When planning my stealth van build, the kitchen was one of my biggest considerations. Don’t get me wrong – you can absolutely live in a van – stealth camping or not -without any sort of cooking set up! But cooking is really important to me, and so I did a lot of planning in this area. That being said, I ended up with quite a simple set up in the end, which works well for me. I would recommend taking the time to consider your kitchen set up when planning your build, as it makes a big difference in the end, and can be really difficult to change later. Here are a few of the things I did for my stealth camper kitchen.
How do you decide on the Right Kitchen Layout for your Stealth Build?
When planning where to cook, I wanted to make sure I had the benchtop under the rooftop vent. I have read a few horror stories of van conversions ruined by mould growing behind plywood walls, undetected. I was hyper-aware of the problems with condensation, and that cooking would be the worst source of this (also very noticeable on cold mornings where I have heated the van up, but that’s for another post).
A lot of vans built for travelling have great slide out set ups at the back of their van or out their sliding doors, but as I was going for stealth, this wasn’t an option. Fitting 4(!) solar panels onto the top of the van and avoiding any overlap with the vent was something I also was really conscious of (see Handy Bob for an explanation here), so this really shaped the layout for my build.
My benchtop and sink are directly behind the cab, with my fridge under the benchtop. I also wanted to be able to get between the back and the cab easily, so I built a sliding door into the partition. But this left me with the benchtop in the way. I ended up building the benchtop to hinge up with some handy hinges on one side. I could then climb over the fridge easily – it is super steady and I have no concerns about placing my full weight on it. You may find it much easier to design your layout. I had a number of very specific things I wanted that dictated the design for my build. But I am glad I took the time to consider it all in advance – it would have been impossible to add them in later.
One thing I recommend for everyone planning a stealth build to take into account is ventilation for cooking. This is something I would not compromise on, for health and van integrity.
How much do you cook? What ways do you prefer to cook? How do you cook and eat throughout a week?
These are important questions to ask, as it will shape how you plan out your setup.
I love oven cooking – roasted veggies and meats are so easy but flavourful. I’m not a big baker or bread eater, so that wasn’t such a concern. I do also love slow cooking – again easy but flavourful, and great for meal prep! I struggle with my energy levels a lot and was busy with shift work + study, so meal prep has been a big thing for me to be able to stay organised and eat healthy. This shaped a lot of how I planned my kitchen and chose appliances.
Stove Top – Gas, Electric, Diesel?
There are plenty of speccy camper stove tops out there – powered by gas, diesel or electric. I hate an electric stove at the best of times, and even with planning out electricity for my build, I knew that appliance wattage ratings are often wildly inaccurate. I didn’t want to chance havinga set up I might not even have sufficient power for. But, I also didn’t want to plumb in gas – the panel for this on the outside pretty much destroys the stealth look of the van. Plus, gas set ups also need additional certification for safety.
I was intrigued by the idea of a diesel stove for the van. This was mostly due to Stealth Sprinter talking about his excellent diesel stove top for their van build over here. The idea of being able to fill up fuel that would also supply my stove was very tempting. However, while diesel stoves are really fuel efficient, they are also much more expensive (at least $1000AUD). Despite wanting to continue to be able to cook well, I decided to see how I actually went once I began living in the van, and make a choice then. Which led me to…
I started out by just using my Trangia to cook in the van. IWhile the Trangia is a camping staple, and I love it for camping outdoors, it did not feel safe to cook with indoors, with its large open flame. I did however end up buying a small backpacking stove and accompanying pots and pans with an adjustable flame, and this worked really well.
I have actually stuck with this long term, finding that the pans (and the stove itself) take up little space and are nice and light, and cooking this way is easy and similar to cooking on a stove top. It’s also cheap to buy the propane canisters for the stove, and a pack lasts me for months. It also means that my benchtop space is maximised, rather than having some of it used up with a stove – although some of the better ones come with a lid for when not in use. I find this works really well for me, although I’m sure it might not be for everyone, but particularly when cooking for one person, it works well (also great if you do take your van travelling and want to be able to cook outdoors!).
How to Deal with Condensation in a Stealth Build
When cooking, a stove is probably your worst culprit for building up heat and steam in the van. There are stories aplenty about poor ventilation leading to van builds being ruined by mould – even just from body heat over time. I did not want to go through the effort of building out my van over my months, only for it to become unliveable.
The two big ventilation options for vanbuilds are MaxxAir fans and Fantastic Vents. I went with a MaxxFan Plus due to its lower profile (compared to MaxxFan Deluxe), but I honestly think either brand would have worked (as a side note, this was the first big modification I made to the van, and cutting into the roof was nervewracking but so satisfying, and not too hard either! Not a bad place to start!).
Having the vent open directly above my cooking space, I feel pretty comfortable that ventilation is – not perfect – but good enough. If I’m out and about during the day and not trying to appear stealth, I’ll often open up the side door to the van as well.
But what about when I want to be “stealthy”?
Honestly, I think cooking in the van is one of the things that really reduces your stealth camper level. I tend to try to cook while it’s still daylight and hope that the steam emerging from the partially open vent isn’t too noticeable. It’s much more noticeable against a dark sky, or in cold weather. With this lack of stealthiness, I try to cook with the van parked in places where others won’t care so much about what’s going on. This means by parks or public spaces, in carparks – sometimes directly after grocery shopping – and as much as possible, not in the places where I will also be spending the night, near anyone’s house. If I do want to heat up water for tea or a hot water bottle or cook up a late night snack, I tend to stick to things that will be done in a few minutes rather than anything lengthier. It’s important to remember that no matter how discreet your build, there’s only so much stealth one can obtain. The aim is to avoid anyone wanting to move you on or bother you, rather than completely avoid detection. I’ve found this approach sufficient to not run into any trouble so far!
Fridge
My desire to be able to cook in bulk and meal prep really led me in choosing a fridge for the van. While I initially wanted an upright fridge rather than the typical 12v fridges out there, it was really hard to find any 12v fridges with decent freezer space. I knew that this was really valuable for me and so this narrowed down my choices to the various dual zone options out there. This meant I could have a good amount of fridge and freezer space, with separate compartments. Check out various dual zone options below.
Depending on your budget, there are also other options like these beautiful fridge/freezer drawers. I investigated buying two separate drawers to fit what I wanted, but unfortunately, I just couldn’t justify the price at the time. If you have a bigger budget for this, I do think they really are the perfect solution.
Oven
Can you have an oven in a van build, realistically? You definitely can – plenty of RVs have them, and some boats do too, which also use 12v appliances and systems for electricity. The question is – can you fit them into your build, and will it be worth it?
There are two types of 12v ovens – gas or electric. Gas ovens are the best options for the closest thing to a house-based oven, with better capacity and able to run for longer and at higher temperatures. They also look most like a normal oven, and some are quite attractive.
As I said, I cooked with an oven a lot in the house, and wanted to keep this up. I decided against a gas set up for two reasons – any gas cooking set up in a van requires extra certification in Australia, and secondly, I wanted to avoid having a gas fill up point on the outside of the van that would make it less stealthy.
This left me with the electric options. 12v ovens can take up a huge amount of electricity, and while I was fairly confident in my solar system planning, I knew that there could be a lot of variables. I decided to wait until I had my solar system up and running to see if I would have sufficient power to run an oven for the type of cooking I actually wanted. The plan was to review and probably retrofit an oven later on. Bearing in mind that adding in electrical items later might be difficult, I actually set up my electrical systems to have a couple of extra wires wired through the van before putting the walls and roof in so that I could add in a few appliances later if I wanted/needed to, like the oven and another fan (or if I decided I wanted a tv or something). So many grand plans..!
At my last review, I had settled on a Travel Buddy oven, as a basic style of electric oven that nevertheless seems to get to a decent heat, although at a much slower rate than a standard oven. They mostly seem to be used for reheating pies rather than actually cooking things, but I remain hopeful that they might be a viable option for small roasts.
Well, over two years into van life, I have enough power, and I remain oven-less. To be honest, I would still like to get around to it eventually – it’s just the effort of purchasing and installing that puts me off. I’m also hoping for some other better options to present themselves. In the meantime, I make the most of roast meals when I go out to dinner with friends, or when I house sit.
Oven Alternatives
For those of you who decide against an oven, there are a few low or no power options out there to replicate oven cooking.
The best of these would have to be the Omnia stove top oven! This is on my wish list and has been for ages – I honestly don’t know why I haven’t gotten around to buying one yet. It is a little self-contained pot that you set on a stove and essentially oven cooks the food inside. You can use it to roast, bake, etc. Although it is less exact with temperatures and therefore time than an actual oven, it seems like the closest option! In fact, now that I’ve reminded myself of this, I’m going to purchase one myself, and will report back later!
Slow Cooker
I love my Travel Chef thermal cooker. It works just like a slow cooker, without electricity apart from an initial 20 – 30 minutes. It comes with two pots that can both fit inside and stack on top of each other with plenty of space in between, which is great for meals like a curry with rice, both of which you can cook at the same time in the thermal cooker.
How to use?
It’s super easy – start the pot off on the stove and ensure everything is hot and boiling for twenty minutes. Then place into the thermal outer pot which acts as an insulator, holding the heat in and allowing the food to continue cooking over 6-8 hours. I’ve seen others mention that they use it to keep ice cream cold as well, which makes sense, although I’ve never tried this.
This is great if you have time in the morning to prep and chuck everything in, and have a meal ready when you come back from work. My only word of advice is to get a strap to hold the lid down! Some brands apparently do come with this, but mine doesn’t. The lid opens with a manual button push, and after forgetting to store it securely enough one day, I did return to a huge mess after driving, where the lid had been bumped and opened up – totally my bad. Since then though, I tend to keep it strapped in on the passenger seat when in use, but also use a ratchet strap to make sure the lid is held in place – just in case!
Another option that works on the same principles is this insulated thermal bag slow cooker, which looks like it may even be a better option for the van, with its space saving design. I haven’t had a chance to check it out since I have something that does the same thing, but maybe if that ever breaks down somehow, I’ll look into one of these.
Sink
My sink is a simple plastic sink in the corner behind the cab, and I have a manual foot pump to run it, rather than an electric pump, which seemed unnecessary, and too loud besides, or a manual hand pump which seemed annoying – in case you needed both hands free. I quite like the entertainment of using a foot pump and feeling old-timey each time I do want to run water. I keep meaning to add a cut out to cover it when not in use, but haven’t quite gotten around to it. There’s enough other benchtop space that I don’t really need it.
Storage
I have two small cupboards and two drawers I use for kitchen utensils, cookware and dry food storage. The classic spice jars on magnets are stuck to the wall. I thought I might need more storage space – a pantry – however I am able to fit a surprising amount in the storage areas I have. I remain happy with this till now.
Summary
There are a number of ways you could set up your kitchen in your van build. The best way to get it right is to understand how you cook and eat now, so that you can plan what you need for your van to work for you. Bear in mind though that how you eat/cook may change while living in the van, as it did for me, and so taking a wait and see approach can also be helpful! If you don’t want a fully installed kitchen, this is a perfectly reasonable option – but it may affect how you can register or insure your vehicle. To register a van as a campervan, which works out cheaper for registration, some states have requirements about what equipment is needed at a minimum, this may include a benchtop and cupboards, or may include an installed cooking appliance. Make sure to check the requirements through getting quotes from insurers and checking your state’s vehicle registration information so that you can make a choice in line with this too.
For more on cooking in a van, check out this master post linking everything else I’ve written about exactly this topic!