Whether you’re heading out for the summer or visiting family for the holidays, it’s always great to have an excuse to take a beautiful family RV road trip. During this trip, no doubt you want your menu to blend perfectly with the unique family travel experience.
To choose the perfect family RV meals, you’ll want to think ahead. Naturally, you want healthy and easy to cook meals that your entire family will eat happily. To save you the trouble of searching, we’ve put together three toasty group-sized meals perfect for a family RV trip.
Know Your Meal Plan
Depending on how many people you’re feeding and how picky they are, you may need a pretty comprehensive meal plan. The easiest way to cook around meals in an RV or outside in a campfire is with a tidy one-pot meal and a selection of sides. We recommend packing a few loaves of french bread, basic salad supplies, and a few cans of tomato soup to serve as great back-up sides. Beans and an extra pot of flavored rice also do nicely.
Each of your sides should be something that can be heated quickly and served without much hassle so you can focus on the main dish. And with the right menu, your one-pot will be the star of the show.
1) Skillet Chicken and Tomato
Almost everyone likes tender pan-seared chicken and you can’t go wrong with fresh tomato. This recipe is beautifully simple and very customizable. Whole roast chickens are very popular during the holiday seasons but for a quick RV recipe your family will love, it’s easier to cook your chicken in smaller pieces that can be scooped out in portions.
Ingredients:
- olive oil
- 2-6 pieces of chicken – breast or thigh
- 2-5 large tomatoes – chopped
- 4 cloves of garlic – minced
- 2 yellow onions – chopped or sliced
- mushrooms – sliced
- oregano
- thyme
- parsley
- salt and pepper – to taste
- cooked bowtie pasta – optional
Many of you will recognize these ingredients as the base for almost any chicken and tomato-based meal and it essentially is. This recipe can be turned into anything based on what you have in the fridge but is delicious in it’s simplest form as well. If you need starch or to bulk up the meal, boil a few cups of bowtie or wide pasta to mix in.
How to Make It:
This is an easy one-skillet recipe, though you will also need a side-plate to temporarily hold the chicken. Start by heating the pan and coating the bottom with olive oil. If you want pasta, cook ahead of time. Throw in half your garlic and when it starts to brown, lay in the pieces of chicken. Pan-fry the chicken until golden seared and tender all the way through. Slice the chicken pieces into thinner strips if you prefer or are in a hurry.
Once the chicken is cooked, briefly move it to your side plate. In the pan, add the rest of your garlic along with the tomato, onion, mushrooms spices, and any additional veggies you want to chop in.
Cook the vegetable mixture for 3-5 minutes while stirring, then add the chicken back into the skillet and pasta if prepared. Cover your skillet with a lid or a double-layer of tin-foil and turn down the heat. Leave to simmer for 15-20 minutes, then serve. Garlic bread is the ideal side for this warm meal.
2) Baked Sausage Casserole
Of course, a light chicken and tomato might not be the right answer if you and your family have spent the day hiking up mountains to look at the trees from below. After a long day of amazing physical activity, you may all be craving something a little heavier that will probably put you straight to sleep after supper. For this, we need to look no further than the classic sausage casserole. Sausage is an undeniable staple of fall recipes, though not all families include the spiced meat as a regular ingredient. This recipe mixes ground beef and spiced sausage and if you’re not a fan of sausage in general, you can replace it all with home-spiced ground beef instead.
Ingredients:
- 1/2 lbs Italian sausage
- 1/2 lbs ground beef
- 2 apples – chopped
- 2 onions – chopped
- 3 cups long-grain rice – already cooked
- 1/3 cup chicken broth
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 cup carrots – chopped
- 1/2 cup raisins – optional
- salt and pepper – to taste
There is a lot of ways to make a casserole and this one relies on sausage and beef for the meat and rice for the starch, but you can always change it up. If you make cornbread ahead of time instead of rice, which takes a bit more commitment, you can make a cornbread sausage casserole instead.
How to Make It:
Start by preheating your oven to 350 F and begin your pan-heating with a light coating of oil. Then pell your sausages so that they can be broken up into the casserole. Into your pan, add the sausage and beef, breaking it up with a spatula until it is crumbled and lightly browned. To your meat mix, add the apples, carrots, and onions until everything is lightly seared and the vegetables are becoming tender.
Add the spices, rice, and broth to the mix and stir over low heat. At this point, the oven should be hot and you can load your casserole mix into a baking dish. Bake the casserole for about half an hour or until the top turns golden and gently crisped, then serve. This is also a great recipe for leftovers because you can always reheat the dish.
3) Chicken Pot Pie Casserole
Of course, if you want to seem like a true magician, secretly prepare to whip up something your family will neither believe at first nor ever forget: the legendary chicken pot pie casserole. Everyone loves a good chicken pot pie, usually only sighted at certain restaurants and in the frozen section of the grocery store. The tender crust, the creamy chicken and veggie filling, it’s amazing. And with a little cleverness, you can bring that magic with you on your RV camping trip. Here’s how to do it.
Ingredients:
- 1 lbs chicken breast – cooked and chopped
- 1/4 cup peas – fresh, frozen, freeze-dried or canned
- 1/4 cup carrots – chopped or diced
- 1 onion – diced
- 1 cup water
- 2 cans cream of chicken soup
- 2 cans croissant dough rolls
- 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
- salt and pepper – to taste
With this list laid out, the genius becomes clear. You don’t have to spend any time in your RV kitchen making pastry or worry about getting exactly the right mix for gravy because the wonders of the grocery store can take care of some things for you ahead of time. Cream of chicken soup makes a fantastic chicken pot pie gravy and the croissant dough rolls are pastry dough already rolled out and even. Now all you have to do is put it together and bake.
How to Make It:
Preheat your oven to 35o F. If you start with raw chicken, which is totally reasonable, you’ll want to cook this first. The easiest way with fresh chicken is to chop it first, then pan-fry the bite-sized pieces very quickly. Use a dash of seasoning on the chicken during this phase to infuse a little flavor early on. Next, saute or grill your diced onions until they are clear. This can be done in the chicken pan or even both at the same time if you like a strong onion flavor in the chicken.
Once the chicken and onions are ready, prepare your baking dish. Line the bottom of the dish with one layer of croissant dough. Press the dough into the bottom and up around the sides, but don’t let your fingers push all the way through the dough. Set the pan in the oven and allow the crust to bake for about 20 minutes or until it is light brown
During this time, add the chicken, vegetables, and water to your skillet and heat until warm, which should take about 5-10 minutes. Then add the canned soup and seasoning and stir over medium heat until you get a creamy gravy consistency. If needed, add a little more water.
When the lower crust is done, pour your gravy mix evenly into the pan and top with another sheet of croissant dough. Press the edges of the top layer into the sides of the dish, then bake for about 20-30 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Your family will love this.
