Best Simple & Quick Meal Ideas for Students 2024

Depending on your tastes, you could research something special and start to practice your own style of cooking maybe once per week. Here are some Simple & Quick Meal Ideas for Students.

Simple & Quick Meal Ideas for Students

They say that home is where the heart is. For anybody who has flown the nest and moved away to live in university or college accommodation, you’ll also know that home is where the refrigerator and someone to cook your food can be found. From all your favorite evening meals and the aromas that fill the house to go with it, to snacks and quick fixes that seem to appear from nowhere to cure our rumbling stomachs, home is the place we miss for many reasons, and many of those reasons are to do with food.

Now, nobody is expecting students with little or no experience in the kitchen to put together a five course meal every evening - or any evening, for that matter - but it really is time to start looking a little deeper into your options than relying on cereal and sandwiches. Depending on your tastes, you could even research something special and start to practice your own style of cooking maybe once per week. You could look into a Chilli Prawn Recipe, or a Thai green curry recipe, or a homemade meatballs and spaghetti bolognese recipe. The options are all out there waiting to be found.

Chicken and rice (and sauce)

Ever bought a whole chicken? No? Scared you wouldn’t know what to do with it? Here’s the recipe for cooked chicken. You take a whole chicken from the supermarket (which is so cheap you’ll wonder how the price can seriously be that low), you take it out of its packaging, and this is where it gets technical … you put it on a baking tray, and you put it in the oven. Got that? I feel like we may have gone a little fast. OK, OK, I jest, I’ll stop. The cooking time (just over 2 hours, usually) and oven settings are printed on the packaging the whole chicken came in. Add microwavable rice and a sauce of your choice, and one chicken can provide multiple meals. Easy and delicious - you’re welcome.

Pasta bake (with chicken, tuna, … you name it)

If you thought the ‘chicken+oven’ recipe was easy, wait until you see how easy a pasta bake can be. You take dry pasta out of the packet and put it in an oven dish. Next, add some meat of your choice, and some veg if you’re feeling adventurous (maybe some tomato if you’re adding a tomato based pasta bake sauce?). Next, add the pasta bake sauce straight from the jar. I mean, the prep time on this one is so fast that you’ll feel like taking your time to grate some cheese on top just to make yourself feel a little more like a chef. Cooking time is around 30 mins. Enjoy!

If you’re feeling a bit more adventurous, then mix it up - try different ingredients and recipes. This is the time for experimenting, and really, what’s the worst that could happen? You may well discover you’re a dab hand in the kitchen, so don’t shy away from trial and error.