When meal planning and provisioning for passage one of the key considerations is how much fridge and freezer space you have. Depending on the size of your galley, your electrical system and the passage length, you may be looking for meal ideas that don't need refrigeration. To help out, here's 30 delicious yet non-refrigerated meals to consider when provisioning for your next passage or ocean crossing.
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Breakfast ideas using non-frigerated foods
Whether your crew has breakfast for breakfast or breakfast for lunch (like we do), here's a few tasty meals that don't require refrigeration for you to try out on your next sailing trip.
1. Pancakes
Whether you make them from scratch or using a premade shaker mix, pancakes are a tasty treat to have while sailing. Team it with a bit of honey, bananas and peanut butter, cinnamon and sugar, or maple syrup.
2. Avocado toast
Would we even be millennials if we didn't suggest avocado on toast! Starting with the toast, you can buy bread for the passage or bake it yourself on the yacht. Slice or smash the avocado, using ingredients like chili flakes, olive oil, pepper and lemon juice to enhance the flavour.
3. Oatmeal
Our passage provisioning wouldn't be done without Tynan having his bag of oats. It's a simple yet easy meal that can be made on the stove or in the microwave. Start by making the oatmeal then add whatever toppings you feel like to take it to the next level. Here's a few refrigeration-free ideas.
Fresh fruit like berries, apple or banana
Tinned peaches
Dried fruit like raisins, currants, dates or figs
Sugars such as brown or coconut sugar
Honey
Syrups like maple syrup, agave syrup or golden syrup
Chocolate or chocolate spreads like Nutella
Seeds including chia and flax
Peanut butter or almond butter
Shredded coconut
Nuts
Spices like nutmeg, vanilla or cinnamon
Egg based breakfasts
Depending on where you are you may be able to buy eggs that don't require refrigeration, for example in Australia and around Europe. If that's the case, you can bring them along and make these tasty egg based breakfasts.
4. Frittata
Frittata is a type of egg-bake that's similar to quiche, but without the crust. On a calm day it's a tasty meal that you can cook up in the oven or air fryer. After making a base recipe fill the frittata with your choice of vegetables, herbs and cured meats.
5. Chorizo and egg
Depending on where you are, you may be able to buy chorizo that has been cured enough that it doesn't require refrigeration. You can then use that to make a scrambled egg and chorizo wrap, breakfast burger, chorizo and eggs on toast, or Mexican style scrambled eggs with chorizo.
6. Menemen
Menemen is a savoury breakfast dish that originated in Turkey. The recipe combines scrambled eggs with tomato, pepper, onions, a little chili and some herbs for extra flavour. Serve it with a thick slice of bread for a tasty way to start your day at sea.
7. Shakshuka
A Northern African breakfast dish, Shakshuka has a tomato and pepper sauce seasoned with spices you likely have in your boat galley, including cumin, paprika and chili. Eggs are poached in the sauce and then the mixture is served with toast or pita bread. The first time I had it was at a restaurant in Perth that added grilled chorizo to the side - it was delicious!
8. Eggs on toast
Going back to something simpler, you can just do eggs your way teamed with sides like toast, baked beans, cooked tomato or avocado.
9. Omelet
Making a simple omelet just requires butter and eggs. For a refrigeration free option, just swap out the butter for a bit of olive oil. Once you've made the omelete add whatever fillings you like, for example herbs, mushrooms, smoked salmon, chives or sundried tomato.
10. French Toast
By substituting long-life milk in for the fresh stuff you can whip yourself up a batch of French toast. Serve it with a bit of sugar, syrup or even some caramelised bananas.
11. Banana Pancakes
Banana pancakes offer a delicious twist to normal pancakes! The recipe we use calls for an egg as well as a selection of dry and long-life ingredients. They are pretty easy to make and sure to be a winner with the crew.
Lunch ideas for passage without fridge
When it hits the middle of the day most of our crew is awake and hungry. Here's some lunch ideas that you can make aboard using shelf ingredients out of your boat galley.
12. Ramen
We love to get instant ramen packets and add whatever we can to enhance the flavour. That includes soy sauce, sesame seeds, chili oil or flakes, fresh garlic and spring onions (chives), miso paste, bean paste, fried onions and seaweed.
13. Tuna Potato Cakes
Tuna potato cakes are a good finger food to eat in between sailing and doing boat jobs. Tinned tuna is combined with potato, onion, egg, parsley and seasonings, before being crumbed and fried. If you happen to catch some fresh fish along the way you can modify the recipe to use that instead.
14. Fried Rice
Rice, a few vegetables and even an egg can all come together to make a tasty fried rice. Personally we like to add ginger, garlic, spring onions, carrot, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar and egg to ours, but there's lots of recipes online to try out.
15. Fish Burgers
With some homemade or store bought burger buns, a freshly caught fillet of fish, batter and your favourite salad ingredients, you can make your own fish burgers. The fish should be carefully filleted and deboned before being slathered in an egg and spice mixture, coated with crumbs and fried in a bit of oil.
16. Aloo pie
Aloo pie is a Trinidadian dish that I got to try during our extended haul out in Trinidad. The fried dough is filled with mashed potatoes seasoned with chandon beni, cumin, onion and garlic. When made right it's absolutely DELICIOUS and the best bit is, none of the ingredients need to be kept cold.
17. Hummus
If you like a lighter lunch you could team some homemade hummus with pita bread. To make hummus you just need chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, salt and olive oil. The pita bread could also be turned into a tasty, crispy version using a bit of olive oil and salt.
No-fridge dinner ideas for passage
Dinner is our main meal for the day so it tends to be the focus of my provisioning efforts when planning for passage. Here's a few ideas for passage meals that you can whip up in the galley without needing to open the fridge or freezer.
18. Tuna Mornay
The last time we were on passage we made a delicious tuna mornay using fresh tuna we caught just before arriving in Trinidad. Our recipe calls for butter and cheese, but it's easy enough to substitute olive oil for butter and just leave out the cheese - the original recipe didn't have it anyway. For milk we use long life which works just fine.
19. Tuna Casserole
On our boat we have an Instant Pot and I love it! On passage it makes cooking a bit easier as we tie it down to keep it secure and the high sides means nothing slops out when we're frying things off, letting it simmer or making one pot meals.
There's a great tuna casserole recipe that can be made completely in a pressure cooker, which is just one of the functions of the Instant Pot. If you leave the cheese out, no refrigeration is required.
20. Pasta Marinara
A simple and easy boat meal to make, pasta marinara is just a tomato based pasta sauce flavoured with garlic, onion, celery, olive oil and herbs. It's something you can have by itself or with a bit of protein in the form of preserved Italian sausage, chorizo or freshly caught seafood. Sometimes we also like to add a dash of lemon juice for an extra kick!
21. Quinoa Coconut Curry
While searching for sailing food ideas that used quinoa I stumbled across a tasty coconut curry that can be made in the Instant Pot and doesn't need any refrigerated foods. The sauce is made using coconut milk, diced tomatoes, ginger, turmeric, garlic, miso and tamari. Quinoa and other vegetables are then added to make up the bulk of the meal.
22. Risotto
I love risotto! It's slow to make and needs constant attention but the time is worth the reward! There are many good risotto recipes that can be made without refrigerated items but the most common would be mushroom risotto.
23. Chana Masala
A curry originating from northern India, chana masala is rich in flavour. The word "chana" means chickpea and masala is a specific spice blend frequently used in India. In it's simplest form Chana Masala can be done in 1 pot (which is great since boat dishes usually involves handwashing) and can be done in just 30 minutes.
24. Tomato and Cannellini Bean Pasta
Another pantry meal, this pasta has a tomato based sauce filled with cannellini beans. Ingredients like Italian herbs and balsamic vinegar add to the flavour while the inclusion of spinach can help build out the dish.
25. Red Lentil Soup
Calm, downwind sailing makes for great cooking conditions inside our catamaran, including for soup. Red lentil soup doesn't need any fresh ingredients at all so is something you can keep in your back pocket for times when stores are running low.
26. Thai Curry
Vegetarian or fresh seafood versions of almost all Thai curries are possible with curry paste, canned or powdered coconut milk and dried spices. Our favourites are Thai Green Curry and Penang Curry!
27. Chorizo Cassoulet
A cassoulet is a French dish that combines beans and meat. To turn this into a boat meal, you can use shelf-stable chorizo to create a Chorizo Cassoulet.
28. Moroccan Couscous
Couscous is a common ingredient in north African cooking. There is a Moroccan inspired couscous dish that includes shallots, pine nuts, cumin, raisins and lemon juice, none of which needs to be kept cold.
29. Tuna Pasta
For another tuna dish, why not make a simple Tuna Pasta. This recipe just uses garlic, parsley, lemon juice and tuna to create an easy sailing dinner that's warm and filling.
30. Chorizo Paella
Chicken and chorizo paella is an internationally known Spanish dish! By leaving out the chicken you can create a refrigeration free version for dinner. What you want to add to the paella is up to individual tastes but chicken broth, saffron, garlic, onion and peppers are a staple.
A note on instant meals
In this list I have purposely left out instant meals, canned meals and freeze dried foods that are complete all-in-one meal. For example:
Powdered macaroni and cheese
Tins of Irish soup
Freeze dried, dehydrated food packets from the outdoor store
The reason I left them out is that instant meals are generally quite easy to find, and what you can get will depend on what's available locally. They're good to keep on hand as an easy food for underway.
Summary
The meals I have selected require a little bit of preparation and cooking but in my opinion it's worth the effort to level up your passage foods. For more sailing passage planning tips, we sure to check out our ocean crossing meal and provisioning planner.
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