Ah, university. When you break away from home life and live the independent life with all the freedom of adulthood. Parties, TV until 3am and a diet of fast food sounds great until one day you just crave some home cooked food and you realise the time has come that you learn to cook but you really don’t want to spend ages on it. So to help you out, here are my 8 easy university dishes under an hour.
This is basic, I know. But so versatile and it’s a staple of students for a reason. Pasta is cooked in 15 minutes and you can chuck a jarred sauce over it and voila! A tasty and somewhat nutritious meal is prepared. The best bit? All leftovers can be eaten cold and taken into uni for your lunch the next day, so what isn’t to love, really?
This will hark back memories of home for many, and for good reason. It just tastes SO. GOOD. A few sausages under the grill, potatoes boiled and mashed, veg (if you fancy) and then as much gravy as you can stomach. Not only does this have the components of a good meal but it really is comfort food.
Soup is actually really easy to make when you look at it. Vegetables put in stock and boiled until soft and then blended. That’s it! Then you can have it with bread and butter and feel like you’re using mum’s own recipe all over again. A personal favourite is sweet potato, onion, butternut squash and vegetable stock. Yum.
This is decadent for students I know, but hear me out. As most students know, supermarkets have a reduced section of food about to expire or that’s damaged. And there is often a steak or two hanging around there: grab a reduced steak to save some cash, some oven chips, frozen veg and sauce of choice and you have what will soon become your fanciest meal of the week (this also works really well if you’re trying to impress a date).
This is customisable to what you like, and also many different pre-made sauces have been concocted to really make it easy to taste nice. Add meat in if you want to add that protein! This is literally made in about 15 minutes so it’s probably one of the quickest on this list.
Take a fillet of fish, wrap it in foil with some lemon and herbs and serve it with whatever you want. The easiest thing with fish too is the number of ways it can be prepared: boiled in milk, baked, fried, grilled. Whatever oven you have you can almost certainly accommodate it.
The longest part of this dish is waiting for it to simmer: otherwise, you can use whatever you like to cater to your tastes. My personal favourite is spinach and cream cheese (with a dash of white wine). I was taught this by my mother, so every time I make it I really do feel like she’s here with me instead of hours and hours away!
Another personal favourite and family recipe, this involves minced meat and vegetables, fried, mixed with gravy and then baked with mashed potato on top. For extra comfort add some cheese to the mash (a must in my case).
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