40 Best & Easy Campervan Meals For Your Next Road Trip

Last Updated on 18th April 2024

This post about the best easy campervan meals contains affiliate links and previously gifted products sent to me for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions are entirely my own, please see my disclaimer for more.

Are you looking for inspiration for the best campervan recipes that you can make easily while travelling on the road? This post about easy campervan and motorhome meal ideas is for you!

Campervan life is one of my favourite ways to travel and see the world and after falling utterly in love with the idea of van life in New Zealand and Australia, Matt and I bought and converted our very own van completely from scratch in May 2021 and ever since, we’ve been adventuring around the UK in our beloved 1997 Toyota Hiace campervan.

One of the best parts of van life is having the freedom and flexibility to park up almost anywhere and cook breakfast, lunch and dinner right from where you are.

With that in mind, I wanted to share some of my best and easiest campervan recipes for you to add to your list of meals to make in your campervan.

They’re nothing too flashy or extravagant and most of them are ridiculously quick and easy to make, which means you’ve got plenty more time to enjoy the other sides of van life!

If you’re wondering what food to take in a campervan on your next road trip, check out my list of the best campervan food ideas!

Warning! This post features a lot of pasta dishes as it’s one of my favourite foods in the world and it’s so easy to make in a camper van! P.S. I also apologise for the poor quality of some of the pictures in this post; food photography is not my forte! I also don’t have pictures for every single meal idea below, so you’ll just have to use your imagination for some of them 😜.

What are the best and easy meals to cook in a motorhome?

Cooking in a campervan/motorhome doesn’t have to involve complex meals or boring soups and sandwiches! In my ultimate guide below, you’ll find over 40 easy meals to cook in a motorhome/campervan!

Best campervan cooking equipment in the UK

Below, you can find a list of every single thing we purchased to make meals in our campervan, from our awesome gas camping stove to our coolbox to all the little items that make cooking in a campervan much easier!

• Coolbox
• 2L kettle
• Gas camping stove 2-ring
• Mixing bowl
• Gas bottle refill (bought from our local garage)
• Cups
• Tea towels
• Dustpan and brush
• Frying pan
• Pot
• Plates
• Bowls (4 pack)
• 2x10L Jerry can for water

Breakfast meal ideas – easy campervan meals

We’ve all heard the old adage “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” and ever since my mum first told me that, I’ve known it to be true as I literally cannot function properly without something to eat in the morning.

When you’re living or even just travelling in a van, it’s likely that many of your days will be made up of awesome adventures, which means you need to fill yourself up in the morning with a good, hearty breakfast.

Check out some of my top campervan food ideas for breakfast!

1. Eggs – fried, scrambled, poached, omelette

Eggs are one of the best and most versatile breakfast foods and they’re a campervan food essential on every road trip we go on as there are so many different dishes you can cook with them. As long as you’ve got a frying pan and a splash of oil (or butter), you can create pretty much any egg dish you want.

2. Pancakes – best campervan recipes

Pancakes are another ridiculously easy campervan breakfast meal to make, especially if you cheat and buy a pre-made pancake mix.

While it might not be quite as good as making your own batter from scratch, getting a pre-made mixture that only requires you to add water is super simple, easy and delicious and it’s also a pretty cheap breakfast option as well.

3. Cereal

Cereal is probably one of my least favourite breakfast foods, but when it comes to campervan breakfasts, cereal is one of the easiest and fuss-free options.

On our most recent road trip in the Lake District, we bought one of those cereal variety packs that come with eight kinds of cereal for just over £1. Matt prefers his cereal dry without any milk (weirdo!) which keeps the cost down even further and makes it stupidly easy for him to just throw them in a bowl, but I prefer mine with milk so we just pick up a small 1 pint of milk whenever we need from a local supermarket and store it in our coolbox.

4. Toast

Making toast in a campervan isn’t quite as easy as making it at home when you have a 4-slot toaster that cooks bread in just a couple of minutes, but it can still be done. Our gas cooker actually has a toaster part attached to it and while it does indeed cook incredibly slow, it does still work, so that’s yet another breakfast option we can enjoy in the van.

Alternatively, you can use a frying pan to make toast, just like Jamie Oliver!

5. Bacon/sausage sandwiches – easy campervan meals

Bacon and/or sausage sandwiches are a camping food staple in most people’s arsenal and they’re such a great option for pretty much any meal of the day; I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve had my fair share of “lazy” dinners consisting of a bacon butty!

Both bacon and sausages can be fried in a frying pan, or cooked on a barbecue so as long as you’ve got either one of them (or both!), you’re on to a winner!

Before our first road trip in the van to the Lake District, the awesome people at Dickie’s Boozy Bangers very kindly sent over some of their incredible alcohol-infused sausages which we’ve made assorted meals with, both in the van and at home.

Their Bloody Mary sausages are perfect for sausage pasta (more on that below) and the Swanky Prosecco and Apple sausages are scrumptious in a sausage sandwich. We’ve even made a sausage and potato stew (albeit at home and not in the van!) with all three varieties thrown in and it was absolutely incredible; if you’re looking for a way to spice up your campervan meals and you’re a huge fan of sausages, I can’t recommend these enough!

6. Pastries – croissant & pain au chocolat

I think it’s fair to say that you’re probably not going to be whipping up fresh pastries entirely from scratch when you’re travelling/living in a van as you won’t have all the necessary equipment or ingredients to make them, but if you’re willing to sacrifice the homemade-ness and you’re up for a trip to the local supermarket, you can easily enjoy the likes of Tesco’s or Sainsbury’s finest pastries for your breakfast in the van!

7. Overnight oats – easy motorhome meals

Overnight oats aren’t something that I’d be particularly interested in making while in our campervan, but I do know that they’re super popular amongst travellers and vanlifers as they’re quick and easy to make and they’re also super healthy as well (depending on what you use to make them).

8. Breakfast quesadillas

Breakfast quesadillas became one of my favourite breakfast foods during the numerous UK lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic, and they’re still something that I enjoy making in the campervan now.

While they’re not necessarily one of the easiest campervan meals to make, they’re so worth it once you’ve made them! When I’m at home, I usually like to have a hash brown in my breakfast quesadilla but they’re a bit harder to cook with just a frying pan, so my go-to breakfast quesadilla ingredients include eggs, sausages, cheese and bacon/ham.

9. Porridge – best and easy camping meals

Porridge isn’t something that I’d usually choose to eat, regardless of whether I’m in the van or at home, but it’s yet another simple and easy camping meal that requires very little effort or ingredients. You can even make some types of porridge with water instead of milk, so if you don’t want the hassle of buying milk as well as porridge, simply make it with water and you’ve got a meal!

10. Full English Breakfast

Similarly to a breakfast quesadilla, a full English breakfast can be a bit of a faff to make in a campervan, but it’s worth it for all that greasy goodness!

If you have two frying pans in your van, that will make life much easier when it comes to making a full English as you can just throw everything into the pans and get cooking.

Lunch – campervan meal ideas

Lunch (unless it’s a bottomless brunch-style lunch) is probably my least favourite meal of the day as I always feel a bit uninspired as to what to make. Unlike breakfast or dinner, I feel like lunch is (quite literally) an in-between meal where you don’t want anything too heavy, but the thought of having the same boring cheese sandwich for lunch every single day makes your mind go numb.

Take a look at some of my less boring campervan lunch ideas below!

11. Sandwiches

OK, so I know I said that having the same sandwich for lunch every day can get mind-numbingly tedious, but a good sandwich really is one of the best and often easiest lunches to make in a campervan.

However, if you endeavour to make ‘funner’ sandwiches such as a spicy chicken mayo sandwich with rocket, then suddenly you’ve levelled up your sandwich game by miles.

12. Soup – best campervan meals UK

Soup is another campervan meal that could be pretty boring, but you could also spice it up a lot if you’re willing to make it from scratch.

Matt and I usually just buy Heinz tomato soup or the incredibly basic Cup A Soup if we just want a ridiculously easy meal, but you could easily make some homemade soup in the van. If you’re able to, why not make a huge batch of homemade soup at home before you set off on your trip so you don’t have to worry about making it on the go?

13. Chicken and fried rice

We’ve made BBQ chicken and fried rice multiple times in the van now, both for lunch and dinner and it’s a winner every time. Sure, it’s not exactly the most extravagant meal in the world, but it’s crazy simple to make and super tasty once you’ve seasoned it with salt, pepper, soy sauce and some BBQ sauce.

14. Noodles – simple campervan meals

Noodles are one of my favourite go-to lunches no matter where I am in the world. Super Noodles are my personal favourites (particularly the BBQ beef flavour) as they’re quick and easy to make and they’re really tasty. We also often spruce our noodles up a bit and make a Maggi Goreng dish (more on that below).

They’re super quick and easy to make in a campervan as you only need a pan of boiling water; less mess, but great taste!

15. Spaghetti/Hoops/Beans (on toast)

Spaghetti hoops on toast has been one of my favourite lunches ever since I was a little kid and I also think it’s the perfect campervan meal as well. Of course, the toast is optional and while the picture above doesn’t really look appetising at all, this meal is one of my staples for lunch both at home and in the van.

16. Salad – best campervan meals

I literally begrudge myself for even writing the word ‘salad’ on my blog as it’s not a food that I usually associate with, but I do recognise that it’s one of the easiest, cheapest and of course, healthiest meals to make in a campervan. If you’re able to, spruce your salad up a bit by cooking some chicken and/or bacon to throw into the mix to make it even tastier.

17. Cheese toastie

A cheese toastie (or grilled cheese if you’re American!) is the perfect lunchtime meal in a campervan as you can make it with just a frying pan, a couple of slices of cheese and some bread. It’s so quick and easy to make and it’ll leave you feeling full and satisfied.

18. Food face – best and easy campervan meals

A food face was a concept that Matt introduced me to a few years ago as he said it was what his dad made him as a kid to try and get him to eat different foods. I tried the same approach with my little brother when I was babysitting him a couple of years ago and now it’s one of his favourite meals, so I thought I’d include it in this post about the best campervan meals to make that aren’t boring as you can easily add this to your van life meal arsenal.

You can create a food face with literally whatever you want, so there are no rules or recipes to follow which is always the best kind of meal to make!

19. Southern fried chicken wraps

Southern fried chicken wraps might be a little trickier to cook in a van than at home as you won’t have the luxury or convenience of using an oven to cook frozen chicken nuggets for example, but you can make your own by buying some chicken breast and seasoning and then cooking them in a frying pan. After that, all you need is some tortilla wraps and some sauce and you’re good to go!

20. Egg-fried rice

Egg fried rice is one of the best simple campervan meals as it can encompass so many other things as well; you could add chicken to it and make it into more of a Chinese takeaway-style dish, or you can keep it real simple and just add some sriracha sauce to it once it’s done to give it a bit of flavour and some kick.

Campervan dinner ideas – easy campervan meals

Oftentimes, when you’ve either been driving all day in the van trying to reach your next destination, or you’re parked up somewhere but you’ve spent the whole day exploring a new city or hiking or whatever epic van adventure you’ve been on that day, the last thing you want to do is pitch up for the evening and have to cook a meal with the extravagance of a 6-course Michelin star meal.

Therefore, the dinner dishes below that you can cook in your campervan are relatively easy and pretty quick to make, but they’re also scrumptious as well, so you don’t have to worry about sacrificing taste for convenience.

21. Sausage pasta

Sausage pasta was one of our staple easy campervan meals in New Zealand and Australia and we’ve continued our tradition of making it on every trip in the UK so far (sometimes a couple of times a week!).

As I mentioned above, we’ve used the Dickie’s Boozy Bangers sausages to make this dish a few times and it’s my absolute favourite campervan meal to make. Sausages and pasta? Yes, please!

22. Spaghetti bolognese/meatballs

Another pasta dish to get your teeth stuck into is a classic spaghetti bolognese or meatballs. Personally, I’d usually always go for meatballs but whichever one we make, we usually opt for the Quorn mince or meatballs as not only does it feel good doing our part for the environment, but we genuinely prefer the Quorn alternatives for mince and meatballs.

The only thing this meal is missing is some crunchy garlic bread, but we actually often just serve a few slices of normal bread with it which works surprisingly well!

23. Butter chicken

For probably twenty or so years of my life, I thought I hated curries with a passion; it just didn’t make sense to me how people could say that they actively enjoyed eating spicy foods with so many weird flavours.

However, when we were travelling and I tried “proper” curries for the first time in places like Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam, I fell absolutely head over heels in love with curries, with butter chicken being one of the first curries I tried and loved.

Now, we make butter chicken regularly in the campervan and while it’s not nearly on the same level as Vietnamese curries for example (mainly because we just use a jar of sauce when we’re in the van), it’s still a great meal to enjoy while living your best van life as it’s so yummy and easy to make.

24. Steak and potato salad

Steak is a great meal to have while camping as it can be cooked in a frying pan or on a barbecue. Steak and some kind of potato were a staple of ours when we were travelling around Australia as there are public barbecues pretty much everywhere that you can use to cook a tasty meal.

While we don’t use a barbecue now that we’re in the van in the UK, we do sometimes get some steak and potato salad and make a very poor-looking, but equally very quick, easy and tasty campervan meal.

25. Tortellini – easy campervan meals

I only discovered my obsession with tortellini in the last few years and I’m so glad I did because it’s one of my absolute favourite pasta dishes, especially when it comes to dinners in the van. While I’m desperate to make my own tortellini one day, preferably in a gorgeous countryside town in Italy, surrounded by vineyards (a girl can dream!), for now, I’m just happy to buy shop-bought tortellini (Tesco’s chicken and chorizo is the best tortellini in my opinion) as it’s just so damn good!

26. Maggi Goreng

We first had Maggi Goreng in Bali, Indonesia and throughout our travels around Southeast Asia, we ate it more times than I can remember. Once we arrived home in the UK, we tried our very best to recreate it from scratch and we think we’ve pretty much nailed our ideal Maggi noodles recipe so that it’s as authentic as the ones we ate in Asia.

To make Maggi Goreng (at least our version of it), you’ll need some Maggi noodles, eggs, ketchup, soy sauce, chilli sauce, salt, pepper, spring onions, garlic and some cabbage if you want to add this in. We also usually add some chicken in as well to make it a bit more hearty and it’s honestly one of my favourite meals ever.

27. Sausage and sweet potato curry

Sausage and sweet potato curry was a meal that I made frequently when we lived in our apartment in York before we went travelling as this was when I first started to properly enjoy cooking.

This meal can also be transitioned into a campervan meal arsenal and while the sweet potatoes might be a little trickier to cook as I’d usually part-boil them first and then cook them in the oven for half an hour or so, now I just boil them for a little longer in one pot and then throw everything together with a jar of curry sauce.

28. Chilli – best campervan meals

Chilli is another quick and easy meal to make in a campervan as you really only need one pan (unless you’re going to serve it with rice, then you’ll need a saucepan as well!) and you can just throw everything in, give it a stir and then you’re good to go.

29. Fajitas/tacos

Fajitas and tacos are great meal ideas for campervan road trips as you can make them as simple or as complex as you like. If you’re making chicken fajitas, for example, you can ‘cheat’ and make it super easy for yourself by buying one of the fajita kits (such as the ones from Old El Paso) which includes all the ingredients you need, you just need to buy some chicken and cook it in with the rest of the ingredients.

30. Spaghetti carbonara

Remember how I mentioned above that pasta dishes would feature routinely throughout this post? We’re still not done yet as spaghetti carbonara is yet another pasta dish that I love to make in the campervan.

Personally, spaghetti carbonara is one dish that I much prefer making from scratch as I think it always tastes much better, but you can also get carbonara jars of sauce to make it easier to cook while on the road.

31. Lamb steaks and new potatoes

Similarly to the steak and potato salad dish I recommended above, lamb steaks and new potatoes are another meal you can make in a campervan. Simply fry some lamb steaks with a bit of seasoning, boil your potatoes in a saucepan and suddenly you’ve got a ridiculously easy meal that barely needs a recipe!

32. Cheeseboard – campervan cooking ideas

I know that a cheese board might seem quite the task to create in a tiny motorhome, but I can assure you that it can be done, with just a little preparation and all the right ingredients.

Grab yourself a delicious cheese selection (I love the selection in Morrison’s or Booths if you want to be really fancy), pair it with your favourite crackers (Tesco’s salt and cracked black pepper are the BEST) and throw in a few chutneys if you want to be really sophisticated and you’ve got yourself a cheeseboard!

Snacks/treats – best campervan meals

If it was up to me, I’d snack my way around life every single day, but I’m aware that it’s not the healthiest eating habit to have. However, when we’re on a campervan road trip, we usually let ourselves indulge in a few tasty treats every now and again and I’ve listed some of my favourites below.

33. Doritos and salsa

Doritos and salsa is Matt’s go-to snack wherever we are in the world. I’m not the biggest fan of the salsa part, but I’ll happily eat Doritos with some garlic dip instead.

34. Pringles

Pringles are one of my favourite types of crisps and a campervan food essential on almost every trip we go on. The Texas BBQ flavour is the best, but I’m partial to pretty much every variety!

35. Chocolate orange bourbons

I only recently discovered these in Tesco on our most recent road trip and they’re now a staple in our campervan food cupboard. They’re only 40p from Tesco (so naturally we bought three packets!) and they’re great for dunking into cups of tea.

36. Haribo – easy campervan meals

I usually nearly always go for the savoury option over anything sweet if I’m given the choice (although those chocolate orange bourbons are to die for!), but if I do choose something sweet, it’s usually actual sweeties such as Haribo rather than chocolate. These sweeties are great for road trips, especially if you get the sharing bag as you can tuck into them while driving and once you’re parked up as well.

37. Cream crackers and salad cream

Please, please don’t hate me for this but cream crackers and salad cream is one of my favourite snacks in the world. I’ve never met anyone else who likes this combination and I’m aware that it’s a pretty acquired taste, but I absolutely love it and I always ensure that I’ve got a stash of cream crackers on every road trip we go on.

38. Sausage rolls – easy campervan meals

Homemade sausage rolls are obviously the best, but they’re not exactly easy to make in a campervan, so shop-bought sausage rolls will suffice. They’re also a great picnic addition if you need to pack some snacks to take with you on a campervan day trip adventure.

39. Popcorn

Popcorn isn’t actually something that I’m particularly fond of at all which I realise is quite a bold statement to make, but Matt likes it and I know that it’s a great (and pretty healthy) snack to have in your campervan for long trips.

40. Fruit – healthy campervan meals

OK, so I know that fruit isn’t exactly the most fun or exciting thing to eat in a campervan, but it is important to keep as healthy as possible while you’re on the road so if you can manage to squeeze a bit of fruit into your van every now and then, I’m sure your body will thank you for it 😉

Related posts:

• Our Ultimate Campervan Conversion Process – From Start To Finish
• 11 Easy, Cheap and Healthy Meals To Make On A Budget
• How Much We Spent Converting A Campervan – What You Need To Know
• How I Spend Less Than £13 On My Weekly Food Shop
• The Ultimate Campervan Essentials Packing List For Van Life
• The Best Free And Paid Campervan Spots In South England
• The Ultimate Guide To Hiring A Campervan – Campervan Hire Tips
• Why A Campervan Road Trip Needs To Be On Your Bucket List

Pin for later – easy campervan meals

Do you have any other dishes or recipes to add to this list of the best easy campervan meals? Let me know in the comments or on Instagram at @imjustagirl_16.