The Ultimate Vanlife Meal
It’s a common misconception that people on the van life and campers have to compromise on the quality of their meals - but that’s not the case at all!
Nope, it’s not all sandwiches and two-minute noodles
(although, like any other time, they can come in handy).
Cooking in a van is just like a scaled-down version of any other kitchen, without an oven. And our vans at Mojo Campers all come equipped with a handy mini kitchen set-up. So you get an electric-powered fridge, a gas cooker, and an impressive amount of storage space. You’d be surprised how much you can make with these limitations!
Buying ingredients from a list of five or more recipes can get overwhelming, expensive, and take up a lot of your precious storage space. So, we thought we’d let you in on one of our FAVE vanlife recipes - a simple curry dish that you can adapt and change in so many ways.
Easy Curry
Basically, any kind of curry is fantastic for a van trip, and you can easily make swaps to some of the main ingredients to completely transform the meal.
Let’s take a look at the main recipe first, then we’ll tell you all our tips and tricks for making the same base recipe into something completely different.
Ingredients
Olive oil
Onion
4-5 cloves of garlic
Fresh ginger
Chilli (fresh if you can)
1tsp garam masala
1tsp curry powder
1tsp cumin
1tsp coriander powder
½ tsp turmeric
1 tsp veggie stock powder
Can of chickpeas
Can of tomatoes
1 eggplant
1 lemon
Fresh coriander
1 cup of rice
Salt and pepper, to taste
Method
Cook rice according to packet instructions. If you have brown rice, you’ll want to put it on before you start anything else - it takes a while to cook!
Prepare your veggies. Finely chop the onion, garlic, and chilli. Grate the ginger and chop the eggplant into cubes.
Fry your onion, garlic, ginger, and chilli in a generous amount of oil.
Add all your spices. Let them fry for another minute, add more oil if it gets smoky, then add your eggplant.
Fry until your eggplant is soft. Add a little water if you need to.
Drain chickpeas, then add them to the dish. Add tinned tomatoes, veggie stock, and a bit of water.
Serve with rice topped with fresh lemon juice and coriander.
That’s all there is to it! While it looks like a long ingredients list, it’s really mostly spices.
This recipe should serve two, but you can easily cook more chickpeas, veggies, and rice to bulk it up and have enough left over for your lunch the next day.
It’s also 100% vegan and gluten-free - so almost anyone can enjoy it!
Just be careful about whether the veggie stock you choose has gluten in it.
With similar ingredients, you can adapt this recipe to anything you like. That’s what we love the most about a simple curry - its seemingly endless versatility is perfect for life in a van.
Make it a dal!
Swap your chickpeas for lentils and add a can of coconut cream. Keep the tomatoes and the rest of the ingredients in there.
Thai Green Curry
Okay, we might be cheating a smidge here, but if you can find Thai green curry paste at the supermarket, you can make a super easy change to the original recipe. Just leave out the tinned tomatoes and all the spices.
Swap the eggplant for courgettes, the lemon for lime, and the coriander for Thai basil if you want to, but they’re honestly similar enough to keep as is if you can’t. Add coconut cream, carrot, and a topping of bean sprouts, and voila!
Nachos
Go a little lighter (as in, a sprinkle each - if anything) on your curry spices and add some smoked paprika and cayenne pepper. Swap your chickpeas for black beans, your rice for nacho chips (or wraps for tasty burritos), and make guacamole on the side. If you’re not vegan, top with a generous amount of grated cheese.
Got a sensitive stomach?
If your stomach can’t handle chickpeas, beans or lentils, you can swap them for potatoes, pumpkin, kumara or tofu. Meat and eggs are also good protein options if you’re not vegan (although they’re not easy to keep in a van). Swap garlic and onion for leek if you can’t eat those.
Spices
The spices we listed in the recipe are more of a guide than anything else. If there are any spices you prefer, go ahead and use those as well or instead of what we’ve suggested.
Rice
To save on gas, you can pop your rice - pot and all - in a Wonderbag, which will slow-cook it for you and free up space for you to cook your curry on your gas element. It’s a vanlife lifesaver!
Keeping it simple
Adapting this one recipe can give you enough different options to last you at least five days.