Top 3 Van Life Kitchen ‘Must Haves’

If you’re planning on living on the road FULL TIME then we highly recommend having a form of these 3 van life kitchen ‘Must Haves'.

When living in a van full time, you really want to make sure that your van home can function like a regular home. This way, everyday cooking and living will feel more comfortable and your overall quality of life will benefit.

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1: Mini Fridge

This is an absolute MUST. If you’re about to live “van life” and are looking into buying a converted van or are in the process of building one out, be sure to plan to have a decent sized mini fridge.

There are many different kinds of mini fridges you can go with. All the rave in the van life community are fridges from “Dometic”. They have standing fridge/freezers as well as ones that are designed similar to a cooler that you can put on rollers and roll out as opposed to opening like a regular fridge.

If you want to go with one of these you can but there are many reasons why we didn’t go with this brand. In our opinion, the Dometic line is very expensive. We also hate how small they are and especially how small their freezers are. It’s for these two reasons we wouldn’t recommend going this route.

The alternative is to go with a standard electric mini fridge. We went with Magic Chef. Tavata also does a similar fridge with great reviews, looks just like the Magic Chef and is cheaper.

For a fraction of the cost, compared to Dometic, you get a stand up fridge/freezer that doesn’t pull much energy. The biggest benefit going with a standard mini fridge like this is the size of the freezer. It’s immensely bigger than the Dometic styles and we can store so much frozen food in there. Resulting in less runs to the grocery store which allows us to stay remote for longer.

2. Stove/Oven

When living in a van you can’t have all the appliances you would typically have at home simply because there isn’t enough room. You need to consolidate. We feel a stove/oven combo is the best option if you are living in the van full time and do a lot of cooking. After a long search, this is the best stove/oven combo that we could find and is specially made for RVs/vans. We seriously love this appliance and couldn’t recommend this enough: SHOP STOVE/OVEN HERE & GET 5% SAVINGS!

This appliance runs off of propane and cooks the food well and fast. It’s a 3 burner stove, the oven is big and can act as a toaster! There are electric cook top options but after talking with multiple van lifers who went with electric, wished they gone with propane instead. Simply because it takes less time to heat and cook the food, making it more efficient. Our propane tank is located outside of the van and we have a carbon monoxide detector inside the van. With the right precautions you shouldn’t worry too much about having a propane appliance in your tiny home.

3. Sink/Faucet

Having a functioning sink in your van is a complete game changer. You’ll be using it every morning and evening when you brush your teeth, wash your face. You can wash your hands often, clean your clothes and wash dishes easy. If you’re living on the road full time, invest in a high functioning sink/faucet. We highly recommend installing a deeper sink as opposed to a shallower/smaller sink. Our sink is 17x17 and is 10 inches deep. A deep sink in van life is considered 10 inches deep or more. I wouldn’t go with anything shallower than that if you do a lot of cooking leaving you with daily dishes. I also don’t think you need anything much deeper. Around 10 inches is perfect.

You will need a faucet to go with your sink. There are many options. We like this industrial style and how you can pull the head down to control where the water goes, making it easier to wash your sink. Just be sure to check the dimensions so that it fits within your design plans.

This system needs to be hooked up to a water tank and water pump. You do not need a water heater but can install one if you’d like to have hot water. You can check out the water tank and water pump we use here. You’ll want to make sure your water pump and water heater are on switches inside the van to control electric usage. For a less complex sink/faucet water system you can simply have a few gallon clean water bucket under your sink which empties the dirty water into a few gallon bucket also right under your sink. Even if this is your design, you will be so happy you have a working sink as it will make everyday living much for convenient and comfortable.

A mini fridge/freezer, stove/oven combo, and sink/faucet are our top 3 recommend appliances while living on the road full time. It’s really all your need. The only other appliance we have in our van is a compact blender that we recently bought so we can start making smoothes and have yet to use it.

*To explore more kitchen appliances for van life, please see our “kitchen appliances” page where we go over 12 cooking & kitchen appliances in great detail.