When we first moved to NE Missouri, we purchased a Sun Oven brand solar oven. It came highly recommended by our friends and neighbors, and we were able to do a group purchase for a small discount. Three years later, I can say with certainty that it is one of the most useful tools on our off-grid homestead. In this post I’ll share my best tips on how to bake in a solar oven so you feel empowered to give it a try!
Why Should You Bake in a Solar Oven?
Because we do not have an oven in our home, we use our solar oven year-round, as often as possible. It allows us to bake, roast, dehydrate, and heat with great ease. Even if you have a home oven, I would still recommend making or purchasing a solar oven for several reasons:
1) In the summer heat, who wants to bake indoors?
2) Solar ovens use the ultimate renewable resource – the sun – to create heat, thus saving you resources and money.
3) A solar oven is a great tool to have if your oven breaks, you run out of propane, the electricity is down, etc. It’s a perfect addition to your preparedness toolkit.
What Can You Bake in a Solar Oven?
Anything you can bake in a regular oven! I have successfully baked countless dishes such as frittatas, roasted root vegetables, lasagna, braised rabbit, rice, blueberry muffins, bread, cookies, and cheesecake. I have also used our Sun Oven to dehydrate zucchini chips and sun-dried tomatoes, and to cook down tomato sauce into paste, and apple sauce into butter.
The only qualification I will make is that I find that the Sun Oven does not do as good of a job browning and crisping as a home oven might. When I roast potatoes in the solar oven, they will end up soft and delicious, but rarely golden brown and crisp.
How Long Does it Take to Bake in a Solar Oven?
When I post photos of our solar oven bakes, this is one of the most frequently asked questions. The answer really depends on the temperature inside the solar oven. One of the features I really love about our Sun Oven is that it has a temperature gauge built in, so I know exactly what the temperature is inside.
On a hot sunny summer day, the temperature is typically between 300 and 350 degrees F. On a sunny but cold winter day, we rarely get temperatures above 250 to 300 degrees F.
If the solar oven temperature is at 350 degrees, and I have a recipe that calls for a 350 degree oven, then I assume the baking times will be the same, set my timer for the duration indicated in the recipe, and check on the bake at that time, just like I would in a home oven.
If the temperature is lower, the cooking or baking will take longer. Because I need to turn the oven to keep it facing into the sun, I simply check on the dish each time I turn the oven.
Using your solar oven really is quite simple, but here are some tips and tricks for how to bake in a solar oven that I have learned over several years of use.
How to Bake in a Solar Oven
- Keep the glass and reflective surfaces clean – This may seem like a trivial detail, but since your solar oven uses reflection to focus the sun’s rays into the cooking box, the cleaner the reflective surfaces, the better the reflection. I regularly wipe the surfaces down with vinegar and water.
- Track the sun – Rotating and tilting your solar oven frequently to keep it facing directly toward the sun will help the oven heat to it’s highest potential. This is especially important if you are need to achieve high temperatures for roasting or baking.
- Or not… – On the flip side, if you are dehydrating or slow simmering (for instance, making apple butter), keep the oven turned slightly away from the direct path of the sun.
- Keep it full! – On a sunny day, you can cook several different batches of food, one after the other. Just yesterday, I put squash in the oven to bake at 10am. At 1pm, I baked a batch of brownies, and at 3pm, I put a frittata in the oven to bake. If I had more daylight, I would put a pot full of water in to heat for dishwashing, making best use of the sun.
- Use smaller containers – Particularly when baking muffins or breads, I get a more even bake when I use small containers such as mini-muffin tins or small loaf pans. When I’m baking cookies, I make them small and even sized.
- Anchor the base – Our Sun Oven came with some metal stakes to anchor the oven into the ground. Of course these were lost at some point, so we use a brick, a rock, or, these days, a heavy toy tractor. You really don’t want a gust of wind to knock over a solar oven full of apple puree. Ask me how I know this 😉
A solar oven really is an indispensable tool for an off-grid homestead. I recommend the All-American Sun Oven. Make the investment once, and enjoy using it for years to come.
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Hello, Thanks for the nice post on solar cooking. There are numerous benefits to solar cooking. It is always nice to find someone else that is out there solar cooking. Merry | Sunshine On My Shoulder
We do enjoy it! I try to at least always have water heating up in there!
What about rainy days, I’m thinking that maybe my question could seem a bit dumb but it seemed like you were saying it’ll only cook in the sun so what about in a climate where it isn’t sunny as much as say Arizona might be like Washington would it be less of an asset or would it cook even with the lil Sun during rainy days just take a lot longer? Or would it be better not to use it at all during cloudy days and cook a bunch like u said u like to do on really sunny days. Maybe get tons of bread made when it’s really sunny and a couple casseroles then on the cloudy days where there is only a lil Sun maybe use that to dehydrate fruit ? Thank you for taking the time to read my reply and for any info you give in response
You are correct in that the Sun Oven only works when it’s sunny. So, rainy and cloudy days are out of the question. Any day that you can see your shadow, you can use a solar oven, generally speaking. So, in a location like Oregon, where I used to live, you’d have about 7-8 months in which you’d have a good chance of using it at least once a week, and in the summer months, much more than that. There are some days that it is only sunny for a few hours here in NE Missouri, and on those days, I just plan to either make a quick bake, like cookies, or to heat something up on the stove first, and “finish” it in the solar oven. Hope that helps!
Wow! this is so super cool & this is the best project ever. we don’t have a normal oven so we use this now. I’m comfortable with that thank you so much for this post.
I built my solar oven using plans from Mother Earth News and an old wash tub as the base. My first reflectors were aluminum foil on cardboard, but they warped and were subject to breeze. I eventually got some aircraft aluminum sheet about 1/8″ thick and made new from that. My top glass came from a sales sample of solar passive glass that I requested from Corning and got for shipping cost. The oven box of 12″ x 12″ x 12″ sits inside the washtub and is made from 2″ thick hardboard insulation, so every surface reflects. I got temperatures over 400F in Oregon and on a summer day in California can get well over 450F. Keys to using this oven are close attention and black cookware. Temperature is regulated by opening the top a tiny bit when needed. I found two sizes of Nordic Ware microwave pressure cookers that are black and well suited to absorb all the bouncing light in my oven. They heat fast and with the added benefit of pressure, they cook faster than without pressure. My main staple is rice and it cooks nicely in the solar oven. The blue casserole dishes of enamel on cast iron also work well and with the light hitting them from all sides, they heat more evenly. When I need the washtub, I lift the solar oven out and set it aside. My total expense for this oven is around $30, but it is not as sexy as the manufactured ones.
Sounds like a good tool! Thanks for sharing! I should edit my post to talk about the black pots. We use them as well.
I was chosen to try a Sun Oven last summer as part of a promotion, but feel mine was defective. It would get extreme condensation on the glass, causing the relection to deteriorate, and the temps to decline. If I opened it to wipe the glass, the temps would fall further and the cycle started over again. I would love to cook in a solar oven, but am concerned about that. Do you have similar issues or suggestions for if we try again?
I do get condensation on mine as well, but it is not so extreme as to cause the temperatures to drop. I’m not sure what the problem could be. Did you ever contact Sun Oven to ask about it? Or the company who supplied the sun oven?
Hello, This is a nice post on solar cooking. I would like to make a few suggestions to Dawn. Moisture loss is a normal part of cooking. You don’t see it in a kitchen oven because it does not condense – it evaporates – taking food moisture with it. But with solar cooking, the moisture has nowhere to go. It stays in the oven, leaving the food moist and tender, and condenses on the glass. But you are correct that the condensation creates a cycle of opening and wiping the glass causing the temperature to drop and then the moisture returns and the cycle begins again. The Sun Oven is particularly condensation prone.(I have 2 of them). Here are a few tips that might help. 1) Unless you are baking, use a tight fitting lid to keep the moisture in the pot. 2) Reduce the liquids in the pot by 1/4 – 1/2 cup since it does not evaporate. 3) Be sure to check your food at the same time you open to wipe so that you don’t have to open it another time. 4) Do not lock the lid down tight. Leave the top latch (or both) unhooked to leave a small airspace. The hot air rises and can exit through the hole taking the moisture with it. If that isn’t enough, you can also insert a small stick or matchstick between the glass and the gasket. You will be wondering whether this affects the temperature of the oven. Not much. The oven still heats up to 325 to 350 degrees. It may take a little bit longer to cook, but the trade off is worth it. Even with these measures, I still get condensation, but not as much. I hope you give your Sun Oven another try. Wishing you sunny days filled with solar cooking. Merry|Sunshine On My Shoulder
Thank you for the helpful advice, Merry!
What is the highest temp. the oven gets too ? The hotter the sun, the hotter the oven, I assume…..
What is the highest temp you have seen ? I assume if it gets much higher than 350 , you can’t do much baking right ? Sounds like you need to watch the oven temp more closely than you would a regular oven …..or you could end up with half done foods……has that ever happened to you ?
The hottest I’ve gotten, on a hot summer, sunny day, was around 370 F. And yes, it’s much more likely that I forget to rotate the solar oven toward the sun, or that mid-day the clouds come out and I’m left with half-done food. That does happen, although I’m pretty careful about not putting something in unless I am fairly confident that it will be a sunny stretch!