Students Sharpen Cooking Skills to Cut Food Costs and Boost Wellbeing
Skyrocketing food prices and health issues have encouraged university students such as Mia Jones to embrace cooking, allowing them to take charge of both their expenses and nutrition. Homemade food helps lower weekly expenses while boosting students’ self-reliance and vitality.
A Hunger for Change in Student Kitchens
Moving from Anglesey to London for university at age 22, Mia Jones quickly realized her eating habits needed an overhaul. She remembered how a steady diet of instant noodles and ready meals led to spending as much as £45 a week on groceries—an amount she soon recognized as unsustainable.
Prompted by her budget, Mia started purchasing fresh ingredients and learning to cook, drawing inspiration from social media and adapting recipes by swapping out disliked foods. While she admitted to initial failures, Mia now feels accomplished by mastering these skills. “It made me realise I could function on my own and live on my own,” she reflected, emphasizing how different she is from her first-year self.
This shift produced rewards beyond mere savings. By preparing food herself, she was able to reduce her weekly shopping bill by £20. Additionally, Mia found herself more energized for her university classes.
Now holding a master’s degree, Mia publishes recipes online to help fellow students take those first steps toward independent cooking. She also weighed in on The Food Chain with essential recipes new university students should know. Listen on Sounds
Recipes That Make Student Life Simpler (and Cheaper)
Among Mia’s top recommendations, the straightforward chickpea curry stands out: “It’s very cheap and very nutritious,” she shared. She also makes easy udon noodles, describing it as “a 10 minute recipe, it’s easily customizable with tofu or chicken and really useful for a weeknight dinner.” For an extra kick, she sometimes adds chilli oil.
This way of cooking reflects a broader tendency for students to economize time and money. For instance, a basic store cupboard setup could cost less than £13, according to these budget-friendly recipes. Each dish, when supplemented with additional fresh ingredients under £2.50, yields multiple servings—making leftovers and freezing practical and affordable.
These estimated costs were assembled by the retail analytics firm Assosia, which reviewed average non-discounted prices of typical ingredient packs at Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, and Morrisons on 11 September 2026.
Students Share Their Signature Easy Dishes
Similarly, Jayda Otuo-Mensah admitted she had little cooking experience before joining Coventry University. Now 20, studying physiotherapy and managing about 40 hours of hospital placement work per week, Jayda wanted nutritious meals that didn’t take long to prepare. Cooking, she says, gives her control: “It’s a lot easier when you’re cooking because you know exactly what’s going in.”
Her meal staple is crispy teriyaki mince tacos, which she describes as “quick and affordable”. Having overcome initial difficulties using TikTok tutorials, Jayda now meal preps regularly and creates her own cooking videos.
Meanwhile, Rob Medhurst, a 25-year-old graduate from Nottingham Trent University, said his go-to dish was spaghetti bolognese: “It’s very affordable and it’s easy.” Rob focuses on batch cooking and meal prepping, repurposing recipes for dishes like chilli and burritos. Now, he describes the process as becoming “muscle memory”.
Essential Tips for Setting Up a Student Kitchen
Cookbook author and chef Claire Thompson offered further advice for those new to university life. Drawing from her own experience helping her daughter stock a supply of food before leaving home, Claire highlights the importance of staple ingredients and especially spices: “They deliver lots of flavour for not very much money, and they last well in your store cupboard,” she explained. By tossing something like chickpeas into a tomato sauce, you boost a meal’s protein and nutritional content, making dishes more satisfying at only a slight additional cost.
The experiences of Mia, Jayda, and Rob show that embracing home cooking increasingly allows students to control their budgets and diets, making a positive shift from fast and instant foods to dishes that enhance both health and finances.
- Cost of Living
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- Cookery
- Students