Hunting for Solar Cooking Pots

Hunting For Solar Cooking Pots

After seeing how well my little solar cooker made from a silver, accordion style windshield shade worked, I decided that I definitely wanted to begin solar cooking.

You need the right kind of pots to successfully cook in a solar oven.  They don’t have to be special or fancy, but they do need to be dark colored.  And this I didn’t have!  So I started by using an old electric skillet bottom, but it had a white top.  It cooked okay, but I knew the dark pots would work better.

Since I didn’t want to invest a lot of money in a solar cooking pot that I really might not need (or truth be told – might not ever use again), I began searching in the stores for a suitable pot. First, I looked at Wal-Mart.  They had one, but it was more than I wanted to pay for what I still considered to be an experiment.  Next stop was Target.  Same pot, same story. Then, I looked in a camping store, while Mr. B was looking at a new smoker.  Yes, I certainly liked the cute little camping pots, all neatly stacked into one unit; but they seemed too small for my purpose and were still more than I was willing to pay.    Finally, I decided to take the Garage Sale route — and I hate garage sales.  Then I remembered that I had just gotten a new set of pots a few months ago, so where was the old set?  Sitting in the garage — in a big box waiting for a trip to goodwill– were my perfect solar cooking pots.

Of course, now that I found these old pots, I have found numerous other suitable solar cooking pots and pans in my kitchen.  Where were they hiding all that time? The point is, you don’t really need special cookware for solar cooking. There are probably many suitable pots and pans in your kitchen right now.

To learn more about the types of cookware suitable for solar cooking, see “Cookware Guide for Solar Oven Cooking”.

This is the 4 post in a 5 part series. To continue following along, go to Two Things I’ve Learned

To start at the beginning, see My First Solar Cooker; or see part 2, Solar Cooking: Catching the Spark; or see part 3, Learning to Solar Cook.

Many solar cookers come with an appropriate pot, but some don’t. What kind of cookware do you use? Where did you get it? Let me know in the comments below.