Quick and Healthy Food Ideas for a Busy Student

With an early start combined with a long day of lectures, the last thing you want to be doing is spending ages preparing and cooking your meals. Nobody likes to be ‘hangry’! So I’ve put together a few tips and food ideas to help you to organise your meals efficiently and maintain that balance.

Breakfast

Personally, breakfast is my favourite meal of the day.

Breakfast gives you the chance to start the day positively with some fresh, wholesome foods that will provide you with lots of energy. It can often be tempting to skip breakfast, especially if you’re in a rush to make your 9am lecture – we’ve definitely all been there. But in actual fact, there are no excuses.  Breakfast can really take just a couple of minutes to make. Pop some bread in the toaster and top it with some nibbles such as goji berries, chia seeds and a delicious nut butter and you can eat it on-the-go. Fruit salads are also another one of my favourites. You can prepare this the night before and keep it in a container inside the fridge ready to take out in the morning.

Lunch

I often found myself struggling for lunch ideas – it’s definitely not the most exciting meal of the day (unless you’re going for a cheeky Chicken Joes). After scrolling through Pinterest for some lunch inspiration, I realised that it doesn’t have to boring and repetitive. My go-to lunches at the moment are chicken or salmon salads. I usually just throw in whatever I can find in my fridge along with whatever needs using up.

I also utilise the ‘cook once, eat twice’ rule when it comes to lunch – it saves so much time and washing up. Many subject buildings on campus actually have social spaces with a microwave you can freely use. This week, I cooked a Bolognese with courgetti for dinner and popped the leftovers in a tub to take to uni the next day.

Dinner

Courgetti and boodles (butternut squash noodles) are everywhere in supermarkets these days. They’re a great alternative to pasta (good for those of you who have a gluten/wheat intolerance). If you have a spiralizer you can also make them yourself for a fraction of the price. I often cook my courgetti/boodles with a Bolognese or chicken sausages along with whatever vegetables I can find in the fridge. It’s so quick and easy to make (even better if you use the ‘cook one, eat twice rule’ because you’ll have some left for lunch/dinner the following day).

Snacks

A day of food wouldn’t be complete without some kind of chocolate-y goodness! This week I made healthy chocolate and peanut butter flapjacks.

Ingredients:

• 80 g Oats
• 2 tbsp Cacao powder
• 2 tbsp Coconut oil
• 2 tbsp Honey (or another kind of natural sweetener)
• 2 tbsp Peanut butter (you can take this out if you’re not a fan or even swap it for a different kind)

Method:

• Melt the coconut oil, nut butter and honey together in a pan on a medium heat
• Slowly stir in the oats
• Add your preferred amount of cacao powder (the more, the better!) and mix together
• Pop the mixture into a baking tray/cake cases and place in the freezer to harden for 30 minutes

Editeds by: Tia Ralhan

Sources:

Images are writers own.

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