Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Picture this: a rogue comet enters the Earth’s atmosphere, interfering with all electrical waves and causing internet, heating, light, and worst of all, electric cooking to become obsolete. Equally plausible, a tree falls down during a winter storm taking your power lines with it.
Either way, while your friends in the ‘burbs are in a panic trying to figure out how to cook the last bit of raw chicken in their fridge without electricity, you’re cool as a cucumber. You have been prepping for this moment for years. You’ve got charcoal grills, propane stoves, and solar-powered ovens–all ready to cook up a storm.
No matter what happens in this big bad world, you will be able to keep your belly full and your mind sharp. Using materials from nature and inventory that can be stocked up for years at a time, you’ll always have fuel to heat and cook your food.
You can live off the land with whatever meat you can catch and whichever veggies you can grow as long as you learn how to cook without electricity. Here are seven ways to do it.
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1. Backyard Bonfire
What You’ll Need:
- Kindling
- Logs
- Lighter
- Metal Rack or Metal Skewers
Before you get ahead of yourself, realize that building the perfect bonfire takes practice and skill. To start with, you are going to need a mixture of wood: super dry kindling to catch the flame, and bulkier pieces of wood like logs to keep the fire going.
The only way to get this fire building art form down perfectly is to practice. With trial and error, you’ll learn exactly how to stack the wood in order to get that perfect flame with which to cook. No one gets it just right on the first try but overtime fire building becomes second nature.
You can cook veggies, meat, and of course s’mores on a backyard bonfire. Go hotdog style by untangling a metal coat hanger or purchase/make a metal grill rack to BBQ your food.
Pro Tip: If you are using the rack method, try wrapping your food in foil or banana leaves to prevent it from burning.
2. Gas Stove
What You’ll Need:
You might already be using one of these gas stoves in your home or on your camping trips. They are so convenient and so easy to use with the twist of a knob. You can choose between a larger gas stove with 4 burners that is fit to feed the whole family or a portable single-burner stove that you can take with you on the go.
Both run on a form of gas–whether that from a standard propane tank which you can order online and refill at a local gas station or the smaller butane canisters which you can easily stock up on now.
With a gas stove, you can cook exactly the same recipes as you would with an electric stove. Simmer soup, sizzle veggies or whip up a classic pasta dish–this method gets the job done.
3. BBQ Grill
What You’ll Need:
Using a BBQ Grill is ideal when the weather is misbehaving. The sturdy lid provides a shield from wind and rain, and it is propane-fueled which has no sensitivities to temperature or wetness outside. The propane tanks can be bought from your local hardware store or online.
Store a few in your shed or take the empties to a local gas station to fill up if the situation permits. To make sure that your BBQ lasts well into the future, show it some love with a BBQ cover to keep it from rusting and weathering outside.
These big BBQ grills have so much space that you can throw food for the whole neighborhood on there. Your veggies, some steaks, some foil-wrapped salmon–they all fit.
You don’t have to compromise on flavor or cooking precision with these bad boys either. When the world is going to hell around you, there is nothing like the nostalgia of a juicy steak to take your mind off things.
4. Charcoal Grill
What You’ll Need:
- Kettle Grill
- Charcoals
- Long Grill Lighter
- Grilling Utensils
Shout out to Weber for making the best Kettle Grill that has lasted my family and me almost ten years now. These grills have been made to stand the test of time and are super simple to use. To cook with a Kettle Grill, throw a moderate amount of charcoals in the base of the Kettle Grill, light with a lighter, cover, and wait for them to start smoking up a storm.
Kettle Grills always turn out some amazing meals. With every cook, you’re going to get this deep smokey flavor that just can’t be beat. You can get a crispy cook on your veggies and juicy sears on your meat with no trouble at all. Deer, rabbit, pork, steak–you name it and the charcoal grill will take it to another level.
Pro Tip: Best to cook with a beer in hand.
5. Rocket Stove
What You’ll Need:
- Rocket Stove
- Kindling/Wood
- Lighter
- Metal Cookware
The Rocket Stove is practically fool-proof, I tell ya. With its genius engineering and straightforward method, even a monkey could figure out how to cook with this thing. Named “Rocket Stove” due to the shape, which harnesses heat in the base of the stove, which is then pressurized to push all of the energy out the top just like a rocket.
The beauty here is that you need just a handful of wood to get this stove cooking–that’s all. As long as heat is being generated in the base, you’re good to go.
Using metal pots and pans just like any other stove will help you cook a nice meal. The only downside here is that there isn’t a precise way to control the heat like you could with a knob-controlled stove. Despite that, this is a reliable way to cook without electricity when you’re in a pinch.
You can also make your own Rocket Stove with homesteader materials like cinder blocks or steel beams–a quick YouTube search will show you how.
6. Volcano Grill
What You’ll Need:
- Volcano Grill
- Fuel of Choice (charcoal, propane, wood)
- Lighter
The Volcano Grill will never let you down! No matter how little resources you may have, you can find something to break or bend that will light a fire in this grill. The Volcano Grill has the ability to run on propane, charcoal, wood, old leaves, paper–anything that burns. The design of this grill helps cultivate heat and fire like a dream.
This multipurpose cooking contraption serves as a grill, a stove, an oven, and a wok–what more could you ask for? When you’re finished, the Volcano Grill compresses down to about 5 inches tall which makes it perfect to take on a trek or easy to store in your car or kitchen.
Pro Tip: When cooking with charcoal or wood, it’s best to cook outside to avoid breathing in fumes.
7. Solar Powered Oven
What You’ll Need:
- Solar Powered Oven
- Cookware
The Solar Powered Oven has been used around the world on different continents across different cultures for years and years–this version just happens to be the best. This Solar Powered Oven uses reflective and insulated walls to trap the sun’s rays and create an oven-like space. The temperature here can reach up to 285°F without the use of electricity, propane, or fire.
You can make omelets, soups, and grilled cheese sandwiches with no trouble at all. Meat like chicken or fish can also cook in here with a little bit of patience; it might take more time but it will get there in the end!
Now, do you believe me? There is life outside of the electric stove, people! As you get familiar with these homestead cooking methods, you’ll certainly discover that cooking outside of electric adds delicious flavor to your meal and might even help you save a few bucks on your monthly electricity bill.
You don’t have to wait for a wild storm to knock down your power lines or for aliens to zap our power grids in order to start cooking survival style. Practice makes perfect, so experiment, play, and discover a whole new way of life off the grid.
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How about “hay box” cooking?
Used in the military, and recommended during wartime to save on electricity, gas, and other fuels.
My grandmother born 1876 used a haybox for cooking on busy days Like harvest time on the farm. S a vs c uel to cook during the depression. Bring food to a boil then pack it up to keep warm all day.
A rocket stove is fantastic, but you forgot to put in something just as good; a wood gasifier stove. Just like a rocket stove, you use small wood and can be built with items from your kitchen and a local hardware store. Perhaps the easiest one is made from a Progresso soup can and a quart paint can. Please see the following for one of the easiest/most compact stoves you can make yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2jax0c6pY0 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTPTenSPqs4 For an even larger versions: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wood+gasifier
In case you are wondering, I have built four of these.
We heat with a rocjet stove with a gravity fed pellet hopper. I cook meals and keep a teakettle of hot water on the Heat collector. I can also heat with wood chips and sticks.
In summertime I cook on a homemade bbq. 1/2 barrel with 2 expanded metal layers to hold a stick fire and a top layer to cook on. Sand or dirt in the barrel to stop the fire from burning through.