5 Meals to Make From Your Hotel Room When Traveling

Eating on the road isn’t just expensive, it can be taxing on your soul when you’re trying to wrangle kids through restaurants every night. Set aside a few nights just to veg out with some books, a tablet or movie and plan to prepare a meal from your room.

Sure, you could order pizza or do some instant ramen. Who doesn’t like a good cup of ramen once in awhile? Or you could get inventive and make something your entire family will actually want to eat. Bonus points: You get to play hero and look like an awesome parent for cooking with just a hotel microwave and iron.

© Oleg Bannikov | Dreamstime

Broccoli and Cheddar Baked Potatoes

You don’t need much to make fantastic baked potatoes but a hotel microwave and a few add-on ingredients. Try heating up the potatoes in the microwave for about 5 to 10 minutes until they’re just starting to get soft. If you can come up with some tin foil, wrap them tightly and set aside so they’ll finish cooking on their own. Otherwise you’ll need to keep microwaving the potatoes and checking them every few minutes until they slide off your fork when you pierce them.

Next, microwave some broccoli in a cup with a little water to create a steamed veggie effect. Then place on top of your potatoes with some cheese and microwave until melted. And just to show your kids you think of absolutely everything, add some bacon bits for a finishing touch.

Cheese Quesadillas

Believe it or not, you can make awesome, mouth-watering cheese quesadillas right from your hotel room. Use the microwave to melt your cheese inside the tortillas just until it’s soft. Then fold in half and place a clean towel on top to start grilling those babies down.

It’s true you won’t get a true grilled effect on your quesadillas like you would at home, but the iron helps get the tortillas a little closer to toasted. If your kids are cool with mushrooms, toss some inside to make it a little heartier and healthier. Add some chips and salsa on the side and turn it into a Mexican themed dinner.

© Luke Wilcox | Dreamstime

Avocado Toast

Avocado toast is a soothing meal on a chilly night, or just to fill up the kids without the need for meat and multiple ingredients. Just like the quesadilla concept, toast up your bread with a clean towel and iron. But choose artisan quality bread from a local supermarket to turn it into something special. Buttering up some toasted sourdough bread pairs especially well with avocado.

Parents can dress their avocado toast up a bit with diced onions and red pepper flakes to give it a little kick. Before you sit down to eat, grab some cashews or other unsweetened nuts from the hotel vending machine and crush it up the best you can to add to your toast.

Buttered Pasta

You can cook up fresh buttered pasta without a stove top or the need to resort to instant-style meals. Instead you can use your microwave by filling a bowl with water and pasta. Add at least three minutes to the recommended stovetop cooking time on the box. When it’s finished, fluff it with a fork to see if it’s soft enough for your family’s needs.

The only thing left to do is add butter to your drained pasta and serve to the kiddos. Mom and Dad might want to microwave up some marinara sauce, or can add olive oil and sundried tomatoes to their dish for more grown-up fare. Though there’s nothing wrong with adults eating a good old bowl of buttered pasta from their hotel room bed.

Vegetables and Couscous

Couscous is just as easy to make in a hotel room as pasta with the help of a microwave. Follow the cooking directions on the box and add a few minutes of extra cooking time. When you take the couscous out to cool, throw your favorite veggies into the microwave with a little water for a steamed effect.

You can also add vegetables to your couscous that don’t need cooking like diced onion, tomato and mushroom. Stir into your couscous while it’s still hot. The heat will help it soften and create some flavor to your couscous hotel meal.

You’ll be surprised what kind of inspiration you find once you get going, creating your own hotel meal dishes right in the room. Just make sure you follow good common sense like not bringing in forbidden hot plates and other cooking tools that could get out of hand. Stick to the basics and see how far you can take your next hotel room dinner.