The Tiniest Tiny Prius Kitchen

I’m a techy geek, and I love tiny things, so finding tiny things to cook with is a favorite pastime. I love seeing nature, but I want to keep my creature comforts, even if I’m traveling on a budget. When I used to travel the world, I back-packed and slept on night trains. Now I car camp on free public lands, and cook fire-free, using small electric appliances. So if you’re living or camping out of your car and you can’t or don’t want to cook with fire, read on!

Every item in this list uses less than 500 watts, so it can be used with a small, portable power station, or with an inexpensive inverter.

Whether you start each morning with coffee or tea, you’re going to need something able to boil water. The biggest challenge for people trying to do this in a car is that most appliances able to boil water are high wattage. A normal kettle often uses more than 1000 watts! Thankfully, there are a few appliances under 500w that will boil water, like this beautiful Lyte kettle, that is also a thermos. It’s small and sleek, and fits in your cup holder. Update: if the Lyte isn’t available, check out the Loutytuo kettle, it’s identical!

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You can add instant coffee or tea bags right into the thermos, but keep in mind that the bottle is narrow, and could be difficult to clean if you forget to do it right away. You could also use a K-cup mug or a pour-over filter to make coffee with fresh grounds, or a tea basket. I normally use a small French press, but the K-cup mug means Keurig-style coffee without a giant machine. There’s no cleaning if you use disposable K-cups, or you can be environmentally friendly and use the reusable baskets, which come with the travel mug. (If exact model below isn’t available, click here for an alternate).

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Folks that are used to making drip coffee in old-fashioned coffee makers might prefer a pour-over filter, where you add a bit of water at a time and let it drip into the mug. This coffee typically isn’t as strong as the K-cup mug, where the coffee sits in the water until you pull out the basket.

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Once you’ve got your beverage ready, you’ll want to cook your eggs or your omlette. This tiny egg bite maker is meant for making sous-vide style egg bites, but it can also be used like a griddle if you want to make omlettes, or scrambled eggs. You can find this at Target or Amazon, but the Amazon version has an extra cup, large enough to hold about 2 eggs, so you can make a breakfast sandwich.

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If you like making waffles, Dash makes tiny 4″ waffle makers that use even less power than the egg bite maker. They’re about $10, from Target or Amazon. Many people use these to make something called a chaffle, which is a waffle-shaped breakfast item made with eggs and cheese. There are many versions of chaffles, and they are very popular with the Paleo crowd.

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If you’re ready for lunch or dinner, and don’t want every meal to look like a waffle, you can get the Dash mini griddle. It’s exactly the same size as the mini waffle maker, but with a smooth surface. You can make 4″ pancakes or eggs of course, but you can also use it to make burgers, grilled chicken, grilled cheese sandwiches, or grilled fruits and veggies. The smooth surfaces also make it easier to clean. Both minis fit anywhere, and are incredibly light, making them perfect for car campers or van dwellers. The mini griddle is normally $10-30 from Amazon, depending on the color, but may be a bit hard to find. You might want to check out the 5″ Nostalgia griddle. It’s $15, but uses 550w, which may exceed your available power.

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You can also look for the Dash mini grill, it’s similar to the griddle but has ridges, so you get those nice char marks on your burgers, panninis, or fruit. I don’t think I’d don’t think I’d use this for pancakes though. It uses 350w and is $15-25 from Amazon when in stock.

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My final tiny item is this collapsible hot pot. It has two temperature settings and is great for making soup or items that require liquid, like Mac and Cheese, rice, and steamed veggies. The outside is silicone and folds over, to take a very small amount of space when stored. The base is stainless steel, so you could probably brown meat in it, but I’ve never tried that. It also comes with a steaming plate, that fits halfway inside the pot, so you can steam vegetables. The wattage draw for the slow setting is about 350w. This is sufficient for boiling water, so that’s where I set it when making Mac and Cheese. This is good news for people that only have a small power station or inverter. The quick setting draws 650w, so only use that if you have the required power.

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My car has a large inverter, but if I didn’t have that, I could use my Rockpals portable power station. You can buy the 500w version from Amazon for under $400, though I recommend paying for the 4yr protection plan. The Jackery power station is also very popular, but I don’t like the big handle on the top because I’m always putting things on top of my power station at night, and I don’t like the plug adapters needed to charge the Jackery, I’ve seen them become loose and stop working. The Rockpals power stations also charge faster than the Jackery. Do your research and decide which one is right for you.

If a power station is too large of an expense, you can use an inverter attached to a battery. This can be your car’s battery, or an extra battery you carry around with you in a battery box. You just need to clamp the positive and negative clamps to the battery posts. I have a 35 amp hour battery, in a battery box, that I can use in someone else’s car if they don’t have an inverter. This Bestek inverter is Pure Sine Wave, so it won’t damage sensitive electronics, and it’s under $60. Although it does come with a cigarette socket cable, I don’t recommend using that in your car outlets because cigarette sockets aren’t meant for pulling that much power. You could blow a fuse or start a fire.

Here are some pictures of the Bestek inverter, properly connected to a battery. The boxes are available at Walmarts, or any auto parts store.

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As always, for any electronics, I recommend purchasing the protection plan. I’ve had inexpensive electronics last forever, and expensive ones last only days. I fried three $800 phones in a row once, due to a bad cigarette socket charger, and I don’t want to ruin something accidentally due to a power surge. Amazon, Walmart and Target usually offer protection plans for most electronics.

This is the end of my tiny items list, but there are other larger items I also love. You can view that list on my post, Practical Gear for Tiny Prius Trekking, which also includes non-kitchen items.

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