very often. We’re considering converting the microwave to a convection oven/microwave combination.

When downsizing from our 2,500+ square foot house to the RV, I decided to forgo the knife block and instead use a three-piece ceramic knife set that I keep in the drawer. I have a large glass cutting board that I leave out on the counter. It doubles as décor. I also purchased a set of cookware that I’ve been using for 3 years now, and am still very happy with.

Lessons Learned

A few things I’ve learned about small kitchen cooking include:

Pre-preparation. I try to do as much pre-prep as possible to make things simpler when it’s time to actual prepare a meal. For example, I’ll chop up veggies like peppers and onions and store them in the fridge. That way, when I need them for a stir fry or soup, they are ready to go. I’ll also make a big batch of rice and/or quinoa to use for several meals.
Clean as you go. There’s not a lot of space to work with so I clean and use measuring cups and utensils as I go.
Multi-task. I try to make dishes that use some of the same core ingredients so I can get more done in a day. For example, the three recipes here all use potatoes. I’ll boil the potatoes and make the three dishes in the same day: a large batch of soup that we can have for a lunch a few days, potato salad for a side dish one day during the week, and a lentil shepherd’s pie for dinner that night.
Melamine plates are awesome! They are a lightweight, hard plastic that is terrific for the jostling of the road.
Pantry and refrigerated space are often limited in an RV. Meal planning is key.

RV Kitchen Storage

We all know that space is at a premium in an RV or camper. There are two critical components to RV kitchen storage: meal planning (see above) and organization. Click here to see my top tips for organizing your small space.