The Complete Guide To Caravan Cooking

Cooking in a caravan is nothing like cooking at home. Your kitchen is smaller, your bench space is minimal, your stovetop might be two burners instead of four, and your oven (if you have one) is the size of a microwave. But here’s the thing: most Big Lappers find they eat better on the road than they did at home. Simpler meals, fresher ingredients picked up at roadside stalls, campfire cooking under the stars, and the time to actually enjoy preparing food. This guide covers everything from mastering your caravan kitchen to cooking outdoors and making the most of limited space.

Your Caravan Kitchen: What You’re Working With

Most caravan kitchens have a gas cooktop (two, three, or four burners depending on layout), a griller, and sometimes a small gas oven. Higher-end vans may include a microwave or convection microwave. Bench space is limited. Storage is tight. And your rangehood is either weak or non-existent, which means cooking anything that produces a lot of smoke or steam with the windows closed is a bad idea.

The cooktop is your workhorse. The vast majority of caravan meals are one-pot or one-pan dishes cooked on the stovetop. Stir fries, pasta, curries, soups, and simple grilled proteins with vegetables are the staples. If you’re coming from a home kitchen with a big oven and a full-sized fridge, the adjustment is real, but it gets easier quickly.

The oven question: Many caravanners rarely use their built-in oven. They’re small, they use a lot of gas, and they heat up the whole van. Some Big Lappers remove the oven entirely and use the space for storage. Others swear by their oven for baking bread, roasting meat, and making it feel like home. If you use yours, invest in a small oven thermometer (the built-in temperature gauges are notoriously inaccurate) and expect to rotate dishes halfway through cooking, as most caravan ovens have uneven heat distribution.

Cooking Inside: Making the Most of Your Stovetop and Oven

One-Pot and One-Pan Cooking

This is the cornerstone of caravan cooking for good reason: one pot means less washing up, less bench space needed, and less water used. A quality 24 to 28cm skillet and a 4 to 5 litre saucepan will handle 80% of your meals. Curries, stews, risottos, pasta sauces, stir fries, frittatas, and even baked dishes can all be done in a single vessel.

Invest in a skillet with a lid. It turns a frypan into a braiser, steamer, and mini oven. A cast iron skillet is brilliant if you can handle the weight; otherwise a quality non-stick with a heavy base works well and saves kilos.

Making the Most of Your Gas

Gas isn’t unlimited. A standard 9 kg LPG bottle runs a cooktop for roughly three to four weeks with regular cooking (less if you’re also running a gas hot water system or heater). Two bottles with an automatic changeover gives you six to eight weeks between refills. Keep an eye on gas consumption and factor refills into your route planning, especially in remote areas where LPG may not be available at every stop.

To conserve gas: use lids on pots (food cooks faster and uses less gas), match your burner size to your pot (a small pot on a large burner wastes gas around the sides), and use a pressure cooker for meals that would otherwise simmer for hours. A good pressure cooker can reduce cooking time by 60 to 70%, saving significant gas over a long trip.

Small Appliances Worth Their Space

Counter space is premium real estate, so every appliance needs to earn its spot. The appliances Big Lappers swear by are a pressure cooker or multi-cooker (Instant Pot or similar, runs on 240V), a toasted sandwich maker (the single most-used appliance in most caravan kitchens), and a compact electric kettle. A NutriBullet-style blender is popular with health-conscious travellers. Air fryers have a cult following but they’re bulky, draw significant power (1,500W+), and need either mains power or a large inverter to run off-grid.

If you have a microwave or convection microwave, it earns its space for reheating leftovers, defrosting, and quick meals. Running a microwave off-grid requires a decent inverter (minimum 2,000W) and will pull hard from your batteries, so most people only use them on mains power.

Cooking Outside: BBQs, Camp Ovens & Campfires

Outdoor cooking is one of the genuine pleasures of Big Lap life. Most caravanners cook outside as often as they cook inside, especially in warmer weather.

BBQ Cooking

A portable gas BBQ is standard kit. The Weber Baby Q is the most popular choice among Big Lappers for good reason: it’s compact, reliable, easy to clean, and produces excellent results. It runs on disposable gas canisters or an adapter hose connected to your main LPG supply. A BBQ hotplate handles everything from breakfast eggs to steak to stir-fried vegetables.

Many caravans come with a slide-out kitchen that includes a BBQ or cooktop. These are brilliant for outdoor cooking without the setup and pack-down of a separate portable unit. If your van doesn’t have one, a standalone BBQ on a folding table works just as well.

Camp Oven Cooking

A camp oven (cast iron Dutch oven) over coals is the quintessential Australian bush cooking experience. Roasts, damper, stews, curries, baked desserts: a camp oven can do it all, and the results are often better than anything your caravan oven produces. The downside is weight (a quality camp oven weighs 8 to 12 kg), and they need a campfire or charcoal briquettes to work.

Heat beads (charcoal briquettes) are the most consistent heat source for camp oven cooking. They provide even, controllable heat without needing a full campfire. Stack them underneath and on the lid using the rule of thirds: roughly one-third of the briquettes below and two-thirds on top for baking, or the reverse for stews and frying.

Campfire Cooking

Where fires are permitted (check local fire regulations, as total fire bans are common in summer), cooking over a campfire is part of the Big Lap experience. A simple camp grill or tripod over coals is all you need. Wrap potatoes and corn in foil for the coals, grill meat and fish directly, and boil a billy for tea. Always use an existing fire ring where one exists, keep water or a fire extinguisher nearby, and ensure the fire is completely extinguished before leaving.

Meal Planning for the Road

Meal planning on the Big Lap is less about detailed weekly menus and more about having a reliable rotation of meals that work in a small kitchen with variable ingredient availability.

Stock your pantry basics: Rice, pasta, tinned tomatoes, coconut cream, stock cubes, spices, oil, soy sauce, flour, and long-life milk. These are your foundation ingredients. With a stocked pantry and whatever fresh protein and vegetables you can find, you can make dozens of different meals.

Shop fresh, shop local: Regional Australia has excellent produce if you know where to look. Roadside stalls, farmers’ markets, butchers in small towns, and even fishing for your own dinner are part of the experience. Buy fresh in smaller quantities more often rather than trying to do a massive weekly shop that overwhelms your fridge space.

Batch cook when you can: When you’re at a caravan park with full kitchen facilities, cook a big batch of bolognese, curry, or soup and portion it into containers for the freezer. These become easy meals for the next few nights at free camps where you’d rather relax than cook from scratch.

The “three meal” rotation: Most Big Lappers settle into a rhythm of roughly three to four go-to breakfasts, six to eight dinners, and simple lunches (wraps, sandwiches, leftovers). This isn’t boring; it’s efficient. You know the ingredients, you can cook them in your sleep, and you vary it based on what’s available locally.

Tips for Cooking in a Small Space

Prep outside. Set up a chopping board on your outdoor table and do all your prep outside the van. This keeps the mess out of the caravan and gives you more room to work. A simple outdoor prep station (folding table, chopping board, a few bowls) transforms your cooking experience.

Clean as you go. In a small kitchen, a pile of dirty dishes overwhelms the space instantly. Wash each item as you finish with it. Fill a small tub with hot soapy water before you start cooking and drop items in as you go. By the time dinner is served, the kitchen is nearly clean already.

Use nesting and stackable gear. Pots that nest inside each other, collapsible colanders, and stackable containers save precious cupboard space. Avoid bulky single-purpose tools. A good knife, a peeler, a wooden spoon, and a pair of tongs handle 90% of cooking tasks.

Ventilation matters. Cooking in a sealed caravan fills it with steam, smoke, and smells that linger for days. Open windows on opposite sides of the van for cross-ventilation. Run the rangehood (if you have one) and consider keeping the door open. Better yet, cook outside whenever the weather allows.

Secure everything before driving. Pots, pans, bottles, and appliances become projectiles on corrugated roads. Use non-slip matting in cupboards, bungee cords on shelves, and make sure oven racks and loose items are secured. A few minutes of kitchen prep before driving saves a messy clean-up at the other end.