The Best 8 Ways To Cook In A Skoolie
This isn’t an instructional blog post about how to cook in a skoolie. More of a conversation and suggestions for different ways to cook your skoolie meals.
We all have our methods and preferences for preparing and cooking our foods. Some of us have several methods of cooking, depending on the ingredients.
The way we see it if you have the space for several cooking appliances and the means to power them, then more power to you! Variety, after all, is the spice of life.
As with most aspects of skoolie life, there is no “right or wrong” way to cook in a skoolie. There is only “your” way to cook in a skoolie and the way that best accommodates you, your space, and your needs.
Why Is Being Able To Cook In A Skoolie Important?
You have to eat right? Unless you plan on eating out every meal or having someone bring you food constantly, you need a way to cook in your skoolie.
Besides the basic need for nourishment, having the ability to and knowing how to cook in a skoolie will make skoolie life so much better.
For many people, cooking your own food is a great social bonding activity. Whether it is between you and your partner, potential partner, family, or friends, cooking for others creates a bond.
For others, cooking is therapeutic and creative.
Cooking in a skoolie is so much more than just making food and eating it. The smells it creates in and around your skoolie are what create moments that are remembered and cherished.
Cook Your Favorite Meals In Your Skoolie
What is your “go-to” meal? What foods bring comfort and a smile to your face? We all have our favorite foods. Some of our favorite Skoolie recipes are here.
Nothing will connect you to your new tiny house on wheels more than cooking some of your favorite and nostalgic meals.
Like music, food connects us to memories and experiences. No doubt you will create new experiences and memories while enjoying meals with your family or friends.
Making some of your favorite foods though can instantly make your new skoolie feel at home.
What Appliances Are Good to Cook In A Skoolie?
While we may have our preference as to how to cook in a skoolie with different appliances, we have tried most of them and they all work fine.
Some, just seem to work better than others for us. Let’s take a look at some of the different approaches to how to cook in a skoolie.
Recpro RV Stove/Oven
The Recpro RV Oven and Stovetop is a great appliance to have. It has been our favorite appliance for cooking so far. After building our skoolies and van conversions, this is a “go-to” appliance for us.
The Recpro RV stove and oven will do it all. Three stove-top gas burners and an oven that can accommodate any casserole dish, pizza, or baking sheet for hot, homemade cookies.
If you want to cook in a skoolie, having a stove and oven creates a lot of opportunities for different types of foods.
Induction Stove Top
The induction stovetop burners are a great asset to any skoolie kitchen. This cooking tool runs off 110v electricity and it is great if you are onshore power, but not so much on solar or house batteries. This will allow you to cook in a skoolie without propane.
An induction will still use between 1,500 to 3,000 watts of electricity. It is about 10% more efficient than an electric coil stovetop.
The thing we like about induction is that the surface is almost immediately cool once you turn the burner to the off position.
The thing we dislike about the induction is that it does create a high-frequency pitch that bugs the piss out of one of our dogs.
Propane Stove Top
If you do not mind going to get propane refills and it is available to you, then a propane stovetop may be a good option for you. Propane is relatively cheap and efficient as a cooking heat source.
Connecting your stovetop to a 20 or 30-gallon propane bottle is the way to go here. Being able to cook in a skoolie with gas it a preferred method for many.
Coleman Gas Grill
A Coleman Gas Camping grill is a great alternative to a fixed or installed stovetop gas burner. It is just as efficient as a fixed gas stovetop, but you have the flexibility of putting it away or using it in different locations.
They are easy to clean and easy to store away.
If you make a connection to connect it to your propane source, they are much more efficient.
What we do not like about the portable camping grille is that they use 1lb propane bottles and that can get expensive.
Microwave
Microwave in a skoolie just doesn’t seem possible, does it?
Well, if you have a reliable power source to hook into (shore power) or you have the ability to use a generator whenever you need to, then a microwave is a very nice luxury to have in your skoolie.
Even if you have enough solar and house batteries, a low-wattage microwave is not an automatic battery drain for your house batteries.
We have been without a microwave since we moved into our first skoolie back in 2019 and really haven't missed using one.
Sometimes though, when you want a quick cup of soup, hot water, or baked potato, a microwave is awfully convenient.
Toaster Oven
We used a toaster oven in our first skoolie. We ended up buying after living and traveling for about 5 months. The urge for fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies was too much for us to resist.
Toaster ovens, like a microwave or induction top stoves, are going to use up a butt-load of your house batteries. If you have the resources to handle that, then it is a nice alternative to an RV oven like the Recpro.
Instapot
The Instapot may or may not be as popular as it was a few years ago. We bought one just before we moved on to our first Skoolie, Caroline.
Depending on what size Instapot you choose to go with, will dictate how much electricity you drain from your batteries. Plan on using somewhere between 700 to 1,200 watts of power to run your Instapot for an hour.
When cooking things like stew or chili, we recommend you use the crockpot or “slow cooking” function to save a lot of power.
Electric Griddle
The electric griddle is as basic as it comes to having a portable cooking appliance. It is inexpensive, portable, and about as basic and crude as a heat source gets for cooking.
We do not recommend using an electric griddle or electric pans. They will suck the energy out of your house batteries as fast lightning.
Plus, they get very hot and become a safety hazard, especially when there are children on your bus.
Wrap Up To How To Cook In A Skoolie
How do you cook in a skoolie? Maybe you don’t have a skoolie yet? How do you plan on cooking in your skoolie?
Hopefully, we have given you some insights on some ways to cook in a skoolie.
There are other ways than we have discussed here as well. We only talked about the ways we have discovered ourselves. Some of them we liked, while others we didn’t like as much.
They all work though. You will find out which way to cook in a skoolie is best for you. Don’t be surprised if you end up changing your mind a few times like we have.
We would love to connect with you.
Leave us a comment and let us know what you do to cook in your skoolie. Let us know what you think you may end up doing as you are building your next tiny house on wheels.
