RV Food Prep That Always Pay Off on Road Trips
A long day on the road can often be the tipping point between wanting to make a delicious home cooked meal or simply saying, “Let’s just go out tonight!” With gas and campsite prices skyrocketing, one easy way to travel on a budget is to redefine what it means to dine out! That all starts with learning how to master a little RV food prep.
Doing some RV food prep before your road trip will help you stick to your budget, your dietary goals, and requires less prep and clean-up. (That way, you can just enjoy the journey you’ve worked so hard to plan!)
Prepping some of the time-consuming stuff ahead of time makes meals quick and easy. It gives a healthy breakfast for a quick start, expedites a tasty picnic lunch, and let’s you enjoy a big dinner that’ll satisfy the fam without the worry of a messy clean-up.
No Fuss, No Mess Breakfasts
Need some easy breakfasts that’ll help get you on the road quickly? These options will get you rolling out early.
Overnight Oats
Overnight oats are always a hit for a quick get-up-and-go breakfast. Individually portion overnight oats in the fridge, and they’ll be ready to eat immediately at wake up. Recipes are easy to find — or even on the side of the oats container.
Frozen Fruit Smoothies
Mix your favorite smoothie ingredients into a single serving, wide mouth jar and freeze. Let thaw for a few minutes, then blend with an immersion blender. Add a straw and enjoy!
Quickie Quiche
Bake (or pick up) your favorite quiche, refrigerate, and take it along for a super fast savory breakfast that’ll rival your favorite diner. Just pop it in the oven while the family is getting ready for the day.
Breakfast Breads and Muffins
Premake and freeze banana bread, blueberry muffins, coffee cake, and more. Pull them out of the freezer the night before, and voila! You have an easy and homemade breakfast bread you can serve with fruit. Much more fun than cereal!
Protein-Packed Pancake Mix
We gave up boring boxed pancake mix about two decades ago and switched to our favorite family recipe. We preportion several bags of the dry ingredients of our homemade pancake mix so that they’re always at the ready. Then we add the four wet ingredients, some fruit, mix, and fire up the griddle.
Lunchables Made with Love
Fast food restaurants sure are easy, but what if parking at a beautiful view with a preprepped meal was even easier than finding space to park your rig? Check out these quick lunch options.
Yogi’s Hoagies
For an easy pic-i-nic basket lunch for the whole family, preportion the meat and cheese for individual sandwiches, prechop some sandwich veggies, and even precut the hoagie rolls. Set out some condiments, fruit, chips and everyone can make their own sandwich at a roadside picnic table. (But, seriously, don’t feed the bears … I see you coming,Yogi!)
Make Ahead Muffeletta
When this tasty New Orleans inspired surprise emerges from the fridge for a quick road lunch, your road trip buddies will crown you the Earl of the Sandwich! Slice off the top of a crusty sourdough loaf, hollow out the inside, spread some pesto and/or olive spread in the bottom, layer with roasted veggies and/or thinly sliced meats and cheeses, then put the top back on the loaf. (There’s no wrong way to layer up a muffuletta!) Serve it cold, or heat it to your desire.
Salad Bar in a Bag
Love salads, but don’t want to bother with all the chopping when you are starving? Prechop a bunch of your favorite salad fixings and store them in the fridge in Ziplock bags or containers, then throw them together with feta, nuts/seeds, hard boiled eggs, and your favorite dressing. These same veggies can also be healthy snacks, added to an easy stir fry dinner, or even turned into homemade spring rolls.
Plowman’s Picnic
Gather baby carrots, snap peas, hummus, flavored cream cheese, precut cheeses and lunch meats, boiled eggs, various spreads and salads, and your favorite crackers or toasted bread. Fancy it up with marinated artichoke hearts, roasted red bell peppers, olives, pistachios, and more.
Sassy Salads
Prepare some simple and sassy salads and store them in the fridge for quick and easy meals. You can also prepare some basic egg, tuna, and/or chicken salads ahead of time, then serve them up with crackers, chips, or as simple sandwiches.
Fast and Fun Dinners
Instead of immediately starting dinner prep when you arrive at camp a bit later than expected, you can relax with your favorite beverage knowing that dinner is nearly ready.
Homemade Frozen Dinners
A couple of weeks ahead of your road trip, make a double portion of your family’s favorite dishes. (Think lasagna, soups (even cold gazpacho!), chili, mac-n-cheese, pesto, spaghetti and meatballs, or your favorite casseroles.) Serve one, then freeze the other into preportioned servings. Thaw it in the fridge after breakfast then pop it into the oven once you get parked at the campsite. Before you are even fully set up, dinner will be ready!
Prep Your Protein
Cooking and cleaning up is a cinch when the protein portion of your meal is already precut, pattied, seasoned, or marinated whether you plan to saute in a pan in your RV kitchen or skewer it and grill it over a campfire. Once the protein is prepped, freeze in portion-sized bags. For burgers, preseason and patty. Then freeze with parchment paper in between. Thaw in the fridge after breakfast, and they’ll be ready to cook whenever you are ready to eat.
Bust Out the Burrito Bar
Make burrito or taco night even easier by prechopping and shredding the veggies and even precooking the meat (or meat substitute). Just warm it up on the stove, open your prepped veggies, cheese, beans … and warm some tortillas.
Easy Peasy Pizza Night
Pizza night at camp can win over those hangry travelers! Add the dry dough ingredients to a large Ziplock freezer bag (flour, salt, packet of yeast). Just a couple of hours ahead, add wet ingredients (oil and water) and mix in the bag for about five to seven minutes. Or until well-blended. (This can even be done by a passenger while driving down the highway!) Let it rise on your dashboard in the sun. If you prep all veggies, meats, and cheeses ahead of time, and you can have pizza made within 30 minutes of arriving at camp — quicker than delivery!
Delicious Desserts
S’Mores Box for the Win!
Have all of your s’mores fixin’s portioned, prepped, and ready in a divided storage container. Then, tape the skewers to the top so they don’t get left behind. Try some of our favorite s’more recipes for a fun twist on an old favorite!
No Bake Cheesecake
Just follow the recipe on the side of the box, put in the fridge, then top it with your favorite fruit and/or Nutella just before serving. No fuss, no mess, but delicious.
Sweet Treats Baked with Fire
Celebrating a birthday or special occasion on the road? Mix together the dry ingredients for your favorite homemade desserts (brownies, cupcakes, cakes, cookies) and place each in a Ziplock bag. Label each bag with the specific wet ingredients that need to be added (e.g., one egg, one cup water, two tablespoons of oil, etc). Dump into a bowl, mix in the wet ingredients, and dessert can be baking while you are enjoying dinner.
The Flavor — and Budget Saver — of RV Food Prep
While dining out is always a special treat (especially for foodies, like us, who enjoy sampling region specific foods), it’s dangerously easy to blow your food budget pretty quickly if you cave into your cravings too often. So, using just a few of these RV food prep ideas will surely pay off on your next RV road trip!
Freedom in a Can
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