Cooking in a Holiday Let Kitchen: The Joy of Doing More with Less

There’s a quiet kind of joy in cooking with less—especially in a holiday let kitchen.

Not less flavour or care, but fewer tools, fewer ingredients, fewer expectations. Just the basics, a small self-catering cottage kitchen, and a week or so to make it all work.

We spent five days last week in a dimly lit English cottage rental just outside Oxford. I packed a box of vegetables from home, imagining the meals I’d cook while we were there—quick, simple dishes made with what we had. But, as often happens on holiday, our evenings filled up with other things: exploring the city, riverside walks, soaking up the rare English heatwave. I didn’t cook nearly as much as I thought I would—and somehow, that felt exactly right.

When I did cook, it felt like hitting reset.

Cooking in an Airbnb or holiday cottage kitchen strips everything back to the essentials. One decent pan (if you’re lucky), mismatched utensils, and no stocked pantry. You’re working with what you brought in—and planning to use up every last bit before the holiday ends.

And that’s the charm.

You adapt your recipes. You simplify your steps. You get creative with whatever’s in the fridge. With no spice rack or fancy oils, every dish becomes a small adventure in resourcefulness. Surprisingly, it works. Often better than expected.

I find something deeply freeing in that. Like shedding layers. You become more instinctive, more focused. You start to cook with your senses instead of your habits. There’s a raw creativity in these holiday meals that I find genuinely nourishing.

In a way, it mirrors the feeling of being away: lighter, more open, and completely unplugged from routine.

Here are a few of the dishes I cooked in that holiday kitchen—each one simple, satisfying, and full of small improvisations.

We arrived late on a Sunday, just after five, only to discover that the entire village had closed up shop for the evening. Nothing but Nando’s stood between us and dinner—and as tempting as a cheeky peri-peri sounded, I remembered the frozen salmon tucked in the cool bag. That small bit of foresight turned into this gorgeous plate: roasted salmon, sautéed cavolo nero, and a quick salad of homegrown lettuce and the last of our travelling tomatoes. At the very last minute before we left home, I’d thrown in a jar of Belazu tahini I found on sale—something about that decision felt a little unhinged at the time, but the drizzle over the greens made the whole meal feel thoughtful and complete. It was one of those quiet victories that only holiday kitchen cooking seems to deliver.

This breakfast was one of those on-the-spot creations that ended up becoming a favourite. I had brought along a small handful of baby broad beans—pods and all—and a few spring onions from home, not quite sure what I’d do with them. I remembered a dish by Musa Dağdeviren that sautés young broad beans with onion and scrambles in an egg, and took that as my jumping-off point. I softened half an onion, then added the thinly sliced broad bean pods and spring onions, letting everything catch and char a little in the pan. Once it smelled nutty and sweet, I added three eggs, whisked with a bit of grated taze kaşar I’d packed last minute. It set into a beautifully golden omelette, served with a thick slice of my own sourdough that I’d also managed to smuggle in. It was familiar but unexpected, and felt like exactly the kind of breakfast a holiday kitchen inspires.

This was the one recipe I loosely planned ahead for—and I’m glad I did. Just before we left home, I snapped a photo of a dish from @ceminers’s İçindekiler II, thinking it might help me use up the overflowing bunches of purslane from the garden. It turned out to be the perfect use for both that, and a glut of courgettes. I adapted it quite freely: I set aside most of the purslane leaves to make a cooling yogurt dip later, and cooked the stems down with onions and garlic (skipping the roasted whole garlic the recipe calls for—far too hot to turn the oven on just for that). Then I stirred in grated courgette, crumbled feta, chopped dill and parsley, a sprinkle of sumac I’d packed from home, and a couple of slices of white bread soaked and squeezed in place of flour. Baked until golden and bubbling, it was rich but fresh, and completely satisfying. It tasted of everything I had on hand—and nothing I was missing.

This salad is one I could probably make in my sleep by now—it’s Sabrina Ghayour’s kale and apple salad from Feasts, and it’s become a reliable favourite. Even in the stripped-back setting of a holiday kitchen, it felt easy to pull together. I sautéed the kale until just tender, tossed it with matchstick-cut apples and a generous squeeze of lemon, and added the pine nuts I’d brought with me purely on a whim (a very lucky whim, it turns out). I didn’t have any of the usual hot sauce to finish it, so I sliced up the only sivri biber we had, fried it until soft and blistered, and scattered it over the top. It gave just enough heat to make it feel complete—like it had a purpose beyond just using up the greens. Simple, familiar, and completely satisfying.

And then there was the simplest salad of all—just homegrown lettuce, a few chopped tomatoes, and feta cubes. I threw it together one evening because we still had a head of our own lettuce in the bag, and it felt like a shame not to use it. With the heatwave still in full swing, it was all we wanted: cool, crisp, and salty. It didn’t need a special dressing, just a bit of olive oil and lemon juice whatever was left in the fridge. Proof, again, that the most ordinary things can feel special when you’re away from home.