Fran W

Solar Cooking

Easy Solar Cooker by Fran W

Did you know…

You can use the sun’s rays to bake, boil, and steam a variety of foods such as breads, rice, meat, and eggs!

Today’s activity:  Make an easy solar oven

This solar oven is very simple to make and use. If you would like to make one that is more sophisticated, there are instructions in the links below under “Learn More”.

To make a simple solar oven you will need:

  • A black recycled plastic container with a lid from a fast food restaurant or a black recycled soup container 
  • Aluminum foil or a small metal bowl
  • Clear wrap if your container doesn’t have its own lid
  • A rubber band
  • A towel, flat pan, or a plastic tub
  • Pot holder
  • Something to cook from the list below

What to do:
 
Cover the inside of your container with aluminum foil, place your food inside, put a lid on it, or cover it with plastic wrap and secure it with a rubber band, and put the container in direct sunlight for a period of time. If your contents contain liquid, put a towel or a flat pan underneath it in case of leaks.
 
Here are some of the things you can make with this small solar cooker… 
 
Please note that times may vary depending on the time of year, the heat of the sun and your location on the planet…
 
S’mores – 30 minutes 

I have a post that shows you how to put a twist on this old favorite here. After putting our ingredients together, we checked on our s’mores every 10 minutes until they were the way we liked them. The marshmallows will not toast, but they do melt very nicely, or get fluffy and soft.
 
Noodle Soup – 30 minutes 
Using its own container, we broke up the noodles and added the flavor packets, added hot water instead of boiling water, mixed it up, covered the whole container with plastic wrap to keep the heat in, and put it on a cookie sheet in case of leaks. We placed the container in direct sunlight, checked on it in 15 minutes, mixed the noodles with a fork, covered it back up, and checked it again in 15 minutes. We thought it worked really well. 
 
Here are some of the other things you can try…
 
Oatmeal, canned or frozen veggies, quick rice, potatoes, beans, lentils, instant soups, apple slices with raisins, cinnamon, brown sugar and butter, etc.
 
Experiment to find out what else you can make! You should not put raw meat in this type of solar cooker because it won’t generate the kind of heat needed to safely cook it, but you can use meat flavored bouillon cubes and hot dogs because they are precooked.
 
If you use a glass jar with at lid, you can make sun tea too!
 
Note: We did a little experiment when we did this by placing one solar cooker in the car and one outside. Both were in direct sunlight and both cooked the food at the same time! We thought about putting our solar ovens in our outdoor grill, but it was no longer in the sun! 

Question of the day…

How have other countries benefited from solar cooking?
 
Learn more…

Solar Cookers International
Learn how cooking with solar energy has helped people around the world!


Make a solar cooker from a pizza box
Instructions for making a solar oven out of a recycled pizza box. (Site currently under construction.)

Backwoods Home
This site offers instructions for a homemade solar oven.

Solar Oven Chef
This site offers a selection of recipes you can make with a solar cooker.

Sun Oven: Daily Solar Recipe
This site offers many different recipes that are made using solar energy!

Solar Chocolate Chip Cookies
These cookies can be made in a car on a very hot day!


If you give any of these methods or recipes a try, leave me a comment telling me about your experience!

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