A solar oven can cook your food and heat your water when the sun is shining while emitting no smoke and making no noise.
I made my first solar oven nearly 50 years ago, after reading an article in Mother earth News. Using mostly scrap materials, I’ve built several designs. The design I’ll describe here is of an insulated box. A well-made solar oven pays for itself many times over. Low-cost solar cookers work best when the weather is hot and sunny. We’ve cooked stews, soups, hot sandwiches, potatoes (cut into pieces), and egg dishes—just about everything—in our homemade solar cooker. Remember, you’re capturing the heat of the day in a box. For the best cooking, you’ll want to use smaller food items, and you’ll need to plan ahead. Start planning lunch at breakfast and dinner at lunchtime. The better you construct this cooker, the better it’ll retain heat, and the quicker your food will cook.
Step-by-Step Instructions
After you’ve assembled the parts for this solar oven, you can put it together in about an hour. You’ll need two lidded cardboard boxes, masking tape or duct tape, something to serve as a spacer, aluminum foil, insulation materials, a marker, a box cutter, and clear plastic sheeting or glass.
One cardboard box should be about 2 inches larger than
