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7 Practical RV Food Storage Tips That You Can Use Today

This post was updated on March 15th, 2024

Camping and traveling in a small RV takes practice, especially when learning how to store food in a tiny house on wheels.

Several manufacturers make kitchen organizers for RV food storage, but often you’ll need to drill holes into cabinetry and walls to keep them in one place while you travel.

Consider these seven practical food storage tips that maximize use of cabinets, kitchen drawers, and other odd-shaped storage areas in your RV.

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food storage in RVs
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1. Avoid round storage containers.

In the average RV, every inch of storage space counts—and round containers don’t stack neatly.

Stock the RV kitchen with square or rectangular plastic food storage containers, which fit nicely into RV pantries alongside or on top of one another.

By buying a kit of rectangular stackable containers, you won’t waste valuable shelf space that’s lost in between rounded edges.

2. Put cans in plastic storage bins or Cupboard Corrals.

Cupboard Corral
Cupboard Corral

Since we usually can’t avoid buying cans for essentials, you can keep these awkward containers neatly stored by placing them inside shoebox-sized clear plastic bins.

A great tool for storing cans is the Cupboard Corral, a customizable shelf organizer system for all sizes and shapes of food and beverage containers.

3. Use the inside of cabinet doors.

Sprice rack on cabinet door
SpiceStor

Things often get messy inside cabinets. Use double-sided mounting tape to install a simple hook or clamp.

Place often-used items, such as sugar packs, tea bags or coffee, inside a small cargo net that’s hung on the hook or clamp.

You could also install a spice rank organizer to free up valuable shelf space. Paper towel holders are also quite useful.

4. Make friends with resealable food bags.

Gallon Ziplock bag
JamieS93

Keep a steady supply of quality reclosable food storage bags to condense half-empty food containers like cereal boxes and coffee cans.

Be sure to label and date everything, and then store your bags in clear bins.

5. Buy less packaging.

Excessive packaging
ForceChange
bananas packaging by Scrap This Pack is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Buy pantry items in bulk at the grocery store. Dry goods such as oats, cereal, flours, and spices are easily found in bulk food sections and are often cheaper than name brand, prepackaged items.

Store them in RV-friendly container packaging and you’ll save lots of kitchen space.

6. Condense beverage containers.

Camelbak
Camelbak

Take half-full containers of liquid beverages and pour them into smaller high quality, reusable, non-toxic containers such as those made by Klean Kanteen and Camelbak.

This is an especially good way to avoid carrying heavy liquor bottles around.

Remember to store beverages upright to avoid leaks.

7. Get creative with storage.

RV food storage tips
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Kitchen items don’t necessarily have to be kept inside the pantry.

Look for unused spaces in your RV to safely store odd-sized and fragile items, such as potato chips, tall cereal boxes, and loaves of bread.

Your RV’s storage compartments underneath the bed, in the back of a closet, and even inside of an unused microwave can keep your kitchen items safe from damage.

Living in a small space doesn’t come easy for most people, but if you practice tiny house storage tips, you’ll enjoy unforgettable excursions at some of the best camping destinations in North America.





7 thoughts on “7 Practical RV Food Storage Tips That You Can Use Today”

  1. We feed our cats treats that come in a medium sized square container, Chris washes them out and fills them with our dry staples. Flour, sugar, rices, beans, teas, coffees, pastas, sauces and gravy mixes, etc. We keep them in the large drawers under the microwave in our Airstream. We keep two 3 tier basket hanging baskets up for fresh vegetables, and we buy large cuts of meat at costco which Chris cuts into serving sizes pieces, and stores in freezer bags. And of course Airstream already has the best spiceracks built in above the stove. Just remember not to keep onions next to your potatoes.

  2. I purchased a dozen pairs of footies (those locut sox) on sale at a dollar store. They have never been on my feet though. I do not like drinking out of plastic so I have lots of glass goblets, wine glasses and jars (for storage). Before the sox, breakage was a problem. Now each item rides inside a sock. No noise and no more cracked glass. I can even nest one glass inside another.

  3. Good point about the bullion cubes, we never buy the boxed or canned ones. And yes, we avoid cans as much as possible too!

  4. No. 1 tip is so true!! Take cereal and other dried goods out of the boxes since they’re already enclosed in plastic bags. Stack lying flat and you’ll save a little bit of space. I avoid taking canned veggies and fruit since they’re packed in water which adds extra weight. Haven’t tried freezed dried yet so I go with frozen or fresh. Also bullion cubes instead of canned broth.

  5. to save weight and space we use freeze dried fruit and vegetables.. it leaves us more room for meat in freezer. also For those that like Ice cream but no freezer space… We found pudding frozen as popsicles works just, great, easy to make, easy to carry, just the powdered mix we like Vanilla with the freeze dried fruit (crushed/ powdered) mixed in and frozen is a great sub for Ice cream

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