Best Airbnb Recipes

Hey TravelAddyx!

Staying in Airbnb's while traveling can be wonderful; each one is unique, it's often cheaper than a hotel, it gives you a feeling of home, and it allows us to save money (and save our expanding waistlines) by cooking meals and not always having to eat at restaurants.

However, each time we head to a new Airbnb, we're never quite sure what we're going to find in the kitchen as far as cooking supplies.  Pasta is the most simple option most of the time, but that tires quickly.  Having stayed in Airbnbs now in over 20 countries, we've developed some time-tested recipes that we can pretty much use regardless of what kind of hardware is stocked in the kitchen.  We thought we'd highlight some of them for you.  These are simple recipes with lots of variations that you can use depending on what you find at the market.  We aren't really using precise measurements (we haven't had a single Airbnb with measuring cups), but rather are making general suggestions and ratios and you should vary to your own tastes.

Outside of the US, we've often found that dried spices come in small plastic baggies of 50-100g  (2-4 oz.) vs. glass jars, so we've brought a sandwich sized Ziploc with us and as we discover a new spice in a country we're visiting, we get a small baggie of it and add it to our larger Ziploc of dried spices that we pack and travel with.  Our favorites have been Merken and Rica Rica from Chile, Zaatar and Ottoman Meat Spice Mix from Turkey, and Kampot pepper from Cambodia.  For most of these recipes, we've tried to avoid buying things that come in large quantities that we won't use all of in the recipe (unless they're really cheap, like rice), or that we use frequently enough in other things to justify buying it.  

We're including both metric and US approximate measurements since we still use the US system in our minds, but when we shop around the world, we have to ask for and buy in metric.

Herb Roasted Whole Chicken

This is by far our favorite comfort food while traveling and we tend to pair it with our roasted potatoes recipe immediately below.  Most Airbnb ovens we've had came with an incorporated roasting pan that slides right into the sides of the oven or they have a Pyrex dish or rectangular cake pan or lasagna pan that can double as a roasting pan.  Basting the meat by placing butter under the skin makes a longer cooking time more forgiving; the meat will stay juicy even if it cooks a bit longer.  We've never had an Airbnb that had a meat thermometer, so we have to estimate when the bird is cooked through.  Cooking for 1 to 1.5 hours means having a fully cooked bird is less of a worry.

Ingredients:

Steps:

Roasted Potatoes (and/or other vegetables)

These end up being nice and crispy.  We've done all kinds of variations with spices for these as well.  Our typical go-to is the same as what we use for our roast chicken, but when we've done yoghurt marinated chicken (see recipe below), we've dressed the potatoes in spices to mimic what we were doing with the yoghurt marinade like garam masala or curry powder.  If you're going for a Mediterranean feel, you can use lemon with oregano or an Italian or Greek herb blend.  If you want to make it a bit spicier, you can include some version of a dried red chili spice that's local like Cayenne, Paprika (smoked or sweet), or Merken (one that we loved from Chile).  Again we've used Pyrex dishes, square baking sheets or lasagna pans, or the included oven roasting tray that we've found in our Airbnb's.  We haven't had a single Airbnb where we haven't had something we could use for this.

Ingredients:


Steps:

Lentil Salad

Lentils are quick-cooking legumes, which makes this an easy recipe to do... they don't need to be soaked ahead of time like other dried beans do.  This salad also keeps forever in the fridge, so it's easy to pull out on a night we don't want to go out or cook again.  We've used a variety of fresh herbs to brighten it up depending on what we could find... Italian parsley, dill, mint, cilantro.  For the cheese, any tangy white cheese will do.. we typically used feta or chevre.  If we couldn't find those, we asked at the market for something similar.  We found Dijon mustard everywhere we've traveled so far, but it hasn't always been cheap. We use it on our sandwiches, too, though, so it was worth it for us to purchase.  You can eliminate it and just add more lemon juice to taste if you want.  

Ingredients:


Steps:

Yoghurt Marinated Chicken Quarters

We typically would want to do this with just chicken thighs, but those are sometimes tough to find on their own without the legs attached.  We originally used to cook this at home using garam masala, but we tried it with a variety of other spice blends like curry or zaatar as well while traveling and it worked with all of them.  We travel with a few gallon sized Ziploc bags that we use for storage.  Most places, though, you can find a roll of plastic bags to marinate the chicken.  If not, you can marinate in any bowl or dish you can find.... the yoghurt is thick enough it won't run.  This is another recipe that we often cook with roasted potatoes.

Ingredients:


Steps:

Spanish Chicken and Rice

This one is very flexible because it can be done both on the stovetop using a large sized stir-fry skillet if you find one, or in the oven using a Pyrex dish or lasagna pan.  If you're going to do it all in the skillet, make sure that it is big enough so that you don't fill it any more than half way with rice, as it will double in volume when cooked (or you might just need to use less rice).  The first time we did this we did it Spanish style using Spanish chorizo and smoked paprika, but have tried it now with a variety of other sausages and herbs appropriate to the country we're in and what we could find, adjusting the spices to go along with the sausage in a way that makes sense.  For chicken broth, it is very unusual to find boxed or canned chicken broth anywhere other than the US.  We've used bullion cubes in water or sometimes you'll find broth concentrate, which is kind of like a gel, and we've added that to the water.  

Ingredients:


Steps:

Panzanella

This one is fairly straightforward and the ingredients we've been able to find in every locale.  We look for a local bread that has a spongy texture.  For the cheese, if you can't find mozzarella, ask for a similar local cheese, sometimes called a farmer's cheese (if that translates).  We're not big fans of a panzanella after it's sat overnight and the bread gets too soggy, so we only make enough for one meal at a time.

Ingredients:

Steps:

Breakfast for Dinner

This is less a recipe than a suggestion.  When we were in France, our aunt, Evelyne, made the most incredible omelet for dinner.  We used that strategy a couple of times (again often pairing it with our favorite roasted potatoes) and did an omelet or frittata.  This is great because you can stuff the omelet with any vegetables you find at the market, use local cheeses, and use up any sliced meat you might have in the fridge.  It always helped to add some fresh or dried herbs to the omelet, and we always made sure to have onion and garlic to add that umami flavor.  When we were in Spain, we learned to make a tortilla espanola and tried that one a couple of other times as well.

Fried Rice

This one is also a suggestion and not a recipe.  We often had leftover rice from cooking, and it was an easy meal to stir-fry some veggies (either fresh or frozen), add some garlic and onion, an egg or two, add the rice and then soy sauce and fry until tasty.  Soy sauce was surprisingly easy to find most anywhere we've been in the world, and it's relatively inexpensive.  

Stuffed Veggies

We've stuffed portobellos, green or red peppers, and zucchini and eggplant.  We stuff with some combination of cheese, chopped sausage or cured pork, breadcrumbs or rice or nuts, onion or leek, and other sauteed seasonal vegetables we've found at the market.  We throw in whatever herbs or spices we think will go well with the filling.