Before I moved out of college and into student housing, I was worried about cooking for myself on a daily basis. Would I be able to budget effectively? How much time would I have to spend slaving over the hob when I could be studying (watching Prison Break)? How would I cope with Durham’s serious lack of supermarket options?
Now in my third week of second year, I’ve realised cooking (or defrosting!) cheap and healthy meals is not only easy but a great way to wind down after a hard day in hilly Durham. This article can be used as a guide to student-cooking, but more realistically can be read as a case study to prove that tasty and varied food can be low budget, highly nutritious and actually require very little effort.
I think the key is buying versatile foods; the ‘4 recipes’ in this article used a lot of bulk-bought ingredients more than once. Another obviously cost-effective method of food prep was batch cooking, then sharing or freezing leftovers in a tinfoil tray (the student cook’s must-have).
The recipes I’ll share were seriously yum and made 3 decent portions. Although vegetable curry, chicken fajitas, creamy spinach and mushroom pasta and prawn stir fry aren’t necessarily ‘experimental’ in the world of culinary creativity, they were all comforting, nourishing dinners that I could look forward to during the day.
Below is a list of the ingredients purchased in a £25 ‘spree’ at Tescos:
420g bag of spinach – £1.50
Stir fry vegetable mix – £1
Bag of 3 mixed peppers – 99p
330g tub of cherry tomatoes – 90p
300 tub of closed cup mushrooms – 79p
3 onions – 30p
1 garlic – 30p
1 sweet potato – 15p
Old El Paso tortilla wraps – £1.52
Own brand mini tex-mex dip selection – £1.45
Sharwood’s 4 pack of naan – 99p
375g Sharwood’s Noodles – 87p
500g farfalle own brand pasta – 56p
Jar of Patak’s Rogan Josh curry cooking sauce – £1.89
250 ml own brand olive oil – £1.30
Old El Paso fajita seasoning – 89p
120g own brand hoi sin sauce pouch – 50p
Own brand 165g raw king prawns – £3
365g Willow Farms chicken mini fillets – £2.23
One pot of Elmlea single cream – 90p
ESSENTIAL – Tin Foil Tub Pack of 6 (£1.50) x 2 = £3
Vegetable curry
Ate one portion, shared another, froze the last
Ingredients:
- Olive oil
- One onion, sliced
- Two cloves of garlic, crushed
- Half of the bag of spinach, whole
- Whole sweet potato, chopped
- Half of the tomatoes, whole
- One red pepper (from 3 pack), chopped
- Jar of curry cooking sauce
- (Seasoning to taste)
- 1 naan bread
I’d never made a vegetable curry before, and was winging it a bit in terms of what to put in! Despite Rogan Josh traditionally being a sauce for lamb, however, it came together nicely. I fried the onion with garlic and olive oil on a high heat for one minute. I then added the pepper, sweet potato, spinach, tomatoes and the cooking sauce. I seasoned then allowed to simmer on a medium heat for 40 minutes, with the lid resting on an angle, not trapping the vapour. For me, the curry didn’t need rice as the sweet potatoes and naan bread (which I heated in the toaster!) made it a filling and hearty dish.
Chicken fajitas
Ate one portion, shared another, refrigerated the last and had for lunch on-the-go the following day (this broke up my day-long Billy-B session very nicely!)
Ingredients:
- Olive oil
- One onion, sliced
- One clove of garlic, crushed
- All of the chicken, sliced into chunks
- Green and yellow pepper (from 3 pack), sliced
- Fajita seasoning
- 4 or 5 Tortilla wraps
- Tex-mex dips
Fajitas are so easy and the first dish I ever learnt to cook. At home I used to marinade the chicken in fajita spices before frying, but who has time for that at University? (All BA students, let’s be honest.) My new and efficient method involved frying the onion and garlic in olive oil for a few minutes, then adding the chicken and peppers before stirring in a ready-made fajita seasoning. Once the meat was cooked through, I heated a few wraps in the microwave and added salsa, sour cream and guacamole (all in a handy mini dip selection!) to serve.
Creamy spinach and mushroom pasta
Ate one portion, shared another, froze the last
Ingredients:
- Olive oil
- One onion, diced
- Two cloves of garlic, crushed
- Half of the mushrooms, chopped
- The remaining spinach, whole
- The whole pot of cream
- (Seasoning to taste)
- 2 ½ cups of pasta
This was probably the easiest dish of them all! I simply sautéed the onion, garlic and spinach in oil for a couple of minutes before adding the mushrooms. Once these had softened I added the pot of cream, stirred then seasoned. I then brought to the boil then turned off the heat while boiling my pasta. Once this was ready I warmed up my sauce on a low heat then stirred it through the pasta bows. Voila!
Stir fry
Ate one portion, shared the remaining two (my housemates are lucky that I’m scared of reheating prawns!)
Ingredients:
- One onion, sliced
- One clove of garlic, crushed
- The remaining mushrooms, thinly sliced
- Vegetable mix
- Whole pouch of hoi sin sauce
- (Oil and seasoning to taste)
- All of the prawns
- 2 disks of noodles
This was my favourite dish of them all! I got my wok really hot before frying the onion and garlic in oil for 30 seconds before adding the veg, mushrooms and hoi sin sauce. I kept this mix moving in the pan for a few minutes so that the vegetables didn’t go soggy. After taking the ingredients off the heat I began boiling the noodles (this shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes) then moved the veg out of the wok and into a large bowl. In the remaining oils, I fried the prawns which took but a few minutes to brown. Once the noodles were ready I drained them and brought all the ingredients together in the wok, making sure the prawns were coated in sauce. This was a huge meal but really hit the spot!
So, there you have it! 4 varied and balanced recipes, making 12 meals for £25! In making these dinners, I freed up a lot of time to get on top of things in the first few weeks of University, and will certainly feel healthy and thrifty enough to indulge in a guilt-free Paddy’s in front of Netflix from time to time!
Image Credits:
https://unsplash.com/photos/vuDXJ60mJOA
Taken by the author
Taken by the author