Kit · Cooking without mains

Portable induction hob

Hob-grade control with no flame, if you can supply the watts.

Induction is the closest thing to a real kitchen hob that works off grid. The control is genuinely better than gas at the low end, which matters here more than it sounds: a great deal of the cooking on this site is twenty minutes at a bare simmer, and that is exactly what a camping burner does worst and induction does best. Nothing is heated except the pan, so there is no flame to be blown out and a windshield is irrelevant.

Two constraints decide whether it is for you.

The pan has to be magnetic. If a fridge magnet does not stick to the base, induction will not heat it. Most cheap camping cooksets are aluminium and will not work. Check before you buy either.

The power draw is the real problem. Portable single hobs are sold at around 1,500 to 2,000 watts. On a UK mains socket that is unremarkable, well inside the 13 amp limit of a BS 1363 plug. Off a battery it is a serious load, and it needs a pure sine wave inverter rather than a modified sine wave one. The arithmetic is in power for cooking.

The saving grace is that induction is fast and only draws full power when you ask for it. Bringing water to the boil is the expensive part; holding a simmer afterwards costs a fraction of the rating.

See this one on Amazon

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Last reviewed 18 September 2026. Specifications and availability change and we do not track them, so check the listing against what is described here.