Our beautiful, peaceful campsite in the evergreen forests of western Washington.

In continuation of my previous post about home food storage, I’m going to now post about my RV pantry.

First of all, deciding what to keep in our RV pantry is challenging. We keep our RV on our site in a private campground, and it’s 30 minutes out through miles of working forest and along the curvy road following Hood Canal to the closest restaurants and/or grocery stores. Luckily, I have a huge pantry in my rear kitchen, so I have plenty of room with which to organize. But WHAT in the world do I keep in it?

I decided on the basics through reviewing my home pantry, and also by listening to Episode 187 of Girl Camper, where Kate Dunbar talked about how she stocked her RV pantry.

The first thing to point out is that we don’t tow this trailer anywhere; it stays parked. As a result, I don’t have to worry about things shifting and falling over. I would never, ever pack my shelves like this in a trailer or motor home that actually moves.

Anyway, I came up with a shopping list, and then Tim and I hit the stores to get the best deals. We then headed out to the trailer, where I emptied out all the various stuff I had shoved in the pantry and re-organized. Here’s my blank slate:

My very large, very deep pantry.

And here’s my final results, shelf-by-shelf:

The top shelf – baking supplies. Everything from flour to Crisco sticks!

The second shelf – staples for quick meals, including soups, oatmeal, evaporated milk, bouillon cubes, grits.

The third shelf – junk food and snacks for a quick bite.

The fourth shelf, not pictured, is on the bottom and is used to store extra containers, a coffee maker I’m not using anymore but haven’t taken home yet, and other various large kitchen items.

I also organized my spice pantry, which sits just to the left and above my stove.

My spice rack is constantly changing based on what I think sounds good at the time.

In addition to this, we keep some frozen meat in the freezer and basic condiments ready to go in the fridge. Our trailer is always plugged in and, if the campground power should go out, we have the RV batteries for backup. We’ve lost power out there several times now and have never lost a single item out of our freezer and fridge because of it, luckily!

I’ve added a 12″ electric skillet to my camp kitchen, as well. I cook frequently on my three-burner propane stove which, if you’re familiar with RV cooking, you know that that stove will heat up your whole trailer in a matter of minutes. By the time dinner is done, I’m usually sweating and the windows are completely fogged up. So now I plan to focus on one-pan meals that I can fix in the electric skillet. It’s a win-win: I’m using less propane and not inadvertently heating the trailer to what feels like boiling temperature!

I ADORE this kitchen. It’s the main reason we bought the trailer.

My RV pantry is in NO WAY complete. I’m still thinking through things that I want to add, especially in the area of canned veggies. We want to be able to go to camp without having to bring a bunch of food with us and easily make some meals right from our pantry. That’s going to take some time to figure out, but our RV is our home away so it’s worth it!