Vacation Rental Kitchen Essentials

Are you headed on a summer vacation to a rental house with family or friends in the near future?  Do you already have your plan for food?  We’ve done several iterations of this type of vacation with various levels of planned cooking.  Over the course of those vacations, we’ve picked up a lot of lessons learned, particularly regarding what cooking devices and utensils we no longer want to take a chance won’t be available in the rental house.  Below, I’ll give you a peek into some of the Vacation Rental Kitchen Essentials that we now find ways to take along even when we’re flying to our destination.   At first glance, some of these sound a bit over the top, but I promise being prepared can save some serious annoyances when you just want to relax and enjoy your vacation.

When renting a house with family or friends, the plan for food that we usually encounter involves some amount of shared meals, whether all or a sub-set.  Sometimes a set number of meals get divided up across families or couples or individuals, depending on the people mix.  Some meals are everyone for themselves.  When we have an “assigned” meal or meals, we plan our menu in advance and figure out what we’ll need for cooking devices and utensils.  We’ve been annoyed on more than one occasion when something that you would assume is available in a rental house either is not there or is a significantly substandard version of it.  As a result, we no longer make many assumptions about what we’ll find at the rental house.  Instead, we hedge our bets and bring what we need with us.

While some of the devices and utensils we need may change depending on what we are cooking, others have made it to our “essentials” list.  On a recent trip to a rental house for a Family Vacation to the Outer Banks that involved flying rather than driving, we basically dedicated a checked luggage suitcase to kitchen supplies.  When we drive (and therefore have some more space to work with), I’m more likely to add some of the larger items like a crockpot and vacuum sealer as well.  

Lori’s List of Kitchen “Essentials” for a Vacation Rental

I’ve divided this list of vacation rental house kitchen essentials into what I’ll call “common items” and “less common items”.  Within those lists, I’ve also flagged items that typically only come along if we’re driving rather than flying.  

* – Denotes an item I usually only pack if we are driving instead of flying.

Common Items I Take Along

• Chef’s Knives
  • 1 (8-inch) for each of us plus 1 (6-inch) one
  • If flying, just make sure you pack these in your checked bag.  
• Flexible Cutting Boards
• Heat Resistant Silicone Spatulas and Rubber Scrapers
• Microplane (fine grater)
• Plunger-style Measuring Cup
• Plunger-style Measuring Spoon
• Measuring Spoons (the regular kind)
• Kitchen Shears
• Silicone Pot Holders that double as Trivets
• Aprons
• Large Rimmed Baking Sheets (also referred to as half sheet pans)
  • These are typically bigger than your normal cookie sheet. 
  • We’ve learned from past experiences that we should not assume these will be in a rental house, so we pack our own to take along.  
• Wire Rack Inserts for the Large Rimmed Baking Sheets
  • Although you can get away without them, there are a lot of things (like bacon) that just cook better when they are raised out of their liquid.  
• * Coffee & Coffee Filters
• * Heavy Duty Aluminum Foil
  • I only take it if I’m not going to be able to easily buy it when I get there.  
• * Plastic Wrap
  • Again, only if I’m not going to be able to buy it when I get there.
• * 1 Gallon Zip Top Bags
  • Only if I’m not going to be able to easily buy it when I get there.  
• Hand Mixer
  • I’d rather have my stand mixer, but that’s heavier than even I am willing to pack.

Less Common Items I Take Along

• Sous Vide Cooker
  • This allows you to cook larger quantities of meat to the correct temperature without having to babysit it during your quality vacation time.  
  • If you don’t have one, you can certainly use alternative cooking methods depending on the recipe.  We just like the ease of this method.  
  • It can fit in checked luggage.  
• 2 Gallon Zip Top Bags
  • I can’t find these everywhere, so I prefer to just take them with me.  
• * Large Pot, Cooler, or Container to use with the Sous Vide Cooker
  • At home we have both an 18 quart sous vide tub with lid and a converted cooler with lid for larger quantities of meat.  Given luggage constraints, we didn’t take either of those on the plane with us, but instead used a large stock pot that was available in the rental house.  We just made a heavy duty aluminum foil “lid” for it to hold the heat in and prevent too much evaporation.  
• * Crockpot or Instant Pot
  • Sometimes the Sous Vide Cooker makes this unnecessary.
  • There have been times I’ve taken more than one.
• * Vacuum Sealer
  • We bring this along if we’re driving and bringing the Sous Vide Cooker.