Mastering campervan cooking requires you to adapt your home kitchen skills, with space optimisation being the key challenge in cooking in a VW campervan meal. While campervans offer the comfort of bringing your kitchen essentials on the road, successful meal preparation depends on strategic planning, efficient use of limited counter space, and clever equipment choices beyond the built-in kitchen tools. We recommend using pre-chopped ingredients, incorporating space-saving appliances like slow cookers and toastie presses, creating detailed prep plans, and implementing practical storage solutions. With these techniques, van life enthusiasts can transform their campervan cooking experience from challenging to enjoyable, making the most of their mobile kitchen setup for both short trips and extended adventures.
Campervanning can be a great opportunity to take some home comforts with you wherever you go on holiday. Imagine heading out wherever you like, while still making sure you always have your comfortable pillow and favourite mug. Holidaying in a camper is a way to bring home with you, while still exploring the open road. However, not everything is as simple to achieve when you’re in a camper as it is at home. Cooking in a campervan can prove difficult for many people, unused as they are to the skills and practices that it’s best to follow.
Cooking in a campervan doesn’t need to be difficult, it just requires a bit of practice and some planning. Follow Denby’s handy guide, and you can easily start cooking in your camper – without the stress.
Space
The first thing to consider is the space available to you. Almost all campervans are likely to offer you less space than your kitchen at home. This means that you need to consider what meals, techniques and pieces of equipment are conductive to cooking in a small space. You won’t have as much worktop space as you are used to. As a result, you need to either use pre-chopped ingredients, or to use ingredients that don’t need lots of chopping to be usable. You should also consider which parts of the meal you are cooking can be pre-prepared.
Equipment
Your Denby campervan will likely contain a variety of kitchen tools and pieces of equipment. However, these are limited by the size and shape of your campervan kitchen. They are generally only kitchen items that can be fitted permanently into the camper. However, these are not the only tools that you can use to cook in your campervan. You can often find storage for a slow cooker, toastie press or electric steamer. These lower the need to use the hobs you have in your van.
Planning
Make sure that you have planned out how you are going to make the most of your space. Pre sliced vegetables, and semi prepared food stuffs go a long way, but perhaps more effective is creating a plan of action before you start. Knowing where everything is, and what space you need to make use of will make cooking in a campervan easier. Even just writing a few notes will transform the effectiveness of your cooking preparation.
Washing Up
Washing up in a camper is not straightforward. Think about how much you might not like washing up in your kitchen – then imagine doing the same in a much smaller space. This is where space saving techniques can come in handy. We’re not saying that the best way to wash up in a camper is to use disposable plates and throw everything away. However, look at ways to make cleaning up (and storing your stuff) easier and more efficient. Stacking bowls and plates can fit in a much smaller space than mismatched dinnerware.
Whether you’re living the van life, or you’re off on a short trip, cooking in a campervan does not have to be hard. Make the most of our handy tips, and you’ll be cooking all sorts of meals in your camper for years.
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