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Eating Vegan Using Hostel Kitchens

I’ve officially started my 6 month trip and will be real-time blogging it.

I’m staying at a hostel here in Hawaii before moving into the sublet I found on craigslist next week.

I’ve only been in Hawaii for 2 days and already I’ve made two trips to Wholefoods. I like to eat well on the road but I don’t like to cook while traveling.

I thought I’d share the types of healthy vegan meals I make.

General Tips for Cooking in Hostel Kitchens

They keys to hostel food preparation are to find solutions that

– do not need too many pots, bowls etc.

– don’t require ingredients that go stale quickly (e.g., full loaves of bread)

– don’t require a lot of chopping (who wants to do that on vacation!)

– don’t require a freezer – unless your hostel has one – my current hostel has two giant fridges but no freezer.

Always check if your hostel has a freezer before you go shopping. If you do have freezer access, frozen vegan burritos such as Amy’s brand are an awesome choice. It’s a good idea to also check how full the fridge is before you go shopping as things won’t keep cool properly if the fridge is super full and/or being opened extremely frequently.

I always pack with me

So that I cam pump up the flavor of things I buy, I always pack

– garlic powder (found in the spice section at the supermarket. It’s 100% garlic)
– a bag of chilli flakes

So, back to my shopping trips.

Day 1

My first day I bought

for lunch

– a $2 pack of corn tortillas
– Daiya vegan cheese (grated)
– a couple of tomatoes

– From the Wholefoods salad bar, I loaded up a container full of cilantro, spring onions, and local tofu (not the disgusting stuff in long life packets. This tofu tasted like feta cheese. It was so delicious!)

From these ingredients I assembled tacos for lunch.

For dinner, I had tacos again but this time with a can of vegan chilli, another tomato, and the rest of my packet of Daiya.

Day 2

I bought more of the tofu for dinner.

For lunch, I bought tofu egg-salad (as in no egg) from the Wholefoods salad bar. It’s made with vegenaise – one of the most delicious vegan products of all time (and for some inexplicable reason spelt vegenaise instead of veganaise).

They were out of cilantro at the salad bar so I had to buy a bunch.

I bought a mini wholegrain baguette and assembled a sandwich with spring onion, cilantro, tomato and eggless egg salad.

vegan eggsalad

19 Comments


  1. //

    That looks delicious! I like the sound of that tofu, I’ll have to hunt some down, maybe I could convert my tofu-hating kids!


  4. //

    every time I see one of your posts it inspires me to ditch the meat and stock up on veggies!


  5. //

    I love making my own meals as we travel. Veggie and Vegan meals are always so tasty and pack a whole heap of good vitamins in to your tummy! that tofu lunch looks yummy!!


  6. //

    So glad to see you promoting vegan choices on your blog.


  7. //

    Yum. I love fresh, healthy, meatless food, and these sound like good options for quick meals while traveling. I wouldn’t have thought of chili with tortillas but it makes sense.


  8. //

    you can unvegan them hehehehe


  10. //

    Wish you were here too Nicole Connolly! There are at least two other travel bloggers here currently and a bunch on Maui.


  12. //

    Great ideas on cooking in hostel kitchens… plus the food looks delicious. :)


  15. //

    i think i’d like your cooking A LOT!!


  16. //

    YUMMY


  18. //

    Hi Kate, sounds like you have mastered the art of vegan eating out of a hostel kitchen. I would love to feature you in a story on my blog. Would you be interested?
    Jacqui


  19. //

    Sure Jacqui – thanks. Email is admin (at) 30traveler (dot) com

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