One of our biggest time suckers is preparing meals. We scoured countless easy camping meal lists and found that many meals are not that easy if you’re living in a car full time. From our experience, we compiled a list of easy meal ideas we enjoyed and found pretty easy and quick to make. We only have a tiny fridge and little room for food storage, so these meals are pretty basic and don’t require storage of leftover ingredients.
Cooking Supplies
Since we live in our car, our situation is a little unique. We do have a microwave and a small fridge, which does make meal prep easier. The meals in this list can be made without a microwave, though they may take a little longer. Below is a list of all the items we use to make meals.
700 Watt Microwave
ICECO GO20 Dual Zone Portable Refrigerator
Collapsible Electric Tea Kettle
Basic Spices and Oils (salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika, Italian spices, cayenne pepper, crushed red pepper, olive oil, and vegetable oil)
Metal Spoons, Forks, and Butter Knives
Set of 4 Kitchen Knives
Can Opener
Two Dish Towels
Cast Iron Skillet
Sauce Pan
Nonstick Frying Pan
Cutting Board
3 Glass Bowls with Lids (small, medium, large)
1 Glass Rectangular Dish
Small Plastic Containers with Lids
Water Jug
Two Microwavable Plates and Bowls
Sandwich and Freezer Bags
Aluminum Foil
Dish Soap
Paper Towels
Wet Wipes
Spray Bottle with Dish Soap and Water
Tongs
2 metal marshmallow skewers
Large Plastic Spoon
Plastic Spatula
Oven Mitt
A Lighter
For a complete list of items, check out our article about all the items we used while road tripping in our Prius for a year.
Breakfast
Breakfast is usually a quick meal we eat in the car before going about our day. We don’t typically cook or make anything that requires a lot of cleanup.
Shelby’s Breakfast:
Yogurt and Whole Wheat Tortilla with Hummus
This is kind of unconventional but is a go-to breakfast of mine. I like Dannon Light and Fit Greek Yogurt because they come in lots of delicious flavors and are lower in calories compared to other brands. The tortilla with hummus started as a last resort kind of thing when I couldn’t find pita bread at the store. Since I already was eating tortilla wraps for lunch, I decided to try a plain tortilla with hummus and it was very good!
Spencer’s Breakfast:
Banana with Homemade Trail Mix
Spencer’s go-to breakfast is a banana along with a trail mix he made. The trail mix is a combination of granola, almonds, and raisins. He mixes the ingredients up in the resealable bag the almonds came in.
Lunch
Lunch is also typically a quick no-cook meal that we eat in the car.
Sandwich
Spencer typically eats a sandwich for lunch. It’s simple, fast, and easy. The usual ingredients are:
-2 slices of whole wheat bread
-lunch meat (turkey or ham)
-deli cheese
-lettuce or spinach
Wraps
I occasionally have a wrap for lunch, if I’m not just snacking. One of my favorites is:
Buffalo Tuna
-whole wheat wrap
-deli cheese
-buffalo tuna
I first tried the Starkist Buffalo Tuna Pouches and loved them, but the price kept going up so I decided to try to make it myself. I mixed canned, drained tuna with a melted butter and Red Hot Sauce mixture and it turned out very good.
Another type of wrap I like is:
Pepperoni and Cheese
-whole wheat wrap
-pepperoni
-deli cheese
-banana peppers
Lately, I’ve been snacking for lunch. I usually eat:
-some kind of fruit (grapes, an orange, raspberries, etc.)
-deli cheese
-tortilla with hummus
-deli meat (usually pepperoni or salami)
-a snack (chips, crackers, etc.)
Dinner
Burrito Bowls
This is a good meal for using up ingredients. It’s also healthy and delicious.
-Small onion, chopped
-Cherry tomatoes, cut in quarters
-lettuce
-sour cream
-shredded Mexican cheese
-1 can beans
Optional:
-rice
-avocado (if you’re feeling fancy!)
This meal is really easy as it only requires chopping some ingredients and heating up the beans. Rice takes a little more effort, but is a good addition.
Pasta with Vegetables
Pasta with vegetables is one of the first meals we cooked. We boil the pasta on our propane grill and usually have either steamed broccoli or peas to go with it.
BBQ Chicken and Corn on the Cob
This was an interesting meal. The chicken was seasoned with salt and pepper and grilled on the stove. Then we mixed leftover bbq sauce packets from Wendy’s into the chicken and reheated it. It was actually very good and saved us from buying a whole bottle of bbq sauce. We originally tried grilling the corn on the cob in foil on the stove, but that ended up taking a very long time. We ended up boiling the second half of the corn in water and that was much faster.
Steak, Potatoes, and Green Beans
This was one of our fancier meals. We were in Idaho at the time and wanted to eat Idaho potatoes. We grilled the steak on our stove, seasoned with salt and pepper. The green beans were boiled on the stove and then seasoned with salt and pepper. The potatoes were cut into pieces and microwaved to start the cooking process. Then they were pan fried in the cast iron skillet and seasoned, again with salt and pepper.
Cheeseburgers with Steamed Sugar Snap Peas and Chips
We first made this meal at a rest stop off an interstate highway.
Cheeseburgers:
-ground beef
-hamburger rolls
-lettuce
-Sliced large tomatoes
-condiments (from leftover fast food condiment packets)
-cheese
On the side:
-sugar snap peas
-potato chips
We grilled the burgers on our propane grill and steamed the sugar snap peas in the microwave.
Grilled Chicken with Baked Beans, Rice, and Peas
This was also one of the first meals we made. We seasoned the chicken breast with salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning and grilled it on our propane stove. The baked beans were pre-made from a can. The peas were cooked in the microwave, along with the rice.
Salad
Salad is a pretty easy one. Sometimes we like grilled chicken, Parmesan cheese, and hard boiled eggs, but our basic salad ingredients are:
-romaine lettuce mix
-chopped onion
-chopped tomato
-croutons
-dressing
Ratatouille
This meal is a little more work than the others. All the vegetables need to be chopped which can take a while. But then you just throw them all in a pot and simmer it for a bit and it’s done. We made ours in two batches since our pot wasn’t large enough. We were really impressed with how flavorful it turned out.
Ingredients:
-5 large tomatoes
-two yellow onions
-1 yellow bell pepper
-1 orange bell pepper
-2 small eggplants
-2 zucchini
-8 cloves garlic
-1 handful fresh basil
-10 sprigs fresh thyme
-olive oil
-salt
-pepper
-cayenne pepper
Instructions:
- Dice all the vegetables. The tomatoes can be diced a little larger.
- Mince the garlic.
- Saute the onion in large stock pot in olive oil until translucent.
- Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute.
- Add the tomatoes, bell peppers, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon pepper, a dash of cayenne. Cook until it simmers.
- Simmer covered for 10 minutes or until the tomatoes break down.
- Add the eggplant and zucchini.
- Simmer uncovered for 5-10 minutes until the eggplant and zucchini are just cooked.
- Turn off the heat and add the basil and thyme.
Instant Noodles
I really like maruchan yakisoba instant noodles. I just put some water in the dish and throw it in the microwave for 4 minutes and I have a meal. Cup Noodles are also good. I can easily boil water in our collapsible tea kettle. This is a good meal for when it’s rainy out and we can’t cook dinner outside. It’s also good for lazy days.
Pasta Packets
Another easy microwave (or stovetop) meal are Knorr pasta packets. They also only require water and can be microwaved. We avoid the ones that need milk since milk takes up a lot of space in our fridge.
Snacks
We try to eat healthily most of the time. Here are a few of our snack options.
Homemade Trail Mix
Hummus with Pita Bread or Tortilla
Crackers
Vegetables (carrots, sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes)
Potato Chips
Nuts
Bread with Nutella
How to Clean up
The most annoying part about meal prep is the clean up. We’ve tried a few methods of cleaning our dirty dishes. Here are the most common ones:
Method 1: Wet Wipes
We can’t really recommend this one. Typically we would wipe the dish with a paper towel to clean it most of the way. Then we would wipe it down with an antibacterial wet wipe. After that, we would rinse it with a wet paper towel. We used this method for most of the beginning of our journey, but we went through a lot of supplies and wet wipes aren’t cheap.
Method 2: Soap and Sponge
This is probably the most eco-friendly method of cleaning dishes. We tried this method a few times with our collapsible sink. We don’t have grey water storage, so often we weren’t sure what to do with the water when we were done with it. I found this method messy and a lot of work. On the other hand, if we were at a park that had a sink with running water, this method was a lot easier.
Method 3: Spray Bottle with Soapy Water
This is our current most favored method of cleaning dishes. We put dish soap and water in a spray bottle. We spray the mixture onto the dish, wipe it with a paper towel until it’s clean, and then dry it with a clean paper towel. It’s not the most eco friendly option, but it’s better than buying wet wipes and it’s pretty quick and easy, especially when there isn’t much to clean.
Quick Tips
- Save extra condiment packets from fast food restaurants. We keep a plastic bag full of ketchup packets, taco sauce, mustard, bbq sauce, and salt and pepper packets. These often save us from buying full-size bottles.
- Choose to make meals where the ingredients can do double duty. For example, we used broccoli in salads for dinner. When we ran out of lettuce, we steamed the rest of the broccoli for a dinner side dish. We don’t like throwing out leftovers, so we try to repurpose what we can.
- Clean up the dishes as you go. There’s nothing worse than being content and full after a meal, but you have a whole bunch of dirty dishes you still have to clean.
- Invest in a nice two-burner propane stove. This was a game changer for us. Before we bought the two-burner stove, we were using a tiny backpacking stove to cook large meals it wasn’t meant for. The tiny stove did save a lot of space, but it didn’t save time. Purchasing a larger stove really opened up a lot of meal options for us.
- Cook enough food to have leftovers. We cook dinner every few days and then reheat the leftovers for additional meals. This saves us a lot of time and effort.
- If you travel, try the local foods!
We’re always open to suggestions and we’re constantly updating our list as we go. Please feel free to suggest any meal tips or ideas in the comments section below!
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