When Kate and I started thinking through the transition from house to RV, the kitchen was the first place that came to mind. At the time, we had several pots, pans, kitchen gadgets, a full-size oven, and the square footage to keep all of this stuff. We knew that if we were going to succeed in this transition, we absolutely had to get a handle on what cooking would be like in our RV. A big piece of that was understanding exactly what kind of cookware do we need?

I’m a bit of a cast iron nut (Kate would tell you I’m “obsessed”). I really got into cooking with cast iron because I wanted to cook outside more, and there was something so wonderful about this good old-fashioned cookware that had me captivated. I knew as soon as we we started talking cookware that 5-7 pieces of my cast iron cookware could replace nearly everything in our kitchen.

We ended up with:

• 1 6qt dutch oven
• 1 2qt dutch oven, but I wish we would have went with a 4qt
• 1 10.5″ Round griddle
• 1 10.25″ Skillet
• 1 9″ Skillet
• 1 Rectangular Griddle
• 1 Lodge Sportsman’s Grill

What makes this list so useful is that many one of these items can be combined together to create different cooking setups. It’s a modular approach that gives you a ton of flexibility while using minimal space to-do so.

The Dutch Ovens

If you told me I was only allowed to have a single piece of cookware, I would without question pick the Lodge 6 qt dutch oven.. Seriously, I don’t think there’s anything these things can’t do. This was my first piece of cast iron, and it was all I had for a long time. I only ended up getting other pieces because I wanted to be able to use cast iron inside as well as outside.

When we were talking about our transition from house to RV, a lot of our focus was on reducing the amount of storage our cookware used. What neither of us expected was just how awful an oven RV actually is. They’re too small to do anything serious, they don’t cook evenly, the temperature controls aren’t all that accurate, and they make your camper HOT. Because of this, we rarely use the oven. In most cases, we opt to use the dutch oven instead.

A dutch oven is basically a large cast iron pot that is designed to be directly warmed up. The thick layer of cast iron heats up, and evenly heats up the inside of the oven, and allows it to cook things much a traditional oven. The outdoor dutch oven, like the one I use, also has a flat lid and legs to make it possible to heat it up with charcoal. They also come with a metal handle that allows you to hang the oven over a campfire, instead.

I have used my dutch oven as a:

• Convection oven
• Lid for my Sportsman’s Grill
• Griddle (Requires a lid stand)
• Skillet
• Pizza oven
• Pie pan
• Crock Pot
• Stock Pot
• Smoker
• Deep Fryer

Over the last 3 years, I’ve made countless recipes with this oven. Gumbo, reverse-seared steak, grits, quesadillas, pizza, and slow-cooked shredded pork shoulder to name a few.

We have two dutch ovens – this allows us to cook two things at once, and since most meals involve a main dish, and a side, we made the secondary oven much smaller. We went with a 2qt oven, but I really wish I would have gotten the 4qt instead. We’ll probably end up picking one of those up in the near-future. The 2qt works for sides, but it’s just a little too small to comfortably hold things like baked potatoes. Additionally, it’s so small that a thermometer probe doesn’t fit in it very well.

The Skillets

Out of all of the cast iron things discussed in this post, you’ve almost certainly seen the good ol’ fashioned cast iron skillet. They’ve been a part of cooking for so long, that the skillet sizes used today are still based on the burner size on the wood stoves of yesteryear. Their iconic shape is what most people think of when they think of “a skillet”, even though many of us have gone to more modern replacements.

We wanted something we were comfortable with using on the stove top as well as outside, and that’s why we chose to go with cast iron instead of any other materials. There are many other materials that would probably do fine in this category, too (carbon steel comes to mind), but I find the extra thickness of cast iron does a better job distributing heat. This is very important when you’re cooking over a fire, where things can heat up really, really fast.

But more than anything, The strong-suit of our skillets comes from its versatility in where it can be used. Both of our skillets can be used on the stovetop, in the RV’s oven, over a campfire, and over charcoal. This gives a ton of flexibility. Often times, Kate will use skillet inside while I’m working on the main dish in the dutch oven.

We ended up with two sizes – a 10.25″ and a 9″. The 9″ is a great size for baking things like cornbread, and cake. It’s also good for many breakfast things, like fritattas and omelettes. The 10.25″ is a good size for pretty much anything that doesn’t need to be shaped by the skillet. Steaks, peppers, bigger casseroles, and french fries are common examples here.

Like the dutch oven, the skillet is pretty darn versatile, itself. I’ve used mine as a:

• cake pan
• omelette maker
• griddle
• pie pan
• casserole dish
• pizza pan
• grill lid (just like the dutch oven)
• A skillet
• Sauce pan

The Griddles

If you’re going to skip anything, it would probably be the griddles. Technically speaking, there isn’t anything these things can do that a skillet cannot. We ended up bringing them anyway, because they’re flat, take up very little space, and are able to-do some things a bit better than a skillet.

We have two very different griddles – a round 10.5″ griddle and a rectangular griddle.

The only notice-able difference between our round griddle and skillet is that the griddle does not have any walls. This creates two key benefits:

1. It makes flipping things (burgers, grilled cheese, pancakes, eggs) way easier than a skillet
2. It has a lot less metal than a skillet, and because of that, it heats up much faster.

With kiddos, we will find ourselves in a situation where we need to quickly make a grilled cheese. This thing will make a grilled cheese faster, and easier than anything else in our kitchen. This is one small example, but given how little space the griddle takes up, it was worth bringing along.

In our RV, the rectangular griddle serves one key purpose – breakfast. In-spite of its singular purpose, we use this griddle darn-near every morning to get our day started. We don’t have a toaster, so the extra large flat surface is critical when-cooking eggs, bacon, and toast.

The lodge griddle we use fits perfectly over the back two burners on our stovetop. This is nice because it allows you to crank up the heat on one side, and turn it down low on the other. This gives you a lot of control on a single skillet. It also fits perfectly on-top of a Lodge Sportsman Grill. You can get similar control because of the fire door at the bottom. Alternatively you can use 1-2 lid stands and use this with charcoal without the grill, as well. The only issue with that is you have to move the charcoal around in-order to control the temperature, which isn’t all that practical.

The Grill

The last thing on my list is the lodge cast iron sportsman’s grill. I like it because it fits really well with my other Lodge skillets, and my griddle fits on it perfectly.

The grill is technically a hibachi grill, which is a small grill that is perfect to cook a few burgers, or a handful of chicken thighs. It has a draft door at the bottom that allows you to control airflow on each side of the grill. This gives you some control over how hot each side of the grill gets. It also has a secondary grill inside that the charcoal sits on, and that grill sits high-enough that you can place hardwood underneath and get the perfect amount of smoke, if you’re feeling fancy.

It’s just the right size for grilling enough food for dinner, but don’t expect to use this thing to host your next July 4’th celebration. If you’re living the RV life, you’re probably not going to be cooking for 30 anytime soon, anyway, and you’ll probably appreciate the small size.

As mentioned above, you can use the a dutch oven or a skillet to serve as a pseudo-lid. This transforms the Sportsman’s Grill into a smoker, or a traditional grill with a lid.

These grills are heavy, weighing in over 30 lbs, and made entirely out of cast iron. Many people say that cleaning these can be a real pain. I only take mine apart and give it a deep clean once every few months. Aside from that, cleaning the grill top is sufficient. Since the entire grill comes apart with two screws, I think it’s easier to clean than a traditional grill since you can take it apart so easily.

Conclusion

Our solution to cooking in an RV was to take a very, very modular approach. Purchase several small components that can work in different scenarios, in different ways. Combined together, you can do darn near anything you’d want to-do with these items. In fact, the only non-cast iron piece of cookware we own is a mid-size pot for cooking pasta.

This post really focused on the actual cast iron. I’ll get into the details of the accessories, such as my table, in a future post.