what to cook on a winter trip
a really simple vacation house meal plan: the winter edition
After sending a second installment of our vacation house meal plan last summer, we got many requests for a winter vacation meal plan — a warming line up of crowd-pleasing meals to feed a crew while on a trip somewhere cold and/or snowy. Ask and you shall receive!
The following meal plan follows the same format as our really simple meal plans, but has a few other considerations in mind:
The recipes have very streamlined spices and pantry ingredients so that you won’t have to buy a whole spice cabinet and pantry worth of ingredients at a rental.
They require minimal chopping, because rental house knives are notoriously dull.
A few can be completely cooked ahead of time and brought with you in a cooler. We’ve noted recipes that are make-ahead friendly — read the notes in the individual posts for specific cook-ahead and reheating tips.
We’ve also made suggestions for streamlining ingredients and noted places you can (actually, SHOULD — take the shortcut!) use a store-bought swap to save time and effort.
We hope you’ll use this meal plan, whether you have winter travels in your future or are just looking for a week of easy, crowd-pleasing meals that require minimal chopping and can be cooked ahead!
We’ve made a shopping list for the five dinner recipes that’s sorted by aisle and color-coded by recipe. If you need to tweak the grocery list in any way — like if you plan to cook these lunches and want to add those ingredients — copy and paste our list into a new Google doc and edit away! A reminder that each recipe linked below has a full notes and substitutions list in its post — use those as needed to modify for dietary restrictions, etc.
link to grocery list
BREAKFAST: Christmas strata
If you cook only one big breakfast while you’re on the trip, let it be this! It makes a huge casserole that you can eat off all week. You could also prep (or cook) it before you go. FYI, you need one egg for the meatballs — you could use the rest of them for this! It’ll be fine that you’re short an egg.
LUNCHES:
Every group has a different approach to lunches on vacation. Many people eat out or on the go. Other groups cook most lunches at home, especially if there are napping babies involved. We have three ideas that would be perfect for a winter trip (or any winter weekend!), should you need them. Again, these ingredients aren’t incorporated in the grocery list (same for the breakfast suggestion above) since everyone is likely to have a different plan.
Hawaiian roll sliders. We’re linking to a recipe for Thanksgiving-leftover sliders so that you’ll have specific instructions to follow, but the fillings are 100% adaptable. Swap the cranberry sauce out for any jam (a berry or fig jam would be delicious) and the shredded turkey out for shredded rotisserie chicken or slices of deli ham or turkey. Skip the everything-but-the-bagel seasoning if you want to minimize the grocery list.
Creamy white turkey chili. This is a great cook-ahead recipe! If you are spearheading meals, assign someone the task of cooking this to bring with them to the rental. If they do, tell them to bring the leftover cream cheese because you’ll use it to cook the Tuscan spaghetti squash dinner. Or better yet, have them make that ahead of time, too (the recipes have lots of ingredient overlap). Reheat the soup, cook some fresh cornbread using a box mix, and put out chili fixings!
Autumn chop. Don’t bother making the homemade dressing, buy a great store-bought balsamic vinaigrette to save yourself the trouble. If you happen to have syrup in the rental house (maybe you’re doing a pancake breakfast one day), add a splash of it to your store-bought balsamic to give it the maple-balsamic spin.
DINNER #1: creamy tuscan turkey spaghetti squash
This is a great make-ahead meal. If someone is making the turkey chili ahead of time, have them make this dinner, too, because there’s ingredient overlap (cream cheese, dried oregano or Italian seasoning, garlic powder, etc.). You can streamline the leafy green between those two meals, too — use either spinach or kale for both.
DINNER #2: black bean flautas
These are very make ahead-able.
They’re also easy to double if needed.
Buy pre-shredded lettuce to save yourself the chopping. You can also look for pickled red onions at the store, prep homemade pickled onions ahead of time, or skip ‘em so you don’t have to buy a bottle of vinegar at the rental.
DINNER #3: 30-minute chicken parm meatballs
This one is also make ahead-able.
DINNER #4: wontons and veggies in curry broth
Option to skip the fish sauce to minimize your groceries. Use extra soy sauce instead like the substitutions list suggests.
DINNER #5: one-pan caramelized onion pasta + a bagged salad
Use lemon juice instead of vinegar.
Another meal you can totally cook ahead of time and reheat just before dinner, if you’d like!
Add a bagged salad to the meal — Caesar would be great.
Are any other What to Cook recipes go-tos for your winter trips? We’d love to hear which ones!
the wtc vacation house meal plan v.2
We go to California from the east coast every January for a week and one of our go to meals is the Sheet Pan Spring Salmon. I find it super easy with rental house supplies and it is an easy win for our young kids. It’s also easy to scale for the addition of grandparents. Sometimes I sub out the asparagus to green beans or broccoli based on wha is available.
This has been the perfect menu for our snowed-in week!