A beginners guide to cooking at university

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Being away from home brings the responsibility of cooking for yourself, without having the stand in chefs that are your parents to take over.

But sadly you can’t live off pot noodles, so here’s how to eat a diet of more than toast while on a student budget.

Quick tip

We know that student budgets don’t stretch that far, and organic, free range turkey twizzler are way out of your price range, so it’s worth venturing into the frozen section of supermarkets for food with a longer expiry date.

Food combos

To stop your food becoming uber-bland there are some very simple flavour combinations you can throw together. Whether you’re Jamie Oliver or Jamie who constantly burns toast, these are easy things to do.

1. Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar

This works well with a simple salad and will distract your taste buds away from the repetitive taste of leaves. This is extremely simple, and these ingredients can literally be found anywhere. You could even go wild and dip bread into this mix.

2. Orange and Carrot Juice

Ok, this is strictly a drink rather than a meal, but smoothies can be great for those dreaded 9AM lectures.

We know, orange and carrot sounds disgusting, but it’s actually pretty fantastic in liquid form. Plus it’s healthy, so you won’t be punishing your body, allowing for the occasional midnight feast to slip by without any notice.

3. Olive and Rosemary

Yet another bread related combination, but the likelihood that you’ll be eating cheap bread every day is pretty high.

Adding some simple herbs, like rosemary, to bread gives a little kick to a relatively repetitive meal.

The ultimate student lunch

Once you grow sick of meal deals (or run out money) preparing your own food is the most sensible option. Pasta is always a safe bet, and is relatively simple to prepare without burning your flat down. Although that may still happen, so be on guard.

For an even easier meal to prepare, noodles are the way to go. It won’t go off, it’s reasonably healthy, and we’ve already got a recipe for you...

3 step noodle recipe

• 1 section of noodles
• 1/3 of an onion
• Quorn style pieces/ mince
• Tomato and Herb sauce

For the salad:

• A handful of spinach
• As much pepper as you like
• A bunch of tomatoes (any kind)

1) Put olive oil in a pan and frying the Quorn pieces/mince and chopped up onion.

2) After roughly five minutes, add the tomato and herb sauce, along with boiling the kettle with enough water to submerge the noodles.

3) As soon as the water is boiled, add them to a saucepan with the noodles, and boil for roughly four minutes.

Whilst you are waiting for all of this, prepare your salad in the name of a balanced diet.

And hey presto, you’re done. A simple and easy student meal, perfect to eat on the go or sat in your dorm with Netflix as a side.

There are many other very simple meals that you can easily prepare in under five minutes, such as omelettes or potato salads. Student cooking isn’t as hard as it seems, and once you get into the swing of things this entire process will become routine rather than a daunting chore.

Now get cooking! Good luck, and try and maintain that exceptionally clean kitchen that we all know existed at some point. Or at least wash up your plate afterwards.