Tips and easy recipes for college

Hi! A great, mostly cheap, and easy way to make some basic healthy food is to buy chicken on sale (if you eat chicken, that is!), and marinate it in a ziploc bage as few as 2 hours, or as long as overnight. Just bake it, or if you have a grill, it goes GREAT cooked that way. In a pinch, you can use any vinaigrette to marinade anything-- from potatoes, to an assorted mix of cheaper, in season veggies, to mushrooms (used at a much shorter soak time if you don't want soggy shrooms).

Have fun cooking, save some well-needed cash, and good luck in your studies!

Ad's grad school struggle bus:

1. Get a blender! One of those blenders that will finely blend everything to paste. I got the $70 Nutri Ninja portable blender, but you can go lower in price if the budget is an issue.

2. Buy whatever veggies are on sale. My meals are basically what's cheap the day I went shopping lol. Apples are generally cheap, but as far as greens go, I try to get spinach if it's not too expensive but honestly anything will do.
Get some ziplock bags and then go hunting for sales on fruit! If it's cheap, buy it in bulk and freeze them! I found mangos for $0.50 and I bought 10 lol

My green smoothies are usually a mix of: carrots, celery, spinach, kale, lettuce, cucumber, and tomatoes for veggies; apples and whatever cheap fruits I found / froze. Bananas are good for making the smoothie consistency taste smoother. I also add chia seeds and flax seeds as well as milk. Chia seeds are a lil expensive but if you buy it in bulk from like Walmart it's not that bad. I usually do like 1 tbsp of each.

3. Chicken breast, pork, and frozen salmon fillets. While it's a little more on the expensive side, these are still pretty cheap options. Besides, since you'll get protein from the chia and flax seeds, you don't need to eat as much meat. I recommend salmon because it's more nutritious. I don't recommend the cheaper options such as swai as they aren't nutritious and you might as well get chicken at that point. I just throw it on the skillet for 2-4 minutes on each side (depending on what youre cooking), season, and voila.

4. Rice, beans, and potatoes! Well, sweet potatoes for me. Green smoothies plus a sweet potato and some protein usually gets me through the day!

I stay around $150 / month on my food budget I believe. Although the biggest killer for me is when I go shopping while hungry and come back from the store with 10 boxes of cookies ;-.;

@chocolate201314

Another thing that I might recommend in addition to the other great suggestions that were mentioned, ..... One thing that worked for me with a Hectic schedule was "Planning and cooking AHEAD" of time... Take ONE day, PRE-make your meals, snacks, etc... and Box/Bag them up for at least 4 days ahead of time..... I would do mine on Sundays.... and then Bag them ahead of time for up to Thursday at least.

I would Cook One food staple (Chicken, Salmon, Soup, etc..etc..) that I could eat every day or 'mix-up" every day for my LUNCH....... Do hard-boiled eggs for BREAKFAST and bag them up, Or take a muffin pan and make egg white muffins! (Add veggies or whatever) and bake for 20 minutes!... these are very easily re-heated!.... I would also make up "Baggies" of Fruits, or almonds, or veggie sticks (like carrots, celery, thin pretzels etc...) for my SNACKS. Also they have premade Hummus and Pretzel snack bowls at the store, as well as Yogurt and fruit bowls, or Almond and Cheese bowls.... You can take these for Snacks as well or make your own!.....

And then for Dinner, I would make One form of Meat, or whatever your staple is (Tofu, etc...etc..) and have it ready to mix up for my DINNER with a small salad etc..etc...

The important thing is to PLAN ahead, Pre-make things that can last you for up to a week.. AND don't forget COUPONS!! Good Luck!

@chocolate201314

We could give you recipes with cheap ingredients but if you don`t like them, you won`t cook them. So maybe the first step is to think about what you like eating and start from there.

I love this thread! It really depends on what type of space you have in your college. Some people get a full kitchen while others only have a mini-fridge in their dorm room.

Freshman year of college, I lived off protein shakes! (They have blenders where it only blends a cups worth so you aren't making too much). I was making a healthy shake most days in the morning to start off right. And then I ate a lot of raw fruits and veggies during the day. And I agree a chicken is a great way to go! You can also do some fish during the week but omenga-3s have conflicting research on it. You can also make yourself eggs or soup if you decide to buy a electric burner (given that you don't have a full kitchen). I lived in a dorm for two years so I have experience trying to cook without a kitchen..

I am happy to share complete recipes if you like!

@chocolate201314 Have you considered meal prepping? I know not too many people like reddit but their meal prep sub reddit is amazing.

Also popsugar has many healthy recipes as part of their popsugarfitness site

Check out this website:

https://greatist.com/health/cheap-healthy-recipe-collection

Frozen and canned fruits and vegetables are often cheaper, especially when not in season and often have more nutrients than fresh. Just check the ingredients to see what's been added.

Looking back I wished I had used my slow cooker more often. It wouldn't have worked great on weekdays, but I could have used it on weekends if I wasn't putting in a full day at school or another option is to cook things overnight - portion them out and allow to cool as soon as getting up and then stick in the fridge/freezer before leaving. I use it a fair bit now and may things do not take much prep!