Cooking in a Van: How We Make Cantonese Dinners for 4
By Michael · October 14, 2026
We cook real meals in our van. Beef chow fun, Cantonese beef stew, eggplant with minced pork, soup with three kinds of eggs. I do most of the cooking, and I really enjoy it. That’s the main reason we put a proper propane stove in our new van instead of a camp stove.
Here’s how cooking in a van actually works for our family of four: what we cook on, where we shop, what we make, and what’s hard about it.
Quick answer
- Inside: a three-burner propane stove with a small oven, a small pressure cooker that also makes our rice, a fridge and a freezer.
- Outside: a high-pressure propane burner and a wok. The burner was about $50 and the wok about $20.
- Shopping: Asian supermarkets for sauces, noodles and aromatics, Costco for meat.
- Water: our 35-gallon tank lasts about a week if we’re careful, cooking and dishes included.
- Biggest tip: for wok cooking, have everything cut and laid out before you turn on the fire.
Why we cook in the van
Eating out every day adds up. In April 2025, right after we bought our new van, I said it on camera: we were going to cook more than eat out, to save a little money, because we’d just taken on a big new van payment.
And honestly, we love to cook. I love to cook.
Our van kitchen
The stove
In our first van we used a portable camp stove. The problem was the little butane canisters. We’d have something like 12 to 20 of them on board at any time, and each one only lasts an hour or two depending on how high the fire is. We also had an induction cooktop at one point, and we couldn’t even run both burners at the same time.
So in the new van we went with a real three-burner propane stove that has a little oven underneath. It runs off a regular 20-pound barbecue propane tank, the kind you can swap at a Walmart or Home Depot. In my words at the time, propane gives me “the unlimited fire that I want for cooking.”
Pressure cooker and rice
Our pressure cooker is small, about 3 quarts, and it does double duty as our rice cooker. In our first van we had a mini rice cooker. Now the pressure cooker handles rice, soups and stews.
We’ve even cooked dinner in it while driving. That has its own page: cooking chicken goji berry soup while driving.
Fridge and freezer
We have a fridge and a freezer. Back in April 2025, in our old van, our freezer had limited space, and I said we wanted a bigger freezer in the new van so we could stock up on more wontons. We love being able to drive across the country carrying frozen food we bought in LA.
When we stock up at Costco, we pack the meat into vacuum bags to keep it fresh. Whatever we can’t eat right away goes in the freezer for later.
Where we shop
A lot of our cooking starts at Asian supermarkets. In Atlanta in March 2026 we stopped at an H Mart to stock up for the next few days of campground cooking. Our pantry was getting fuller and fuller: Shaoxing wine, sambal for a little kick, plus green onions, shallots and bean sprouts in the fridge. Those are aromatics I wouldn’t normally buy unless I’m making Chinese stir-fries.
I even did something my mom would do. At a Vietnamese restaurant the day before, I asked for the extra bean sprouts in a little bag to take home. Rina teased me for it. We cooked with them.
Costco is the other big one, mostly for meat: steaks, pork chops, chicken. And the wok itself came from a Chinese supermarket in Florida.
What we actually cook
Beef chow fun on the wok
In March 2026 I bought a high-pressure propane burner and a wok because I wanted to cook like a real Chinese restaurant kitchen, with wok hei, at campgrounds. The first real dish was beef chow fun. It was my first time really using a wok, and I wasn’t sure I’d seasoned it properly because it was sticking a little.
It came out looking legit and smelling legit. The verdict at the table: it tastes like the old Wo Hop, the Chinatown restaurant in New York. That’s a very big compliment. My own notes: fresh noodles would have been better, but the beef was pretty tender and the wok hei was really intense. Watch the whole beef chow fun night.
A few days later I made my own version of char kway teow on the same burner. There’s a short page on that one too: wok cooking outside our van.
Cantonese dinner in a parking lot
Not every dinner happens at a campground. One night in Atlanta it was only 7 pm and too early to head to where we were sleeping, so we parked at a Target and made dinner right there. I made eggplant with minced pork, which is one of Rina’s favorite Cantonese dishes, and a bok choy soup with three kinds of eggs: salted egg yolk, preserved duck egg and regular chicken egg.
That eggplant goes so well with rice that I made five or six cups. Whatever’s left goes in the fridge for fried rice the next day, because for fried rice you kind of want leftover rice anyway. It was real Cantonese comfort food, right there in the van. Here’s that Target parking lot dinner.
Cantonese beef stew
In Indianapolis in April 2026 I made Cantonese-style beef stew with beef flank, beef stomach, beef tendon and a really big daikon. I like it with flat rice noodles, ho fun. There was too much meat for our little pressure cooker, so I used a regular pot and cooked it longer, at least an hour or two, mostly for the tendon.
Honestly, the daikon wasn’t quite the right texture yet when we ate. That’s van cooking sometimes. Spencer helped wash the rice, and we had leftovers for the next day. Watch the beef stew night.
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Other dinners we’ve made on camera
- Supreme soy sauce pan-fried noodles at the Great Smoky Mountains, which Rina had been asking for.
- XO sauce vermicelli with prawns at Fort De Soto, Florida.
- Chicken feet with a sweet chili flavor, after a FaceTime with my mom to ask how she makes it.
- Clay pot rice in the van in Knoxville, Tennessee. That one gets a post of its own.
Cooking outside, smells and fresh air
Our wok nights happen outside. At the Smokies, my plan was to prepare everything inside first, cook outside, then eat together, outside if there was still some sunlight left. I also said what we were cooking was probably going to make the entire campground smell.
I used shrimp paste in the char kway teow. It’s a very strong, potent flavor, and I know that when my mom cooks with shrimp paste, the whole outside of the house smells like it. That one was cooked outside on the wok.
Inside, fresh air matters. In our first van we learned that the fan and ventilation were the most important thing, and we kept the fan running almost 24/7. In the new van’s early days, before the fans were in, we cooked with the windows and door open. A viewer cautioned us about using gas in an enclosed space, and we thanked them for the concern.
Water and dishes
We have a 35-gallon fresh water tank. In September 2026 I said it lasts us about a week if we’re conservative, and that’s with cooking meals, running the dishwasher a few times, brushing teeth and washing hands. More on how we fill up in our post on our camper van water system.
Yes, we have a small dishwasher in the van, and we do use it. The idea when we chose it: if we’re low on power, it’s just a second sink and a place to dry dishes, so they can stay there while we drive. One thing I noticed in our first van is that drying dishes usually took over the countertop.
Living with a water tank changes your habits. Even at my parents’ house, we’ve caught ourselves just trickling the water out of habit. And when we do run out, it shows. Once in July 2025 we ran the tank dry on a long drive and couldn’t even wash the dishes, so we had a pile waiting by the time we got to my mom’s.
What’s hard about cooking in a van
- Cool weather slows the wok down. At the Smokies it was pretty cool out, and the burner’s heat wasn’t reaching the sides of the wok, so the noodles took way longer. I said I wouldn’t recommend cooking that dish outside on a regular burner like ours.
- Space. Our pantry gets so stuffed that I have to reorganize it and take out things we’re not using. The freezer is always full.
- A small pressure cooker. Big batches don’t fit, so some dishes go in a regular pot for longer.
- Wok cooking is fast. You don’t have time to think, and filming it is tough too.
- Timing around two kids. At the Smokies, Archie had his dinner and a nap and Spencer hung out inside while I prepped.
Tips, in our own words
- Lay everything out before the wok gets hot. Sauces, aromatics, protein, all of it. “Wok cooking is super fast-paced.”
- Get everything as dry as possible before it goes in the wok.
- Cook extra rice on purpose. Tomorrow it’s fried rice.
- Don’t overdo one dish. After the soy sauce noodles I said I’d make less noodle in one batch and cook something else on the side instead.
- Let the kids help. Spencer washes rice and adds the salt, sometimes a little too much.
- It doesn’t cost much to start. Our outdoor burner was about $50 and the wok about $20.
We love to cook, even in a van. We have a whole video on our Cantonese parking lot dinner: watch it on YouTube.
