Ok. I’m not going to lie, I love my RV kitchen. Finally, a kitchen I can handle. Some days all three burners are going and the oven is lit. And since I am not lying, other days the kitchen is more of a decorative piece and the local pub is doing all the cooking.
It’s possible to use your RV kitchen to make delicious meals and family favorites. I tend to keep things simple, but I cook more in my RV kitchen than I ever did in my sticks and bricks.
If you are looking to spice up your tiny RV kitchen, I reached out to a few fellow Road Life Project RVers to share one of their favorite, original recipes. So here goes!!
RV Adobo Chicken
This recipe comes to use from RV S.W.A.T. (Seasonal Work And Travel). If you are new to RV cooking, I recommend starting with this recipe.
Before you get started, make sure that your RV is equipped with the proper kitchen gear. If you are just starting out, outfitting your kitchen can be one of the hardest things. So, I have a shortlist for this specific recipe.
Here’s the Kitchen Gear/Supplies you need for this recipe:
Instant Pot or Ninja Foodie
Cooking Spoons
Measuring Cups
Tongs with silicone ends
Cooking towels (watch the video below for details)
You can shop for all your RV kitchen supplies here!!
All right, let’s get cooking!!
Ingredients
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
2 Boneless Chicken Thighs
2 Boneless Chicken Breast
1/3 cup Soy Sauce
¼ cup Sugar
¼ cup White Vinegar
2 to 3 Cloves Garlic Minced
2 Bay Leaves
1 Medium Onion Sliced
Salt and Pepper to taste
¼ Chopped Green Onions
Directions:
Turn Instant Pot to high saute and add Oil.
Add Chicken and saute until browned. (cook in batches, do not overload pot)
Put all the browned chicken back into the pot with all the other ingredients except green onions.
Put the lid on the pot and cook on high pressure for 8 minutes.
After pressure cooking is done, do a quick release and remove lid.
Turn pot to high saute and cook for an additional 15 to 20 minutes or until sauce is thickened.
Remove bay leaves and add green onions.
Serve over cooked white rice.
Make sure to watch RV SWAT actually making it. It will definitely make this recipe an easy one to use in your RV kitchen.
Follow RV S.W.A.T. on YouTube for more kicking videos and lots of information on RVing and Workamping by clicking here.
Lazy Chocolate Sourdough
OK. This is not a super simple recipe and it takes a bit of time, but WHOA. I actually had the privilege to eat some of this bread. It is amazing. I am studying this recipe so I can make my own loaf in the RV because I can’t just follow the Autonomous Family around the country.
*Disclaimer. Autonomous Family has a residential stove/oven combo in their RV. HOWEVER. I am planning on trying this recipe in my little old RV kitchen. The most important thing is to get a dutch oven that fits inside your RV oven.
If you had not planned on baking bread in your kitchen, you might need to get some additional Kitchen Gear for this recipe so I prepared a list for you.
Kitchen Gear for Lazy Chocolate Sourdough :
Plastic film or similar
Cooking oil
Alright, now that you have all the gear you need, let’s get to the mixing, proving, and cooking part!!
Ingredients:
2 cups water (non-chlorinated)
1/3 cup sourdough starter (ripe). Click here for a starter recipe.
1 cup wheat flour 13% protein
2 ¼ cups white bread flour 11% protein
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp honey (or sugar)
¼ cup cocoa powder
2 tsp sea salt
½ cup large dark chocolate chips
Directions:
Put ½ cup tepid water in a bowl, mix in 1/3 cup ripe sourdough starter and a mixture of ¼ cup wheat flour and ½ cup white bread flour. Cover with film and leave in a warm place until it has doubled in size. Combine ¾ cup wheat flour with ¾ cup water and set aside for use later. The wheat flour will absorb all of the water making the bread smoother and the kneading easier. (3-5 hours).
Put ¾ cup water in a big bowl and add in the sourdough mix until fully incorporated. Then, add a mixture of 1 ¾ cups white bread flour, 2 cups all purpose flour, wheat/water mix from earlier and 1/4 cup of cocoa powder. Add 2 tbsp vanilla extract and 3 tbsp of honey (or sugar). Mix well. The dough ball should be very tacky but not sticky. Let rest for 45 minutes covered with film in a warm place.
Add 2 teaspoons of salt to 1/16 cup warm water and mix thoroughly. The salt may not fully dissolve but that’s OK. When mixed, pour over the dough and mix the saltwater in. Scrape out the dough and knead for 13 minutes. Place in a bowl, cover with film and let prove in a warm place for 4-5 hours.
Tip the dough onto a lightly floured smooth work surface, sprinkle with flour and flip it over. Evenly distribute large dark chocolate chips leaving approximately 2 inches near the edge without chips. Fold the edges of the dough to the middle of the dough-ball to build tension. Leave it on the work surface (covered with lightly oiled film) for 30 minutes.
Remove film and sprinkle again (lightly) with flour. Flip the dough over and fold (think envelope) left to almost right, bottom to almost top, right to almost left and top over the bottom. Before each fold add more chocolate chips being careful NOT to put them in a location where they can pop through the finished dough ball. Now flip the whole thing over until the folds are all downwards. With a floured hand or a flat knife push the dough ball around from at least 6 different angles to build tension on the surface of the dough ball. If you see any chips in danger of poking out slowly and gently push them deeper into the dough ball.
Tip the dough ball into a bowl that has been oiled and covered with flour. Do not skip this step! Without the oil and flour covering the bowl the dough will lose gas inside when you try to remove it from the bowl later. The dough ball should be upside down now (seam facing up). Cover with a cloth or towel and put into the fridge for at least 8 hours.
Place your lightly oiled Dutch oven into the oven and preheat to 470F. Remove the dough from the fridge 1 ½ hour before baking, leave it in the bowl on the counter, uncovered.
Immediately before putting the dough into the dutch oven slice through the dough ball approximately ½” deep. The slice should be about 1/3 up from the bottom and be nearly 75% around the circumference of the dough ball. Use a mist sprayer to spray the entire dough ball. There should be a light film of water covering it everywhere but there should not be any puddles or drops accumulating. Once fully preheated remove the Dutch oven from the oven, place a layer of parchment paper in the bottom and gently place the dough ball into the Dutch oven seam (bottom) down. Alternatively, you can gently flip the dough onto a large sheet of parchment paper and use that to set the dough into the Dutch oven.
Use your clean sprayer to mist in approximately 1/16 cup water over the dough ball while the cover is directly over the Dutch oven (catch as much of that steam as possible) quickly cover and place it in the oven for 25 minutes at 450F, yes, turn the oven down from the preheat temp.
After 25 minutes remove the cover (leave it in the oven if you're doing a follow-up loaf) and turn the oven down to 415F for another 25 minutes.
When removed from the oven, the baked loaf should produce a hollow sound when tapped on the bottom of the loaf (watch the video below). If it does not sound hollow then put it back in the oven immediately for another 5 minutes. Cover with foil if necessary to keep the outside from burning.
Remove the loaf from the Dutch oven immediately after taking out of the oven and place it on a cooling rack. Do not cut into the loaf until it has completely cooled (probably the hardest step of them all!!).
Want to learn more about the Autonomous Family and all the cool things they make in their RV? Click here to follow their journey.
Final Thoughts
So...are you ready to cook in your tiny RV kitchen now?
Do you have your very own recipe or go-to cookbook you use?
Share in the comments!
Exploring the Local Life is a Latino Roadschooling family of four that has been on the road since October 2015. We blog and vlog all about RVing, but it's not always rainbows and campfires. It's real-life every day as we navigate love, unschooling, and breaking free from the mold in our 26ft home on wheels.