Meal ideas for Airbnbs and stays with kitchenettes
Traveling to untraditional locations often means staying at places with kitchenettes. This opens up a whole new way to travel and can be ideal especially for those whom are budget mindful or have special dietary needs.
Here are some of our favorite meals that are easy to prepare, use ingredients that can be repeated, and requires limited kitchen tools.
Breakfast
1. Coffee, matcha, or tea of choice
There’s no better way to start the day than holding a warm drink, watching the steam rise, and knowing you’re on vacation today. No tips needed here.
2. Oatmeal
Prepared with toppings of choice or overnight. Our go-to is cranberries and dark chocolate or made overnight with banana and dark chocolate. Use water or bring milk. (To repeat ingredients, bring milk as the creamer for both coffee and use in oatmeal.) Need an option on the go? We’re a fan of all the options from Purely Elizabeth.
3. Fried or Scrambled Eggs
If your stay has a small refrigerator, consider bringing eggs. Pair eggs with guacamole and pico on the side or fry a tortilla and cut them into chips—Huevos Rancheros inspired. Bonus: use these sides for lunch. See chicken wraps below.
4. The Yogurt Parfait
Yogurt, fruit, granola trifecta. Opt or whatever fruit is in season. Traveling in the summer? Visit a local farmers market! Use this Farmer’s Market map, brought to you by the American Farmland Trust, to find one near you.
Lunch
1. Chicken wraps
Pre-making and bringing chicken salad is our standard affair when it comes to lunch. Our chicken salad combination includes celery, grapes, and rotisserie chicken but feel free to experiment or browse for a recipe online. Another go-to option is pre-grilled chicken, lettuce, pico de gallo, guacamole and cilantro—especially if you’re using it for breakfast sides. Less food waste!
2. Charcuterie
Perhaps the easiest and tastiest no cook meal! Fill your plate with an assortment of cheeses, salomi, dips, olives, fruit, and crackers. Currently, we’re obsessed with any of Birdie’s Pimento Cheese.
3. Peanut butter and jelly
Could you even trust us if this classic didn’t make the list? The perfect sweet and salty adventure companion. Experiment with fancy jams!
Dinner
1. Steak and a Caesar Salad
Oddly enough, this has become our number one dinner meal when we travel. Many of the places we stay have a campfire ring, so we enjoy cooking outside. Steak is not only delicious, but quick to prepare and great for protein after a full day of fun, when you just want something savory and not spend hours on it. Bring your iron skillet for this!
2. Ramen
When it’s not steak, it’s ramen. You’ll find us eating this in the winter months, when cooking a steak outside isn’t an ideal option. This coconut curry recipe is one of our favorites. Bonus: use the eggs that you’ve already brought for breakfast.
3. Green Chicken Chile
Another one-pot wonder, the green chicken chili. Or really any chili for that matter. All the ingredients are super easy, chop them up, throw them in the pot, and let them simmer while you relax. We like this Modern Proper recipe.
Meal planning tips
Now that you have meal ideas, here’s some planning tips that have helped with transportation, prep time, and storage.
1. Prep ingredients in advance
Similar to your weekly meal or ingredient prep, you’ll be thanking yourself for cutting up all the ingredients before you vacation, saving time for things you want to be doing… like doing absolutely nothing. For spices, consider making the spice mix ahead of time. Whether it’s for steak or ramen, mix all the spices and bring in a little glass jar or baggie, reducing the need of packing five spice bottles, to just one!
2. Transfer ingredients into new containers
This tip really helps save space when your stay only has a mini fridge and helps reduce food waste, especially where you don’t need the whole package. One of our pro tips is to bring liquids in a quart size mason jar. Having the mason jar to reuse has saved us more than once before (ideal if you need an extra glass or leftover container).
3. Bring the essentials
While listings and photos help, we like to bring our kitchen essentials. For us, this includes tin foil, baggies, cast iron skillet, wine/bottle opener (if bringing bottles), can opener (if bringing cans), an oven mitt, tongs and/or spatula, olive or avocado oil, and salt and pepper. Especially if a stay is newer—it’s easy for something like a can opener to derail your dinner plans.