Cooking With
A Solar Oven
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When I first moved into my box van, I quickly
realized that I had to do my own cooking, or the cost
of eating-out at restaurants would eat-up the savings
of living in the van. So I bought a Coleman propane
stove and started cooking my own meals. But I really
missed having an oven. I love cornbread and chili,
some frozen pizzas are delicious and cheap, and
fishsticks are a comfort food from my childhood. But
they all (along with many others) require an oven. I
tried a Coleman folding camp oven, but it took a lot of
propane to operate, made the van hot in the summer,
and it was hard to regulate the temperature and get
foods cooked right. I had more failures than
successes so I soon gave it away and learned to live
without an oven.
It is many years later and I still miss an oven. So a
friend suggested that I get a solar oven, and the light
bulb went on, what a great idea!! I spend my winters
in the desert Southwest so I have an abundance of
sunshine making a solar oven the ideal solution for me.
So I started doing some research. The very best
thing I did was join the Yahoo solar cooking group
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SolarCooking/). If
you have any interest in solar cooking, join this group
now! There are many people there who use many types
of ovens and are very eager to help newcomers get
started with solar cooking. In their photo album,
there are hundreds of different photos of how people
made their different solar ovens. There are also many
do-it-yourself plans on the web for making your own
oven. Some are very cheap and easy, others are very
elaborate and more difficult. (here is one of the best
easy plans:
(http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/radabaugh
30.html).
I also looked at commercially available ovens such as
the SOS Sport (click here:
http://www.solarovens.org/) and the Global Sun
Oven (GSO or Sun Oven) (click here:
https://www.sunoven.com/. I was very impressed
with both of them, but the video on the Global Sun
Oven site (sunoven.com) really sold me on it. While
they are both very good ovens and work extremely
well, I strongly prefered the GSO. It's large
reflectors gather more heat from the sun, which
allows the GSO to attain a higher temperature than
the Sport. In good sun the GSO can get up to 400
degrees. Also, it's large, self-leveling food tray
allows it to be tilted at any angle which is especially
important in the winter when the sun is low on the
horizon. For those reasons I decided I wanted a GSO,
but they are expensive so I had to put off buying one
till later when I could afford it. Well, the next week I
was driving along and saw a garage sale with a GSO
set up in it. So I slammed on my brakes and pulled
over. It looked exactly like a GSO but it said Burns
Sun Oven on the side, which confused me, but, not
enough to keep me from buying it! He wanted $60 for
it, so without any hesitation I bought it. Later I
researched the name, and it turns out that a man
named Burns had started the company and the early
models had his name on them. That means my oven is
10-15 years old. Some of the wood is drying, and
there is a very small amount of rust on some of the
hardware, but it is 100% serviceable and it should
last me another 15 years. And best of all, it cooks
great food!
Everything I had read on the web said that food
actually tasted better when cooked in a sun oven, but
I thought that was just overzealous hype. It's not!
Food actually tastes better when cooked by the sun!
Maybe it is the slow, even heat from the sun, but
whatever the reason, it really is better. I took the
oven to a gathering of members of the vandwellers
yahoo group, and we used the oven almost every day
to cook all kinds of food and everyone there went
away wanting a GSO. We all agreed that the food just
tasted better. We made a batch of brownies that was
the best I had ever eaten anywhere. It turns out that
the solar oven is a very good mimmick of a crock pot
slow cooker. It makes great soups, rice dishes,
stews, pot roasts, and meat loaf. Anything you would
make in a crock pot will turn out great in a GSO. We
also used it for breakfast, making eggs and oatmeal
with it.
realized that I had to do my own cooking, or the cost
of eating-out at restaurants would eat-up the savings
of living in the van. So I bought a Coleman propane
stove and started cooking my own meals. But I really
missed having an oven. I love cornbread and chili,
some frozen pizzas are delicious and cheap, and
fishsticks are a comfort food from my childhood. But
they all (along with many others) require an oven. I
tried a Coleman folding camp oven, but it took a lot of
propane to operate, made the van hot in the summer,
and it was hard to regulate the temperature and get
foods cooked right. I had more failures than
successes so I soon gave it away and learned to live
without an oven.
It is many years later and I still miss an oven. So a
friend suggested that I get a solar oven, and the light
bulb went on, what a great idea!! I spend my winters
in the desert Southwest so I have an abundance of
sunshine making a solar oven the ideal solution for me.
So I started doing some research. The very best
thing I did was join the Yahoo solar cooking group
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SolarCooking/). If
you have any interest in solar cooking, join this group
now! There are many people there who use many types
of ovens and are very eager to help newcomers get
started with solar cooking. In their photo album,
there are hundreds of different photos of how people
made their different solar ovens. There are also many
do-it-yourself plans on the web for making your own
oven. Some are very cheap and easy, others are very
elaborate and more difficult. (here is one of the best
easy plans:
(http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/radabaugh
30.html).
I also looked at commercially available ovens such as
the SOS Sport (click here:
http://www.solarovens.org/) and the Global Sun
Oven (GSO or Sun Oven) (click here:
https://www.sunoven.com/. I was very impressed
with both of them, but the video on the Global Sun
Oven site (sunoven.com) really sold me on it. While
they are both very good ovens and work extremely
well, I strongly prefered the GSO. It's large
reflectors gather more heat from the sun, which
allows the GSO to attain a higher temperature than
the Sport. In good sun the GSO can get up to 400
degrees. Also, it's large, self-leveling food tray
allows it to be tilted at any angle which is especially
important in the winter when the sun is low on the
horizon. For those reasons I decided I wanted a GSO,
but they are expensive so I had to put off buying one
till later when I could afford it. Well, the next week I
was driving along and saw a garage sale with a GSO
set up in it. So I slammed on my brakes and pulled
over. It looked exactly like a GSO but it said Burns
Sun Oven on the side, which confused me, but, not
enough to keep me from buying it! He wanted $60 for
it, so without any hesitation I bought it. Later I
researched the name, and it turns out that a man
named Burns had started the company and the early
models had his name on them. That means my oven is
10-15 years old. Some of the wood is drying, and
there is a very small amount of rust on some of the
hardware, but it is 100% serviceable and it should
last me another 15 years. And best of all, it cooks
great food!
Everything I had read on the web said that food
actually tasted better when cooked in a sun oven, but
I thought that was just overzealous hype. It's not!
Food actually tastes better when cooked by the sun!
Maybe it is the slow, even heat from the sun, but
whatever the reason, it really is better. I took the
oven to a gathering of members of the vandwellers
yahoo group, and we used the oven almost every day
to cook all kinds of food and everyone there went
away wanting a GSO. We all agreed that the food just
tasted better. We made a batch of brownies that was
the best I had ever eaten anywhere. It turns out that
the solar oven is a very good mimmick of a crock pot
slow cooker. It makes great soups, rice dishes,
stews, pot roasts, and meat loaf. Anything you would
make in a crock pot will turn out great in a GSO. We
also used it for breakfast, making eggs and oatmeal
with it.
| Biscuits cooking. They turned out great |
| The ultimate comfort food, fishsticks cooking. |
My first two pound meatloaf almost done.
I put it in the oven at 11:30 am and by
2:30 pm it hit 180 degrees and I called it
done. It was March 14, in Pahrump, NV.
The outside temperature was 73 degrees
with partly hazy skies. There was a light
breeze the whole time.
I put it in the oven at 11:30 am and by
2:30 pm it hit 180 degrees and I called it
done. It was March 14, in Pahrump, NV.
The outside temperature was 73 degrees
with partly hazy skies. There was a light
breeze the whole time.
The two pictures to the right show the ingenuis
levelor tray that keeps your food level no matter
how it is tilted toward the sun.
In this picture , the oven is laying flat on its front
side and even at this extreme angle your food is
still level. Your food stays level no matter how you
adjust it for the sun angle.
levelor tray that keeps your food level no matter
how it is tilted toward the sun.
In this picture , the oven is laying flat on its front
side and even at this extreme angle your food is
still level. Your food stays level no matter how you
adjust it for the sun angle.
The leg mounted on the back of the oven easily
allows you to raise and lower the angle of the oven
to the sun.
In the winter when the sun is low on the horizon,
you want it tilted all the way for maximum heat. In
the hot summer we may not want any tilt in order
to lower the temperatures in the oven.
Here you see the back of the oven with the leg.
It's very easy to raise and lower
allows you to raise and lower the angle of the oven
to the sun.
In the winter when the sun is low on the horizon,
you want it tilted all the way for maximum heat. In
the hot summer we may not want any tilt in order
to lower the temperatures in the oven.
Here you see the back of the oven with the leg.
It's very easy to raise and lower
Another advantage of the GSO for the vandweller
is how small they fold for storage.
The picture on the left and below shows the
reflectors folded flat, the leg pulled in, and the
oven ready to travel. It fits snugly under the bed
of my camper.
is how small they fold for storage.
The picture on the left and below shows the
reflectors folded flat, the leg pulled in, and the
oven ready to travel. It fits snugly under the bed
of my camper.
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Needless to say, I am in love with my GSO. Here's why:
Here are some tips on using a solar oven:
- It cooks great food.
- It cooks for free and requires no maintanence, other than a quick
wipe down. - It doesn't make the inside of the camper hot when I use it.
- It's light at 19 pounds and fairly compact when folded down so it fits
in my tiny camper. - It has large reflectors and it is insulated so it to gets hot even in
the winter. - It's easily tiltable so it gets hotter in the winter, or cooler in the
summer. - It has safety glass so it won't break in the camper.
- It is extremely durable and should last for many decades to come.
- The outside does not get hot so it won't hurt animals or kids. The
inside does get very hot, so use oven-mits.
Here are some tips on using a solar oven:
- Set it up half an hour early and let it preheat.
- Use black (or very dark) colored pots that are thin metal. Silicone
also works fine. I have used Glad Simply Cooking Ovenware that is
plastic, and had very good luck with it. - Cast iron works fine, but because it is so thick, preheat the pan
before putting the food in it. - Turn the oven every half hour to keep it pointed at the sun. Look at
the shadows it throws and keep them aligned so they are even on
both sides and straight back from the oven. - Cooking times may vary from a conventional oven, so keep track of
the time food takes to cook so you can learn by trial and error. I'm a
bachelor and not much of a cook, and I have only had one meal turn
out poorly because I cooked it too long. Believe me, I had many more
failures using a conventional oven! It is a very forgiving method of
cooking. - If you are going to be gone all day, you can still use it as a slow
cooker. Point it due South in the morning and put your food in it. It's
temperature will steadily rise until mid-day when it will be it's
hottest, and then slowly cool off until evening when you get home,
when it will be the perfect temperature to serve it. - Wind is the enemy of a solar oven. It wants to blow the oven over and
even if it doesn't it blows heat away from the oven. In the desert
and at the beach, the wind blows small dust particles that will
damage ordinary reflectors. The GSO uses polished aluminum
reflectors, so they are nearly impervious to such damage.