Even though it takes time, cooking for yourself at university has many advantages. You can cook the kind of food you like, you have more control of your ingredients and you can make healthy meals at a relatively low cost. Some people find that cooking helps relieve stress and anxiety.
One great tip is to cook in bulk/meal-prep - this means making a large quantity of a meal and then putting portions of it in the fridge or freezer to eat throughout the week. It saves time, reduces stress when you're busy, and is often cheaper than cooking every day.
But what if you haven’t done much cooking on your own before you arrive in the UK? With a little preparation and help you can get started easily:
- BBC Good Food Student Recipes is full of quick and easy recipes for students.
- Tasty claims to be the world’s largest food network. You can find recipes and videos on their website and app.
- The Big Oven App has over 500,000 recipes and helps you to shop and plan your weekly meals.
- Check out the cooking series on the University of reading current students' Instagram.
- BBC's best student kitchen essentials list.
- Learn how to cook in under 25 minutes with Joshua Weissman.