So you’re off to uni…yet quite possibly like me…you never cooked before in your life! Here’s five simple recipes you can master
simple student meals
I remember starting university and living on absolute rubbish such instant noodles and ready meals, not only were they bad for me, they also drained my wallet. With no personal chef/cook (the parents) what do you do? How do you start learning to cook? Well I’ve picked out five of the simple student meals I used in my first year to keep me going!
Chicken wrapped in bacon
Ingredients
2 chicken breasts
4 pieces of bacon
2 cloves garlic, crushed or finely grated
Your choice of cheese
Chips
Salad
Method
- Preheat oven to around 180c
- Cut a pouch in each chicken breast and stuff with your choice of cheese and put one of the garlic cloves in each breast
- Securely wrap two pieces of bacon around each breast
- Put on a tray and put in the oven for around 30 minutes
- Cook your chips
- Plate up your salad
Simple Potato Salad
Ingredients
New potatoes
Spring Onions
Fresh Lemon
Mayonnaise
Salt & Pepper
Method
- Boil the potatoes until cooked. Allow to cool
- Chop the spring onions into little pieces and add to the bowl
- Squeeze half a lemon into the bowl
- Add the mayonnaise and season well.
- Keep in the fridge!
Sweet Potato & Chick Pea curry
Ingredients
Oil
1tbsp cumin seeds
2 onions diced
Salt/Pepper
2 Garlic cloves thinly sliced
1/2 tsp of chilli powder
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp of ginger
400g chickpeas
400g chopped tomatoes
750g sweet potato in bite size chunks
250g potato in bite size chunks
Rice
Method
- Heat frying pan to medium high heat and add oil, wait until hot then add cumin seeds. After around a minute add the onion and a dash of salt and pepper. Cook for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, coriander & chilli. Cook for another 5 minutes
- Add the drained chickpeas with the chopped tomatoes and potato. Add around 600ml of water. Bring to a simmer whilst stirring the pot
- Cover and cook simmering for an hour
- Season with salt/pepper. Serve with rice.
Student Chilli with a kick
Ingredients
500g of beef mince meat
1 onion Chopped
1 can of Chopped Tomatoes
1 chopped red pepper
2 Beef Stock Cube
1 Tin of Kidney Beans (drain and rinse before you use)
Around 2 squirts of Tomato Puree
Chilli Powder, Cumin, Paprika, Sugar (1 teaspoon of each)
2 Cloves of Chopped Garlic
A little bit of olive oil (to cook in)
Method
- Put a little olive oil into a frying pan.
- Once hot fry the chopped onion and garlic until the onions start to go brown.
- Add the chilli powder, cumin, paprika, sugar with the red pepper and cook for another couple of minutes.
- Turn up the heat and slowly add the mince meat, constantly stirring and prodding as you do.
- Add stock cube, chopped tomatoes and 300ml of water. Stir well
- Add the tomato puree and stir in
- Season with salt and pepper
- Put the lid on and let it gently bubble for 30 minutes
- Add the kidney beans and stir in
- Simmer for 10 – 15 minutes before serving
- Lower the heat and leave to simmer for 6-10 minutes so it can thicken.
Serve on rice or a jacket potato with a spoonful of sour cream, great for freezing into separate portions as well (this recipe should give you 4 portions!) You can use the same base for this for a spaghetti bolognese but add mixed herbs not chilli/cumin/paprika and replace the kidney beans with more other vegetables (can be frozen veg.)
Marmite Spaghetti
Ingredients
1 tsp marmite – or vegemite if you prefer
Knob of butter
1/2 cup pasta water
Handful of spaghetti
Grated parmesan
Method
- Cook the spaghetti as per the packet
- 5 mins before cooking end time heat the butter marmite and 1/2 cup pasta water until melted
- Toss pasta with marmite mixture and sprinkle with lots of parmesan