Minimalist van lifestyle kitchen. What the heck is that and why in the world would you ever want to do something like that. Let’s talk about it.
Ultimately a minimalist kitchen means that you use everything or almost everything in your kitchen. Sounds simple right?
So a little background, my wife myself and my dog live in a self converted van. She works a 9 to 5 job and I freelance on the web. We downsized from a 1200 square-foot apartment into about 10 square foot of Van life. So downsizing was difficult but downsizing the kitchen felt impossible. That meant that we had to get rid of numerous pots and pans and try to think of what we’re going to use and how we’re going to use it. There were some minimalist kitchens out there that I really enjoyed and some that I thought went a little overboard. So this is where we’re going to talk about what works for us and why we chose to do what we did. Let’s dive in.
So what we did was slowly remove items and put them in boxes next to the kitchen. What this meant was as we decided something wasn’t needed or wasn’t used we removed it from the space so that we wouldn’t think to use it. This does two things for you, it allows you to condition yourself to not use specific things but allows you not to completely get rid of it just in case you do use it for something specific. The perfect example of this was our wok.
In the initial shift to a minimalist kitchen, we took a massive amount of stuff and put them in these boxes next to our living room. The wok was one of those items I didn’t think twice about. But within a day or two, we decided that a wok was actually much more versatile than a flat pan. Not to mention our wok is kind of a hybrid between both. It has a small flat surface on the bottom as well as the high rounded edges that you traditionally think of when you think of a wok.
So do this for yourself. set everything aside that you don’t think that you use daily and then cook for a week. What we use in our van may not be what works for you.
So let’s go down the list of what we have, what we don’t need and what how you can decide what to keep and what to ditch.
What we have
The small things: We kept all of our silverware, forks, spoons, butter knives, and chopsticks.
Flatware: because we were incredibly space-conscious, we decided that four plates and four glasses are perfect for us. This means we can have people over. Honestly sometimes when we cook we end it using 3 plates during meal prep. Then just use these when we eat.
Nested steamers: The reason that cut is that it’s ultimately versatile and it stacks very nicely. Ultimately we don’t use the steamer part of it a lot, we mainly use the bottom of it as your traditional pot. Make soup or to saute something in the bottom before we add some amount of liquid. This is probably what we use the most to cook it just because a high edged pot is valuable.
A wok: This is our everyday sauteing, cooking, searing pan. ultimately this gets used from anything from cooking eggs to cooking meat to creating a stir fry. It’s amazing what you can cook on a single burner with this walk. The nice part about having a walk and not just your traditional flat pan is that if you do need to add liquid and boil it down the high sides make sure that you can add a substantial amount of liquid before it overflows.
A teapot: this was also something that ended up getting put in the box and then taken back out. The reason I put it in the box is that at the time we had a microwave and that’s what we used to heat up water. It wasn’t until Alesha pointed it out that we’re not going to have a microwave and we need a way to heat up water for coffee or tea. Glad that we have the teapot because if we didn’t, that would mean less coffee and that’s just bad for everybody.
We also have an instant pot. This is nice because ultimately it’s a quick way to make rice or quinoa. There’s so much that you can make in an instant pot it’s not even funny. The downside of the instant pot is that it costs quite a bit of electricity. That means that if it’s not sunny out we don’t use it. Just a little bit of background we have 200 watts of solar on the roof and almost two hundred amp-hours a battery bank life. If you’re looking into this because you’re in an RV with much more than that or you’re hooked up to shore power, you’re going to be much much happier with the instant pot.
Lastly, we have a cast-iron skillet: We hardly ever use this. Mainly because it takes forever to cool down, I just can’t bring myself to get rid of it.
Utensils: Basically you need 2 things, a spatula and a ladle of sorts. I prefer this scoop thing for soups. We have much more items, much like the kit I have listed below.
Knives: so we have 2 knives basically one for her and one for me. This one is totally up to personal preference. Alesha Prefers a good ole fashioned chefs knife and man she has an amazing skill with that. The only thing else that we might need if you are only going to run one knife is a paring knife.
The other knife is a… Ulu knife. I didn’t know that’s what it was called to be totally honest, it took longer than I’d care to admit to finding the knife. Mine was a handmade gift from my father. There isn’t anything you can’t do with this little knife.
This is the closest one I could find.
Anything minimalism can be very hard I get that! Don’t ever think it’s not worth it. I really love it. So hopefully this helps you downsize your current kitchen or get ready to move into van life!
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