Make a Small Kitchen and Small Sink in a Truck Without Plumbing

Many commercial motor vehicles don't even have a small kitchen or a small sink.

But if you want to save money by cooking and eating in your truck instead of constantly having to eat your meals in restaurants or from truck stop offerings, you may have to create a set-up like we did.

We have described on our food and recipes page and meal preparation page how we go about making some of our favorite foods in our truck.

We have also described some food storage and truck organization ideas.

Below, we'll share with you some more ideas in greater depth.

Small Kitchen Customization is Required

Before we delve in, we should explain that every driver's situation may be completely different.

By necessity, this small kitchen situation is being addressed for truck drivers with a sleeper berth area in their trucks, not for those who drive day cabs.

All of these play a factor:
- the types of meals you like,
- the types of appliances you use,
- the space you have in your truck, and
- the layout of your truck's interior.

So customization is required.

Here are a couple of examples:

• If you are an owner-operator with a custom rig, you may have a lot more room to "spread out" than a driver in a company-issued mid-roof sized tractor.
• If you like microwave foods, perhaps all you may need to eat hot meals are an inverter, a microwave oven, a surface upon which to put the appliance, a plate or bowl, and some cutlery.

We're going to explain what we did via photos in trucks we have had over the years.

As you'll be able to see, all it takes is a little creativity and some available space in your truck's cab to make this work.

It really isn't that hard!

Small Kitchen in a Truck: Storage Room

This photograph shows numbered articles we packed in our truck at one time.

The lower bunk is up to show the storage room beneath.

In the photo, see where we have packed or stored::
1. shower bag;
2. small crock pot;
3. electric skillet;
4. inverter;
5. foods: canned, bagged and boxed;
6. foodstuffs on top of a microwave oven;
7. gallons of water;
8. portable toilet; and
9. space for an ice chest.

In the cabinet above the microwave oven storage area, we stored our dishes and utensils. In the cabinet above that, we stored more non-perishable foodstuffs.

Storing Supplies: What Didn't Work and What Did

In this photo, Mike is inserting a knife in between other eating and cooking utensils that were being stored (at the time) in a glass canning jar.

After a while, with the movement of the truck, the metal utensils would start to "clink" inside the jar -- either against the glass or against other metal utensils.

This didn't bother Mike too much, but it really irritated Vicki.

To fix that problem, we moved most of our small eating and cooking utensils into a large flip top plastic storage box.

This storage solution worked out much better.

Because the oversized pancake turner and oversized ladle wouldn't fit in the storage box, we ended up hanging them on a vinyl covered hanger that was in turn hung from the lip of the upper bunk along the back wall of the sleeper berth.

In fact, we ended up hanging a goodly number of things in this manner.

Small Kitchen in a Truck: Setting Up a Place to Cook

During the days that Mike drove a Freightliner Columbia -- which had an open space under the cabinet behind the driver's seat -- that's where we would store our ice chest.

When we were ready to fetch ice -- or use the ice chest as a makeshift counter top -- Mike would pull it out from under the cabinet.

Notice the different hinges where we had to replace one.

In this photo, Mike is setting up a classic small kitchen makeshift countertop in his truck on top of the ice chest.

See the oversized pancake turner in the foreground.

Mike devised an easy way to take care of garbage and trash in the truck: he looped one opening of a plastic grocery bag on the arm of the passenger seat.

Once we had sufficient items in a refuse bag, we would tie it up, throw it out and replace it.

Alternatively, we have used a large cutting board on top of the lower bunk as a cooking surface, such as when we were preparing macaroni and cheese.

The cutting board used here is similar to the one shown here from Amazon.com, with which we have an affiliate relationship.

Small Kitchen in a Truck: Cleaning Up in a "Small Sink"

Here, Vicki is washing our electric skillet with soapy water in our makeshift small sink in our created small kitchen.

All we used was a dab of Dawn dishwashing liquid (the blue variety) and water that we had obtained from a water vending machine.

Yes, Mike got into the dish cleaning, too.

Here, he's wiping the edge of a plate that we've just eaten off.

Cleaning up after making "messy" meals like
- gravy or
- beef stroganoff or
- skillet-prepared cheese sauce for macaroni and cheese
can still be done pretty easily this way.

After washing, we would rinse and dry the dishes.

When we were done washing dishes, we dumped the water into our portable toilet.

In this photo, the unit had been placed temporarily on the driver's seat.

If our meal preparation called for using our hot pot, we would use that as the small sink in our small kitchen.

The neat thing about using these appliances to clean in was that we could warm up the cleaning water.

Some truckers with fancier trucks may have built-in sinks, plumbing and water heaters.

In photos above, we may have used a baby wipe as a dishcloth.

But there were times when we used regular cloth dishcloths.

To dry out wet dishcloths and damp dish towels, we hung them on a plastic hanger that we would then hang in the sleeper berth.

We dried them out to keep them from
- molding,
- mildewing or
- creating problems in the laundry bag until we were ready to wash and dry clothes in a laundromat.

As you can see, we had to improvise a good bit in order to make our small kitchen and small sink work in our trucks.

Please understand that we developed this system over the years.

It did not happen all at once or from the very beginning of our time in trucking.

Customize a system that works for you.

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Money saving tip: We recommend using regular household appliances connected to an inverter rather than using 12-volt products.

We have found that 12-volt products are built with short lifespans (or planned obsolescence).

Not only that, but if you ever get out of your truck -- such as staying in a hotel room or coming off the road altogether -- you won't be able to use 12-volt products in AC-powered outlets.

You can save a lot of money by making meals in your truck as opposed to eating out in restaurants.

Even if you decide to eat things that are commercially canned, frozen, or freeze dried, you can still usually eat less expensively than buying restaurant food.

In some cases, you may be able to wash your dishes at a company terminal where you have access not only to hot water but a larger sink and drainage.

Check your facility if in doubt.

You can rewarm many meals or entrees pre-made by your home support team in as little as a crock pot plugged into an cigarette lighter style inverter.

If your company forbids the use of an inverter, folks there may need to be informed about the cost of eating meals out.

Not only that, but chances are good that there is a "break room" for inside employees where they have a microwave oven for heating up meals.

Tell your trucking company how you want to be able to set up a small kitchen in your truck.

Not only will you be able to save money, but you provide an aspect of security for your rig and your load by staying in your truck.

It can be a win-win situation for both of you.

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Return from Make a Small Kitchen and Small Sink in a Truck Without Plumbing to our Meal Preparation page or our Truck Drivers Money Saving Tips home page.

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Recommended Trucker Accessories

• Portable Toilet
  
  
• Cold Food Storage Device
  
  
• Appliances to Cook in Your Truck
  
  
• Powering Your Appliances
  
  
• Navigation Tools
  
  
• Communication Tools

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