Uni Recipes - Please add to this! Anything cheap and easy to prepare

[Ventress]

Hi all,
As we discussed on the year 13 thread, our young people are sometimes not the best with preparing cheap and healthy meals so this thread is give them some ideas 😊

Please join me in adding your ideas and recipes 😊

Here we go…

Sauce does well with salmon steak too

Teach them the basics - simple white sauce, batter, pastry, how to fry an onion/brown meat (if a meat eater) for a stew, omelette, poached egg, boiled egg, how to prepare a decent salad etc.

Not cooking but how to plan meals, how to store food, what cupboard ingredients to have, how long things keep, and how to use up things before they go off.

What a healthy meal and portion looks like.

Forget labels (can be peeled off!) and just scrawl on everything with a black permanent sharpie.

Boil pasta and stir in pesto, smother in cheese.

Sandwiches fried in butter/oil if you don’t have a toaster maker or air fryer. If air fryer is available, use mayo instead of butter on the outside.

Favourite advice is to go veggie to keep cost down and limit the possibility of food poisoning.

DS is a pita as he wants to be really protein based but he won’t eat eggs, peanut butter or cereal! Any of the cheaper options really. He tends to have a protein shake for breakfast which actually looks quite nice. He will go to university with his nutri- bullet.

Stir frys are also quick and easy. I lived off chicken, red pepper, mushrooms, onion and garlic as a student. Splash on some soy sauce or other sauces and have with rice or noodles.

Love this! DS pretty much weaned himself on pesto pasta and tortellini so this is a great option 😊

You are all making me hungry 😋

I think we’ll take an air fryer if there isn’t one provided @FourForksSake.

spme great advice on this thread, thank you all!

I used to live above a “spud u like” as a student @ImImmortalNowBabyDoll! I not sure they even exist any more but we would hang around at closing time and the lovely franchisee would feed us jacket potatoes 😊

Any recipe with a fried base needs to be done slowly.

@Ventress , hummus is high in protein and easy.

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn, So many people get them wrong. Any recipe suggesting frying in sesame oil or adding water deserves to be binned.

Pepperamen: ramen with the broth left in and a small lunch pepperami chopped through it. Sort of soupy and really filling, quick and cheap.
Butchers often sell bacon trimmings cheaply, you can keep them in the freezer and add one or two chunks of bacon to make savoury dishes taste meaty cheaply.
Sunny rice: cook rice with vegetable stock and frozen sweetcorn, drain and add a chopped boiled egg and turmeric.
Easy scones: SR flour, rub in butter/spread until it looks kinda yellow and is on the verge of going lumpy like pastry. Add cheese for savoury or sugar and raisins for sweet, stir in then add just enough milk that it forms a firm dough when gently handled.
Pat the dough into a big blob on a baking tray and cut it into pizza-ish triangles, bake for 12-15 mins at 210C. Eat while it’s still warm.
You can chop leftover chips or kebab salad into eggs for a Spanish-ish omelette.
Keep a loaf of square bread, pitta bread or potato waffles in the freezer then you always have ready-to-toast carbs.

For a good easy fakeaway cook a pack of quorn or chicken fillets or nuggets (the 100% breast ones, not the cheapest ones), warm up a pouch of vegetable rice and a jar of uncle bens sweet and sour sauce, et voilà!

I sometimes crave this! He could add chicken pieces to it for more protein

I also now cook chicken breast in an air fryer but with a paper tray (cuts down on washing and also collects the sauce.)

my kids adore a Seasonunb that dh makes.

i think it’s something like garlic powder, crushed chilli flakes, salt, dried basil, smoked paprika and black pepper.

I just sprinkle some on both sides and cook for about 15 mins at 180, no oil. Turning half way though. Let it sit for a while.

it’s just really moist spicy chicken but no oil.

i do a similar thing to add chicken pieces to curries from the freezer which I defrost and then cook in the microwave. But I now just cut the chicken up finely and cook 180 about 10 mins in a paper tray without anything added. Check all is cooked and Add to the curry, blasting again in the microwave.

Soya mince or chunks are easy protein. You soak them in boiling water.
Soak cous cous for the same time.

Tinned lentils, chickpeas or beans are good sources of protein for things like wraps/fajitas. I'm not keen on kidney beans but black beans, cannelini and butterbeans are fine.
Baked beans (own brand) with a bit of cheese are a bit of a guilty pleasure and will stretch boiled rice or veg leftovers.

Tin of chilli beans on a pack of microwave rice. For extra student laziness you can just pour the chilli into the rice pack and microwave it all together then eat it from the rice packet.

If they do a course with lots of lectures or have a busy social life, they won’t spend a huge amount of time in halls. I was usually there though on a Sunday so could do a bit of batch cooking eg a curry with a pack of chicken, chilli and Bolognese with a pack of beef mince, all spread further with lentils and/or beans (depending on the dish). That’s six or even nine dinners if they do enough for two or three and then freeze in portions. Freezer bags are a good initial investment for parents.

Microwave pouches of basmati rice were great to add to a batch cooked and individually portioned curry or chilli quickly, between lectures and sports/societies. Can do a quick egg friend rice with peas, a little chicken and soy sauce. The McCain microwaveable jackets are ok with a chilli and grated cheese (and some avocado). Or tuna and sweetcorn and a side salad. Pricey but a good buy if any parents want to help their child out now and again.

The viral Boursin pasta dishes are also quick and so easy (and tasty). Lots available online. I’d recommend a traybake recipe book. I was far more likely to cook at university if I could prepare something quickly then go back to the fun while it’s cooking, with minimal washing up. Our halls’ kitchen sink was always full!

I’d also recommend Lidl or Aldi for bags of frozen chopped onion etc. That’ll make cooking from scratch far easier. The frozen soffrito is great too for a really quick Bolognese.

Thanks! That reminds me. DS’ favourite air fryer meal involves pasta and a cheesy mustard sauce with chicken on top, it’s very good actually…

Basic stuff, but remind them to remove the cardboard or plastic disk from under the supermarket pizza before shoving it in the oven.

Elevate basics by having tubs of instant sauce granules to hand: Pie, oven chips and gravy. Breaded chicken, microwave rice and curry sauce. Etc

Quick garlic bread : any bread, slather with butter, cheese and garlic (fresh or from a jar or tube). Bake.

Master the basics ie cooking rice properly, not buying the expensive pouches. I would say batch cook and freeze portions, but freezer space tends to be very limited in student accommodation and mostly taken up by big bags of oven chips!

Master the basics ie cooking rice properly, not buying the expensive pouches.
Rice is cheap, pouches are expensive. Boiled rice is quick and easy and tastes better than the microwave rice.

Grated cheese is expensive and has something added to it.

or you could get them this book which is brilliant and made for exactly this

Easy flatbread/pizza base
Mix equal quantities of flour and plain yoghurt, salt and a drizzle of oil. Mix to a soft dough. Roll out ( or just squash if no rolling pin or bottle). Lightly oil a frying pan , medium heat, fry one side and turn over. Add pizza toppings at this stage, and either cover the pan or put under the grill to heat through. For flatbreads just check the underside. Better if they're a little burnt!

It’s more expensive to cook for one but if the alternative is to not bother and order UberEats, go for convenience.
A microwave pouch of seasoned rice is about 60p in Aldi/Lidl. Yes, expensive for a family meal, if you have herbs and spices etc and a bag of rice to hand, but perfect for a student craving flavour and speed in an empty kitchen.

Shared kitchens can be absolutely minging and they may struggle to even find a space to prep stuff.

A kilo of rice is 52p. If you can't be bothered to cook some rice then I'm not sure you could be bothered to open a pouch.