Our family has enjoyed living in our tiny house for over a year now! And with living in a tiny house, we decided to live and cook without an oven until recently.
That’s right, we’ve finally purchased an oven to put into the kitchen space of our tiny home! But, how did we survive without an oven for so long? Was it hard to make nutritious meals?
We make nearly every single meal at home and rarely eat out. We also don’t buy pre-made meals or convenience items at the grocery store. I love to cook from scratch, meaning that nearly all the items in our pantry and fridge are whole ingredients.
As the mom, and the main cook of the family, I have certainly had to get creative at times! And, as our daughter grew up I suddenly wasn’t just feeding myself and my husband, but also a toddler.
I can’t wait to share all the details with you. Let’s check it out…
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Cook Without An Oven Without Compromising Our Health
When we moved into our tiny house over a year ago now (check out this blog post for the details) I knew that cooking from scratch meant not just saving money, but also eating the best ingredients for our bodies.
Healthy eating really comes down to eating ingredients that are whole, or straight from the plant. Some people talk about it in terms of only shopping the outside perimeter of the grocery store and not the middle aisles. Basically, fruits, veggies, dairy, meat, eggs, flour, nuts, and beans are some of the basic ingredients that our meals consist of.
And, a lot of those whole ingredient items we need we can grow or raise ourselves on our homestead. Or, purchase it from a local farmer’s market and preserve it for later use.
To cook these ingredients and make a meal does not require an oven. However, at times it certainly makes it easier!
One thing I discovered after making nutritious meals for an entire year as I would cook without an oven, was that most things I tended to make in an oven in the past were really deserts or bakery items.
Yes, I would love to roast a whole chicken or roast vegetables in an oven, (and I am loving doing now that we have an oven!) but I had other ways to cook those same items that were actually much faster.
So, if you are in a similar scenario, don’t let your first step be to begin compromising your health. Don’t start buying convenience meals at the grocery store. Instead, challenge yourself to grow in your cooking skills!
Related Post: The Top 10 Cookbooks Every Homesteader Needs In Their Kitchen
Tools To Cook Without An Oven At Home
After one year of learning to cook without an oven, I have discovered some of my favorite tools to use.
The first is most certainly my instant pot. I have to say that I have used my instant pot nearly every day since my mom gifted it to me. And, most days it is more than just once that I use it!
The instant pot is amazing because it is much faster than a crockpot or slow cooker, and often the oven. It usually takes about 10 minutes to come to full pressure, but after that, the cooking time is usually only 5-30 minutes for most meals.
In fact, I refuse to boil eggs any other way than in my instant pot! You can cook nearly everything inside the instant pot, including popcorn and deserts! However, I never did quite master making bread inside of it.
And, I can’t forget to mention our air fryer lid! This sits right on top of our existing instant pot (just a new lid) and is basically a mini oven for us at times! My husband loves cooking biscuits in it and I refuse to make bacon any other way now that we have it. It’s a game-changer to cooking without an oven!
In fact, here are some of my favorite instant pot accessories I would hate to live without:
The next is my cast iron skillet. We have an electric stovetop that we really only use to cook with our cast iron skillet. We cook pancakes, veggies, and a whole lot of eggs on it nearly every day!
And lastly, we also cook with our crockpot and stockpot every once in a while. We also cook with our dutch oven outside over the campfire in the summer months.
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Learn To Cook Without An Oven
If you are used to cooking with an oven then it is going to take some time and be a bit of a learning curve to cook without one. I know it took me a few months to just set up new systems and get used to the process.
One thing I highly recommend is getting some instant pot cookbooks! Or, if you prefer to cook with a dutch oven or a slow cooker, then get cookbooks tailored to those kitchen gadgets.
This cookbook became a family favorite of ours, as my mom gifted it to be along with the instant pot. It has some easy recipes. In fact, here are some links to some other great cookbooks to consider purchasing:
A Day In The Life
If you are still curious as to how we cook without an oven, then here is an example of what a typical day of meals looks like for our family.
Breakfast consists of a smoothie (banana, spinach, protein powder, frozen berries, and almond or coconut milk) and eggs cooked in our cast iron skillet on the electric stovetop.
Snacks throughout the day are fruit and sweet potato fries made in the air fryer instant pot.
Lunch is boiled egg salad sandwiches and a small salad. Dinner is a chili I made in the instant pot.
Overall, living without an oven hasn’t been too hard at all. The instant pot has my biggest kitchen tool to make that easier. And, with most people owning instant pots, crockpots, and air fryers these days, it seems the kitchen gadgets are getting more use than the oven these days.
Do you have any tips for living without an oven? Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments below!
Kelsey at GoodPointGrandma
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