Yes. The video demonstrates cooking in February using reflectors and angled positioning to capture low winter sun. Jim cooked a full Thanksgiving meal in late November with no propane. As long as there is any sunshine, even partial, the ovens function. Insulated models can withstand brief clouds without losing heat.
At a glance
Length
20 min
Channel
CheapRVliving
Video from
Oct 2018
Rating
⭐⭐ Great video · 2/2
Best for
RV and van dwellers interested in reducing propane costs
What this video answers
Do solar ovens really work in winter?
Will my food taste burnt or dry?
What can't you cook in a solar oven?
Which solar oven is best for a van versus an RV?
How much do solar ovens cost?
Reads the guide aloud in your browser — free, no account.
What Solar Ovens Offer Van and RV Cooks
This video from CheapRVliving presents a detailed comparison of four solar ovens, examined by the channel host and Jim, an experienced solar oven cook who regularly prepares meals for groups of up to 40 people. The focus is on practical, real-world use in mobile living—how these ovens function in an RV or trailer setup, their cooking capabilities, and whether they're worth the space and investment for nomads. The demonstration takes place in February in a desert setting, deliberately choosing the worst solar conditions of the year to show that winter cooking is genuinely viable.
This experience suits RV travelers and van dwellers looking to reduce propane consumption, avoid heating up their living space in summer, and experiment with a completely free cooking method. It's particularly relevant for those who spend extended time in sunny climates or who enjoy cooking as a primary activity, and for anyone curious about whether solar cooking can actually replace conventional ovens for everyday use.
Key Moments
Key Moments from the Solar Oven Comparison
Jim demonstrates four different solar ovens and explains why he owns all of them rather than just one
The Salvador Sport Oven is shown in both summer and winter positions, with reflectors that adjust for low winter sun
A full Thanksgiving meal cooked entirely with solar energy in late November—turkey, ham, rolls, cornbread, and yams—with zero propane cost
Comparison of how moisture retention in solar ovens prevents burning and improves flavor compared to conventional ovens
The American Sun Oven is demonstrated showing how its deeper box allows larger pots for soups and stews, but its narrower design limits what can fit inside
Explanation of why baked goods like cakes, cookies, and bread come out moister and softer in solar ovens than traditional cooking
What to Know Before Using Solar Ovens in Your RV
Solar ovens work year-round, including winter and cloudy conditions—the video was filmed in February to prove this point
You cannot burn food in a solar oven because moisture is sealed inside; overcooked food won't develop burnt flavors or carcinogens
These ovens cook everything except deep frying; baked goods emerge moister than conventional ovens, and caramelization still occurs
Two main styles exist: box ovens with reflectors (larger, higher heat, better for trailers) and compact designs (flatter, better for vans with less storage)
The Salvador Sport Oven costs around $258 with reflectors and accessories included; the American Sun Oven requires reflectors and offers different trade-offs in size and temperature
Reflectors enhance winter and low-sun cooking but can be removed or angled away in summer to prevent overheating and lid damage (the Sport Oven has a plastic lid with a 300-degree limit)
Cooking times are longer than conventional ovens, particularly with higher-temperature models
Multiple solar ovens complement each other rather than compete—no single model excels at everything, so serious cooks may carry more than one
Frequently Asked Questions About RV Solar Cooking
Do solar ovens really work in winter?
Yes. The video demonstrates cooking in February using reflectors and angled positioning to capture low winter sun. Jim cooked a full Thanksgiving meal in late November with no propane. As long as there is any sunshine, even partial, the ovens function. Insulated models can withstand brief clouds without losing heat.
Will my food taste burnt or dry?
No. Solar ovens seal in moisture, making burning impossible—you cannot develop a burnt flavor even if you overcook something. Food tastes better because moisture and flavors are retained. Baked goods come out notably moister than conventional ovens; a regular cake mix produces results similar to a pudding cake.
What can't you cook in a solar oven?
Deep frying is not possible because these ovens don't reach oil temperatures and are sealed designs. Everything else—bread, cookies, pies, cakes, roasted meats, ribs, stews, soups, whole turkeys, and eggs—is fair game. The only limitation is cooking method, not ingredients.
Which solar oven is best for a van versus an RV?
Compact, flatter solar ovens suit vans because they store more easily. Larger box ovens with reflectors are better for RVs and trailers where space is more available. The Salvador Sport Oven works well for smaller setups; the American Sun Oven suits larger cooking operations but is bulkier. Each has different strengths—one doesn't cook as early in the morning but reaches higher temperatures, while the other offers earlier cooking windows but a lower maximum heat.
How much do solar ovens cost?
The Salvador Sport Oven (around $258 with reflectors and pans) is an entry point; the American Sun Oven is comparable in price. The video doesn't detail other models' costs, but both discussed units are available on Amazon through the channel's store.
A sealed, insulated box that uses the sun's heat to cook food without fuel or electricity.
Reflectors
Angled metal panels attached to a solar oven that bounce additional sunlight into the cooking chamber, boosting heat output in winter or low-sun conditions.
Propane
The flammable gas commonly used in RV stoves and ovens that solar cooking eliminates entirely.
Moisture retention
The sealed nature of solar ovens that prevents water from escaping, which keeps food tender and prevents burning.
Caramelizing
The browning of food surfaces from heat that produces flavor; solar ovens achieve this without the burnt taste of conventional ovens.
This video is genuinely useful because it moves past theory into lived experience. Jim doesn't just explain how solar ovens work; he shows the exact trade-offs between two serious models he actually uses daily, and he proves winter cooking works by filming in the worst season. For RV and van travelers serious about reducing propane and gaining cooking flexibility, this comparison is honest and practical rather than promotional.
What stands out is the Thanksgiving example—a full meal for a group cooked entirely free in late November. That single moment demonstrates that solar cooking isn't a gimmick for summer weekends; it's a viable long-term strategy. The emphasis on taste and moisture retention also matters; the food quality claim isn't just marketing.
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I love Solar Ovens!!! Free cooking from the sun for the rest of your life--what's not to love. The best ones here can cook year-around and cook anything an oven can cook. Best of all, it's impossible to burn your food and it tastes better!!
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Video transcript for “I Bought a Solar Oven on Amazon for Van Life Cooking” Accessibility
A full written transcript of this video, provided for accessibility. Select any timestamp to jump the video to that moment.
hi everyone welcome back to my next video today we're going to look at something a little unusual as you can see here in front of us uh jim and i are going to talk about solar ovens mainly gem because jim is an expert on solar ovens i have used this sun oven myself extensively and so i'm a big fan of sun
ovens and solar ovens and so we're just going to compare which is kind of unusual so jim you got a lot of solar ovens here these are all yours yes they are and uh wow that's a lot of solar ovens i do a lot of cooking for up to 40 people at a time so you like to cook it's a pleasure for
you i love to cook and feeding people a group is equally a pleasure yes it is i love to watch people eat and uh so why are you using solar ovens does your uh you're in this nice uh travel trailer does your travel trailer have an oven inside oh yeah my travel trailer has an oven but the oven
burns a huge amount of propane and [Music] if i'm out here and it's nice and sunny a solar oven not only saves me propane but it cooks differently it doesn't dry things out it uh it's a more moderate heat and between the various solar cookers i i can cook anything except deep fry and fry
right so you you prefer that i i know i because i've used the so global so much all american now i i like you i prefer the taste i think it tastes better food tastes better out of a solar oven oh it definitely tastes better and of course it's free i mean the solar is free you're not paying for the propane
yep uh and here in the winter it's not too we're in it's february let me tell you that that this is all in february so a lot of questions people say are will these work in the winter i can set these these two right here i can set directly in the snow and cook and cook in snow yep oh my god
as long as there's sun as long as there's sun and even partially cloudy uh these two are insulated so if a cloud goes by for 15 minutes everything's fine so uh the big thing is you can use these year round now uh in the winter you don't mind turning if you if you didn't have a solar oven
you wouldn't mind cooking inside because you like the heat inside well yeah it replaces the furnace it uh you know make some cookies inside its wonderful smell and but still i i'd rather i'd rather cook outside if i can but it's not always winter either that's right uh so when it's summer and 90 80 90 100 degrees
then you don't like cooking inside so much i don't like cooking inside the dog not on the stove not in the stove i don't like cooking inside at all so uh here in the winter it's uh it's not such a big deal but in the summer being able to get this oven outside is a huge deal that's that's wonderful yes it uh
again it saves propane it keeps the heat out of the house it keeps the smells out of the house and whereas cooking smell smells are wonderful they do tend to linger a long time yes so you think that the food tastes better uh are there any advantages to the actual cooking itself you you cannot
burn something in a sun oven because the sun ovens are in this in in the ovens they're sealed no moisture escapes you cannot burn something in these two they're they're sealed in a different way but again you since no moisture re leaves you can't burn it um you can overcook it you you can cook a
chicken until you can hit it with the potato masher but um you cannot burn it that is a big plus so you're not going to get that burn flavor even if you do overcook it right and you're not going to get the carcinogens and and things like that you're not going to ruin your food uh by burning it and i think that's why
it tastes better is because it's moisture oh yeah it holds those flavors inside it rather than escaping and they do get hot enough to do some caramelizing so you get that flavor just not the burnt flavor well a lot of people are then going to wonder uh if if it stays moisture can i
make bread or bake cake some brownies and cookies it makes wonderful bread cookies pies cakes in fact uh cakes come out like uh pudding cakes a regular cake mix comes out moist and soft just like it were a pudding cake wow so it uh it just does everything well as far as you're concerned everything but
frying deep fried frying deep fry well and that's a specialized thing most of us aren't doing well yeah and it's kind of messy too yeah and i and of course we we both agree i think they taste better and i think if you've ever tried it you would agree yourself so um why four of them why do you have four
solar ovens they complement each other each one does something different something the best differently but none of them are the best all together at everything and everything so they have strengths and weaknesses that offset that's right and i i having a trailer and an suv i have room
to carry all of these with and you know come thanksgiving this one cooked a turkey this one cooked a ham i i made uh four dozen rolls four batches of cornbread four quarts of yams and no problems wow wow i mean that's wow that's all i could
say to that that's a lot of cooking and you didn't pay a penny for any of it i didn't pay a penny for propane on any of it right that's just amazing and that was thanksgiving was november late november that's right so yeah again it was winter yep we were getting close to the what is it the winter equinox
solstice okay and uh so that that was the absolute worst sun we could possibly have right right now it does help that it was the desert and so you had pretty consistent uh blue skies yep that does help but most of us snowbirds are down here in the winter anyway so there you have it
that's just an introduction to these four now we'll look at each one individually and um and look at their strengths and weaknesses i know most of you can't carry for uh i know i couldn't in fact i used to own this global sun oven and when i had my cargo trailer and when i sold the cargo trailer i didn't have
room for it so i gave it to jim because i really wanted him to have a very very fair test and i know how much you love sun oven solar ovens and i gave mine the one that i had that was getting a little beat up to somebody else to use so so things get passed around in the tribe that's the way tribes work
um so we'll now we're going to look at each one individually and uh and see what we think of each one pluses and minuses all right let's do that okay so we're going to begin our comparisons we're going to do like with like these are two very different uh groups we have four sun ovens and two
of them are very different these as you can see have big reflectors uh going into a box that is insulated to hold the heat and they're black the others aren't like that they're different and so the others are good if you want a full down flat oven which you needed if you're a van or
a car you'd have to have that but these won't be good for a car or even a van because they're really so big uh but in an rv or a trailer of some kind they would be just fine so jim uh you've been both using both of these for a very long time give us some of the uh introduce them tell us what they are and
uh give us some of their strengths and weaknesses okay uh on your side is what is now called the salvador sport oven i have owned this one since january of 2014. uh when it's sunny out and when i have time i i use it daily it uh it gets up to 300 degrees which is its limit since the lid is made out of
plastic and if it really gets too hot it'll warp that lid so that's that's one of its limitations is is that the lid is plastic um it's designed actually not to not use the reflectors you use those in the winter and in in low sun to enhance the ability to pick up heat it comes with two three quart pans
and a thermometer and a what do they call it a waffet that you use for sterilizing or pasteurizing water the pan sit by side by side if you're cooking more than one on more than one meal or more than one dish especially with the reflectors it heats up pretty fast now the inside of both of
these are metal and it's that black metal that transm that creates the heat it absorbs the light and produces heat because of it um this one in the wintertime when the sun is really low can you flip that around the way i showed you the other day oh this is its winter
position so you can see that it at an angle it's setting at a much lower angle so that when the sun is very low in the morning it aims it in when the sun is low in the winter i mean in november and december the sun never gets high so between the reflectors and the ability to to set it on
this position it allows me to to cook very early in the morning and in very low sunlight in the summertime i i don't need those reflectors in fact right now the reflectors have it too hot and i should be taking them off or pointing it away from the sun to keep from damaging the lid
almost i i cook breads cookies my favorite thing is ribs stews soups uh it it it it'll cook anything but fry uh i even roast eggs in these things and they come out like hard-boiled eggs and so how much does this one cost uh the last time i checked it was 258 including the reflectors and the pans
and the thermometer and the whop it i think you can get if you don't buy the reflectors you can get it slightly less and it actually i've had it the longest i i think it's my favorite to use um but i don't i i don't think it's the best of i don't think any of them are the best stuff
okay and so this one this is now called the american sun oven it does require the reflectors it is a much deeper box but it is very narrow so in order to cook two two meals or two dishes in this you stack them on top of each other when it collapses whereas that when the the
reflectors go inside this one the reflectors fold down on top of it as my lovely assistant bob will demonstrate so this is how this stores
uh neither one of them are small to store even with the fins put away it's it's still pretty big with the fins folded down it's still pretty big this one gets considerably hotter or is allowed to get considerably hotter than the sport oven its limitations are there's a leg back here
that you use to adjust its you use to adjust its its angle towards the sun it can only lift it so far inside there's a tray that swings back and forth and allows it to become level keep the food level it can only lean so far forward
before the tray won't keep the food level any longer so i can't use this nearly as early in the morning as i can use the other one it does however get considerably hotter and that's a plus it also allows me to use a much deeper pot for soups and stews and things like that one
limitation is is the shape i i cooked a whole turkey in the sport oven for thanksgiving i i couldn't fit the roaster inside of this to cook a turkey it would get hot enough easily it would get hot enough but it couldn't handle the pot so again they they complement each other they're not
one's not better than the other in my instance they complement each other um if if you had to pick one of the two you would have to decide if you wanted the higher temperatures and the deeper pots or the side by side cooking and the ability to cook in lower sun there there there's a bunch of differences between
the two and um you'd have to it's not as easy to to say one's better than the other generally i like to pull all of them out and and cook and and cook for a lot of people and cook large meals and um i think this is my favorite one to cook ribs in in a standing four quart pot because i just roll them into a roll
drop them in the pot put a little seasoning on them drop them in there and you've had my ribs they're great yeah and i can do them in that too it's just not the same boy you want to try something wonderful sweet potatoes half a dozen chicken thighs and a couple of sweet potatoes some carrots
man that that's a meal that's wonderful so when it comes to baking would one have the advantage with the higher temperature of the of the all-american oh only in in the the time i mean that one takes longer to bake than this one does um but it's just a time factor the bread comes out super
you know nice and moist it has a great crust um there's nothing like dropping in a loaf of bread or or pull apart rolls and having fresh bread on a daily basis i i like this one actually for doing cakes because i can set the cake side by side and they both come out the same time and
they're cooked exactly the same not that this one won't do it but if you put one one cake here and another cake up here this cake is going to be done and this cake isn't right so it's just a trade-off and of course i've i've had both versions for over four years now and i've had plenty of time to
to cook a lot of different things and learn a lot of recipes and um yeah i'd rather stick a rack of ribs in this and then i'd rather do cakes and breads than that this one's easier to open you you you move these two things here you lift up the glass very easy to open this one's got little
clips that i have to remove um this one's easier to adjust during the summer uh this one i i have to tip completely over or stick rocks under it to to make it adjust and then i have to adjust for the leveling of the the pot inside um for for you if you're only going to buy one you you have to think of what each one
does and and what it does for you just like everything else we own right well one of the factors is uh price and this one's quite a bit more yes it is uh this one i i don't have it right off the top of my head but it i believe it comes the full kit comes with several three quart pots
uh racks um thermometer whop it and uh it's over three hundred dollars yeah this one's under three hundred dollars with two pots the thermometer and and the whoppet um so if price is a consideration and you really want an oven versus a reflective cooker that that might be something to think
about because really i can cook everything in this that i can in that and vice versa it's just that i have to do it differently in each right just pluses and minuses i think the big factor would be uh do you want the higher heat or the little easier form factor uh the price is higher with that one and
the ability to cook with lower sun right one thing i can tell you about the sport oven whether the reflectors are on it or not i i don't care if it's windy i've seen that blow completely across the site it never tipped over i i have issues with this one when it gets really windy these
will will flop back in and out i've had problems with the tipping over i know the latest version the foot that's in the back has stakes that can go into the ground it does make it kind of a hassle to adjust it throughout the day to have to remove the stakes turn it on the stakes back in so
in high wind areas this the the sport oven definitely holds the advantage which of course is the winner in the winter is the desert is very high wind and the wind is a significant issue with the all-american you it does not like wind right yeah my joke is what is your family if all you have is an
all-american and it's windy they're hungry they're hungry yes basically too much wind and it's not working okay so uh we're not making the choice for you we're laying out the pluses and the minuses and you'll have to make uh make your own decision now maybe you don't have this kind of money to spend
you don't have this kind of room for either one of these fortunately there is another option and we're gonna take a look at those next yep they're lighter they're uh easier to store they fold up smaller and they cost less money cost a whole lot less so there are options if if you
if one of these won't work for you we're going to show you something that will well jim thank you so much for uh tell us sharing us with sharing your experience with these ovens i really appreciate it i think people are really being helped by all your contributing well thank you i'm glad to do it so i
hope you got something out of this uh stay tuned for the next video we'll do it explaining the reflective cookers they're a little different and have a lot of their own advantages and disadvantages and we'll learn all about them during that video so if you got anything at us out of this like us on
youtube subscribe to the channel and we'll talk to you later you
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