The Instant Pot might be the hardest working appliance in our fifth wheel. It is a pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice cooker, and saute pan in one lid, and for a small RV kitchen where counter space and power are both tight, that kind of do-everything gear earns its keep fast. Best of all, it runs entirely on our solar and battery system, so we can make a real dinner with no hookups and no propane oven heating up the rig.
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Why it earns its space
Everything that comes aboard a fifth wheel has to pull its weight, and the Instant Pot does the work of three or four appliances we would otherwise have to store. One pot means one thing to clean. It browns, pressure cooks, and keeps warm without us babysitting it, which matters when we are both working from the rig and dinner needs to happen on its own for a while.
We christened our off-grid kitchen with a proper meal in the Instant Pot the very first night we owned the RV, cooking dinner off nothing but the battery bank at a boondocking spot with zero amenities. You can see that first night in our first boondocking video post.
Cooking off-grid on solar
We do not carry a generator, so every watt the Instant Pot uses comes from the battery bank. Pressure cooking is where it shines off-grid: it comes up to pressure, then drops to a low simmer to hold it, so the heavy power draw is short compared to running a stovetop or oven for an hour. A pot of beef stew or a rack of ribs cooks while our solar keeps the batteries topped up in the sun. The full electrical picture is in our solar and battery setup.
What we make in it
It has become our default for the meals that make a campsite feel like home: stews, chili, pulled pork, rice and beans, hard-boiled eggs for the week, even yogurt. When the weather turns and cooking outside on the Blackstone is off the table, the Instant Pot is what still gets a hot meal on the table without steaming up the whole rig.
Where to get it
The Instant Pot is on Amazon. If you are outfitting an off-grid kitchen, pair it with a battery and inverter setup sized to handle it while it comes up to pressure, and you will use it far more than you expect. The rest of our cooking gear is in our Blackstone and camp kitchen guide, and the air fryer we run alongside it has its own page.