Making Your Teardrop the Camp Kitchen Trailer

Let’s say you’re heading out as part of a larger group and your teardrop camper is designated the camp kitchen trailer. Today we’re discussing a few ways to make the most of the kitchen and cooking functionality of your Off Grid Trailer, even when you’re cooking for many more campers than usual.

Planning an ideal camping trip really comes down to resources. What are you going to bring with you, what you can find while you’re there and what is going to spoil a trip really quickly if you run out of it. There are all kinds of ways to define a great camping trip, but if you’ve been on one that started to run out of the essentials you know it can turn a great trip into a frustrating one pretty quickly.

Nothing puts a crimp in your plans faster than running out of clean water. Each person in your camp should be drinking two liters of water a day, even more if you’re outdoors being active. You’ll probably want two times that amount (per person) when you take into account cooking and washing. Depending on the size of your party, you might be surprised how much water you’ll need to plan for.

Some campers like to bring water and some like to filter water. Either way you want to make sure you have a system in place that you’ve tested and done the math on.

Making a refrigeration plan is also a good idea. Once you’ve come up with your menu for your time off the grid, think about which items will be fresh, which will need refrigeration and which will be frozen when you depart. If your trailer has a Truma cooler / freezer, it’s a good idea to put the frozen items in there to begin with. You can cycle them into a conventional cooler to let them thaw and they will act as a source of additional cooling power once the ice starts to melt in your conventional coolers. There is a bit of an art to thawing the right ingredients at the right time, but with a little planning you should get the hang of it.

Heat (specifically heat for cooking) is another top concern. Off Grid Trailers have cooking and heating systems tied to a natural gas tank, but if you’re cooking for more than just your 2 - 4 people, you’ll want to make sure you don’t run through your gas quickly. Sorting out that timeline depends on how long you’re heading out for. If you suspect your fuel supply may be an issue, think about which tasks you need fossil fuel to complete and which ones you can use an open fire for (assuming that is safe and legal where you are).

Much of your cooking can be done over a fire, but maybe heated water or small scale cooking (like making coffee) can be done over a burner. These choices come down to preference much of the time, but do keep in mind that an open fire might pose challenges (based on weather or the availability of wood) so you’ll want to plan your fuel consumption accordingly.

Hopefully these tips help you plan ahead if your teardrop trailer is going to be the camp kitchen trailer. It’s also worth noting that if you have an Off Grid Trailer and want to upgrade some of your accessories, now is a good time. The camping season is just getting started in the northern hemisphere, so looking into an upgrade now is timely.