Good Advice: Vacation Cooking Tips and Tricks
How to actually enjoy cooking at the lake cabin, the beach house, or your family camping weekend.
Maybe you’re going camping soon, or meeting family for a week at the beach. Maybe you’re packing up to catch your breath at a lake somewhere, or visiting some friends and planning big group meals.
Wherever you find yourself this summer, you still have to eat, and this edition of Good Advice is here to help you prepare.
I checked in with 13 cooking pros to glean their very best tips for cooking on the road. Please do add your own vacation cooking tips in the comments!
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1. The tool that earns its place in every bag I pack
“Whether I’m checking into a rental or sleeping in the woods, there’s one thing I always bring that surprises people every time: my milk frother wand. That little electric whisk you’ve had stuffed in a drawer since a forgotten phase? It becomes genuinely luxurious the moment you leave home. There is something so satisfying about a frothy, foamy coffee at the campsite in the morning; it turns a basic cup into a little moment of indulgence when everything else is a little wild.
But the thing that really blows people away is that it can make whipped cream. I can’t count the number of trips where I’ve baked a cake or a galette, and the one thing everyone wishes for is a big, cloudy dollop of cream on top. A full-size electric mixer isn’t coming on the trip. Whisking by hand in warm weather risks curdling, and your wrist gives out before the cream does. The frother wand does it in seconds. It’s the size of a pen, it runs on a AA battery, and it will absolutely make you the hero of dessert. Pack it.”
—Diana Yen, author of Firepit Feast
2. Seek out a new ingredient
“When you’re cooking in a new place, the default is to lean into familiar, uncomplicated dishes that don’t require a ton of thought. After all, the goal is often to get a meal on the table so you can get back to your vacationing.
Here’s my hot take: craft at least one meal with an ingredient outside your comfort zone.
Ask the locals what they eat, pop into a gift shop, shop at a farmers’ market, or head to a regional grocery, and you’re bound to find something unfamiliar. When else will you get the chance to drizzle some prickly pear syrup over pancakes or season salmon with spruce tips? It might just become the most memorable meal from your trip.”
—Melissa Knific, co-author of National Geographic National Parks Cookbook
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3. Take a great holiday cookbook with you
“I’ll always take a really good holiday cookbook to read for inspiration while I’m away. Not all cookbooks are great holiday cookbooks: it has to be local and/ or simple. When I go to France, I take Alex Jackson’s book, Sardine, inspired by his trips to Provence. If I’m heading to Italy, my favourite is River Cafe’s Two Easy or Rachel Roddy’s Two Kitchens. If I’m staying in the UK, no one beats Nigel Slater. Last year I left Nigel behind for the first time and took Kitty Coles’ brilliant book, Make More with Less instead.
If we’re staying in the UK, I’ll pack some beloved tools as well, like my knife, garlic press and filter coffee dripper to ensure there is easy chopping, garlic-smell-free-fingers, and good coffee wherever we are. I’ll also take a couple of bottles of my favourite wine and crisps (because there’s nothing I like more than to be on holiday, drinking wine and eating crisps.)”
—Meera Sodha, author of Dinner, East, and Made In India
4. Lean into improvisation
“Vacation cooking can feel high stress, but I think the key to enjoying it is understanding and accepting that it will not be the same as cooking in your home kitchen. Pick your absolute essentials, which for me is a good knife, a cast iron skillet, and Diamond crystal kosher salt. Even if you don’t have all your go-to tools and pantry staples at your disposal, you’d be surprised what a little creativity can do. One time, I went camping and we were going to make guacamole, except we forgot limes. We had a bag of Cuties (mandarin oranges) and used those instead, and to this day, it was one of the best guacs. I think the fun of vacation cooking is thinking on your toes and making do with what you have.”
—Sara Tane, writer of This Shit Rocks
5. Bring a flavour bomb, not your entire pantry
“Having just come back from a camping trip to France with my family, I speak from a very fresh experience of cooking and eating al fresco in a make-shift kitchen. My key to making delicious and easy meals on the go, without having to bring an entire pantry along (no matter how much I might have wanted to) is to equip yourself with flavour bombs: compact and easy-to-transport single ingredients, guaranteed to light up the entire meal and bring all the elements of a dish together.
In my case, it was a pouch of premium quality olive oil and a small box of Maldon sea salt, but it could also be a tin of anchovies, a jar of preserved lemons or capers, your favourite spice mix like Japanese Shichimi Togarashi or the Georgian Khmeli-Suneli. (Check your local Eastern European shop for that one.) Work with the location and its produce, think what kind of food will be accessible and what you are likely to want to cook, and then choose your flavour bombs accordingly.”
—Alissa Timoshkina, author of Kapusta and Lozhka (out Oct.)
6. Try this smart container for packing spices
“One of my favorite ways to transport my spices is in a large vitamin pill container, with each compartment labeled with the spices for that trip. They are easy to fill, washable, reusable, and lightweight for flying. I use these on sailing trips and in my RV.”
—Stephanie Hansen, author of True North Cabin Cookbook
7. Copy this 3-item vacation kit
“My philosophy for summer vacation cooking is simple: I want to shop locally for produce, fish, and meat, and cook every meal. What started as two giant, maxxed-out plastic bins of pantry items (grains, spices, noodles, condiments), equipment (cast-iron skillets, rimmed baking sheets, cutting boards), and tools (wooden spoons, knives, fine-mesh strainers) has been whittled down over the last dozen years to three things that fit in a single tote bag.
If you have a blender, pack your blender. It will be used daily for pesto, marinades, salad dressings, smoothies, tomato sauce, and—if you’re lucky—frozen margaritas. A bizarrely clutch item.
Bring a headlamp. If you do not have a headlamp, buy a headlamp. One should feel free to stay late at the beach, and you will, knowing that you’ll be able to grill with a flashlight strapped to your head after the sun goes down. Headlamps are also helpful for checking under the beds when you’re packing up on the last day.
Finally, you do not need citronella sticks, which are stupid and don’t do anything. You need a Thermacell Mosquito Repeller. This little rechargeable “emanator” creates a mosquito-free zone outdoors, whish is where I’ll be having my breakfast, lunch, and dinner, thankyouverymuch. What’s in the “proprietary formula” that it emanates? As a person who gets giant welts from mosquito bites, I don’t know and please don’t tell me. All I ask is that someone order backup refill cartridges; we’re going to need them.”
—Carla Lalli, writer of Food Processing and author of Food Is a Feeling (out Sept.)
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8. For great camping meals, avoid the camping store
“The outdoor industry’s great at making lighter tents, comfier sleeping pads, deluge-proof jackets and inflatable bluetooth speaker-equipped solar lanterns. What they suck at, however, is making food that tastes good. So unless you’re doing multi-day expeditions where every microgram counts, the very best way to eat well in the wild is to skip your outdoors store’s dehydrated meal and energy bar aisle and head to a good supermarket instead.
The cheese counter is a great starting point—aged Cheddar, Manchego, Parmigiano-Reggiano, most Goudas (hello, Beemster!), English Stilton and yes, your good old Laughing Cow all hold unrefrigerated for days—if not weeks—at reasonable temperatures. Add some fancy crackers or a baguette, a couple Granny Smiths (they stay crisp forever) and maybe a bit of fig jam and you’ve got the outdoor lunch of dreams.
If it’s instant meals you’re after, good tinned or foil-packed fish, boil-in-a-bag curries and instant risotto packets put pretty much every freeze-dried backpacking entrée to shame.
For high-energy snacks, think dried fruit, posh chocolate, shelf-stable sausage (not just pepperoni, but also French saucisson sec, Landjäger, summer sausage, etc.), Italian panforte, and some nuts.
And if you do plan to cook anything more adventurous (I highly recommend it!), keep it simple, and prep it ahead: if you can chop it, mix it, cook it or freeze it before you leave home, you’ll eat far better with way less stress.”
—Chris Nuttall-Smith, author of Cook It Wild
9. Buy a cheap knife when you get there (and leave it for the next cook)
“As a chef who has worked everywhere from Wendy’s to Alinea, I’m confident that I can cook in most situations and with very little equipment. However, usually the toughest part of cooking at a rental house is how dull the knives are. I tend to buy a cheap chef’s knife at the local grocery store, get a couple of days out of it, and leave it behind for the next person cooking.”
—Greg Baxtrom, author of Nothing Matters but Delicious, chef of Five Acres
10. Plan a special cooking project
“We have a vacation home in Fire Island, the barrier island just off Long Island in New York. There are no cars, and in my town, only one general store, so I’ve got really good at meal prep for vacation. I’ve hauled all sorts of produce and kitchen equipment out there.
This might sound like I am certifiably nuts, but I usually cook something I’ve always wanted to but don’t have the time for during day-to-day life.
For instance, I take my madeleine baking trays out, as they are super lightweight and easy to pack. The batter is made from pantry basics and can sit around so can be made in advance, then I just pop them in the oven after dinner and 10 minutes later we have warm madeleines for dessert, as if we were eating in a fancy French restaurant but we’re at the beach.
I’ll pack a bottle of Gordal olives to bread and fry and have with a spritz or martini. Many times I’ve taken my hand-cranked pasta roller and 00 flour to make fresh pasta. In the summer I’ll do a simple Marcella Hazan inspired tomato-butter sauce. I’ll finely-grate an obscene amount of Parmigiano that I’ve brought from the city. If I have fallen in love with a specific bottle of wine, I’ll bring it too. It’s the little things, that don’t take a lot of time or effort but can really make a vacay meal memorable.”
—Odette Williams, author of Simple Pasta and Simple Cake
11. Adapt an old favorite dish to your surroundings
“I like to go in with a list of super-easy recipes that I’m already sure my traveling companions will appreciate, but with one or two small plot twists. Then, I’ll head to the grocery store and find a good local hot sauce or see what the vegetable scene is like, and tweak from there. When I was in Colorado last fall, I got my hands on some Pueblo chiles they were fire-roasting at the farmers’ market and swapped them in for the poblanos I usually use in my chicken enchiladas. It was a spicier, sweeter and smokier adaptation of a family favorite, but the perfect balance of familiar and fresh. And I wasn’t trying to learn any new tricks on that scratched-up AirBnb skillet.”
—Shay Spence, author of Meals You Can’t Mess Up (out Sept.)
12. Let go of expectations
“The most important lesson I’ve learned is to simply let go of the expectation that you’ve set in your mind. In the beginning, I’d plan every minute detail, with prep lists and perfectly labeled mise en place kits. I was hoping my focused approach would yield a meal or bite that would come together in a whirlwind of travel ingenuity, local flavor, and Michelin-star magic, but I’d always fall short. I’d forget a squeeze bottle of some sauce, or leave my knife roll on the table as I was rushing out the door, and inevitably I’d let myself down. But I was the only person who knew I’d fumbled.
I came to realize that my expectations were drawing away from the goal of the adventure. I decided to intentionally leave it at the door. That’s not to say I stopped caring, but what I did do was learn to roll with the punches of the road.
You’ll be in a rental cabin one day with a knife as dull as a marble, trying to slash through a perfectly ripe tomato, and instead of leaning into the thought that it should be better, maybe lean into the idea it is exactly as it is, and that’s fine.
Smash the tomato with your bare hands and find a new way to make the dish you had in your mind with what’s in front of you. You’ll spend so much less time internally chastising yourself and more time enjoying the moments that mean more than the planning that went into everything. Frolic in the weird mishaps. It’s all good, baby.”
—Scott Clark, author of Coastal, chef at Dad’s Luncheonette
13. Take a break from restaurants
“Obviously a big part of traveling for me is enjoying the local cuisine, whether it’s dining in a Michelin-star hotel restaurant or a hyper-local seafood shack right on the water. But amidst all the (very fortunate) indulging, I almost always crave something simple and healthy that can be cheffed up even in a hotel room with no kitchen. This is why I find myself swinging by the market to pick up an oil-packed tuna or beans and a jar of giardiniera. Between the two jars, I have everything I need for an easy, delicious no-cook dinner-worthy salad, including a protein, a variety of vegetables, and even the salad dressing (!), because after I’ve minced my pickled vegetables and added the beans or tuna, I take a little of the vinegar from the giardiniera jar and a little oil and whisk them together, in a hotel coffee cup if I must. Perfect.
— Jenny Rosenstrach, author of The Weekday Vegetarians Get Simple
14. Use your sides more than once
“For big groups, I focus on one big protein a day and complement it with salads to use multiple times along the way.
Day one: A batch of coleslaw is a side for beer can chicken. Day two, use the coleslaw in pulled pork sandwiches for lunch. Day three, it goes on fish tacos.
Make a Caesar salad to serve alongside steak, then use it in a chickpea wrap at lunch the next day.
Make a Greek salad to serve with Greek-inspired smashburgers. On the second day, pile it on a bed of yogurt with flatbread and leftover beer can chicken. On the third day, it fills a breakfast omelet served with roasted potatoes and peppers.
Speaking of roasted potatoes, roast two pans on the first day. On day two, toss with a lemon vinaigrette and herbs for a roasted potato salad, and then day three they’re part of breakfast.”
—Stephanie Hansen, author of True North Cabin Cookbook
Smart! I'll add one: bring frozen marinated protein on your next camping trip. They thaw in the cooler and you can throw them right on the grill.
Solid advice across the board, but I think #6 is the winner!