11 essential cooking tips for students

In todays post we'd like to present you some tips to make you save some money, help the environment and make your life essier. Hope you enjoy!!!!

 

1. Use more food seasoning🍉🍐🍒🍓

   Believe us, a good bit of seasoning can transform even the most drab and bland food into something spectacular. Whats more, buying seasoing food has got a good impact in our environment. 

   
   

2. Stock up on basic cupboard supplies📕📗

    

   The more cooking you do, the more you'll notice that a lot of recipes use the same base ingredients. It's therefore a good idea to stock up on these, as it's a lot easier to throw together meals if you know you have the majority of the ingredients already in your cupboard. Luckily, we have a full list of student cupboard essentials that'll steer you in the right direction!

    

3. Learn an easy tomato sauce recipe🍅🍅🍅

    

   Learn how to make a simple but amazing tomato sauce and you're sorted! Not only are these great for pastas, but you can also use a base like this for Spanish-style stews, casseroles, enchiladas, Bolognese, chilli con carne and more.

   Everyone has their own way of making a sauce like this using their own favourite flavours and spices. Once you have it nailed down, you can simply add whatever meat and/or veg and serve it up with any other ingredients that you fancy, like couscous, rice, pasta or potatoes.

    

4. Buy the right kitchen pans📌

    

   Most people think they'll cook better food if they have a greater assortment of pans, but you really just need two pans. If you can, try to get one good one and one cheap one. We'd recommend getting a fairly decent quality non-stick frying pan that has a bit of depth to it and a lid.

   Aside from soups, you can cook pretty much anything in a pan like this, and non-sticks are also very easy to clean.

   The second pan we'd recommend getting is a cheap, deeper pan for aforementioned soup-cooking. It also helps a huge amount when preparing a meal if you can have two compartments of a meal cooking at the same time.

    

5. Use a microwave more💥

    

   Microwaves are underrated. Admittedly the microwave is never going to be as good as hobs or an oven at making quality food, but it does require a lot less effort to use, and leads to a lot less washing up too. Our list of foods you didn't know you could cook in the microwave is full of hidden gems, ranging from poppadoms to salmon to caramel sauce.

    

6. Start freezing food💨

   One of the biggest kitchen controversies you're likely to encounter as a student is the battle over freezer space. This is because freezers are like a godsend for students living on a budget, as they can make your food last months longer.

   A trick to avoid squabbles is to opt for freezer bags instead of boxes, as they take up way less room. You can even go as far as scooping single portions of soups, sauces or whatever else into individual bags that you can then defrost as and when you need them. Ideal.

   
   

7. Try one-pot recipes👆

   
   

   We're massive fans of one-pot dinners – they're really easy, and can be divided up into different portions and eaten throughout the week. Not only this, but one-pot meals tend to be cheap to make and involve minimal washing up.

   Our simple soup recipes will get you started. Or, if you've got a slow cooker, you could also try our tasty pulled pork recipe.

    

8. Cook with vegetarian mince🍏🌽🌸

   If you're yet to try 💚vegetarian💚 alternatives to meat like Quorn, we can confirm it's really great.

   The most popular Quorn product is probably the mince which, aside from having a much lower fat content and almost as much protein as regular mince, is also much cheaper. What's more, you can keep it in the freezer for many, many moons.

   As for the taste? Most mince recipes involve a sauce of some kind, and both meat and Quorn end up absorbing the flavour of that anyway.

   Although the texture of Quorn is slightly different to meat, you'll struggle to notice any real difference if you're using it in a spaghetti Bolognese, chilli con carne, or whatever else takes your fancy.

   If you're not a mince fan, you'll also be able to find meat-free burgers, chicken, sausages and much more at the supermarket. All low in fat, high in protein, and much better for the environment (and your wallet) than standard meat products.

    

9. Learn cooking skills from friends and family👰👦👧

   Cooking with friends and flatmates is a really good way to improve your skills in the kitchen. You may not be a fan of all of their cooking techniques, but just seeing how other people cook and prepare food is great practice and will broaden your culinary knowledge.

   Remember that your way isn't necessarily the right way in the kitchen. People can get quite defensive when their kitchen techniques are questioned, so try to be open-minded – you never know, it might be nice to try a new onion-chopping method out sometime.

   
   

10. Go food shopping with friends👫👫

    
    

    Whether or not to go food shopping with friends is definitely a matter of personal choice – some people prefer to shop alone so they don't get distracted by other people's purchases, which is completely understandable.

    The benefit of shopping with someone else, though, is that a lot of supermarkets run buy one get free (BOGOF) offers, or multibuys that can generally work out as a lot cheaper than buying products individually.

     

11. Get to grips with meal planning💪💪

Planning your meals ahead will save you a lot of money, and can be a lot healthier, as it helps you avoid the temptation of buying food while you're out or getting a takeaway. Deciding on your meals for the week means you'll only buy exactly what you need from the supermarket. The same applies to lunches – make sure you have enough of everything to last you the week, or life will get in the way and you'll find yourself in KFC at lunch to save time.