The “broke college student” is a cliche, but it has some basis in truth. What is not uniformly acknowledged is that college students are really lazy when it comes to food. Why take the time to prepare an actually nutritious meal when you can have Doritos or Oreos for breakfast?
Cheap and Easy Recipe #1: for Breakfast.
Cheese (preferably not moldy)
Crackers or bread
Fruit juice.
The cheese is the expensive part of this recipe, but you can eat it for a snack later. If you want, substitute Nutella or peanut butter for the cheese. The idea is to have some sort of protein with your starch and sugar. There’s enough in the cheese for this to be an excellent light breakfast.
Cheap and Easy Recipe #2: for Lunch.
Bread or crackers.
tuna or chicken.
raisins, nuts (all optional)
mayonnaise.
Seriously, chicken salad. it makes a great sandwich, or works well straight from the bowl with crackers. Same for tuna salad. Remember to drain the chicken before mixing it with the mayonnaise. If you want, you can add nuts or raisins for an even better culinary experience.
Cheap and Easy Recipe #3: for Dinner
chicken flavor rice-a-roni
can chicken.
Follow box directions. Drain chicken. Add to rice.
The rice may require butter or oil; make sure you have that on hand before you begin. Be sure to refrigerate any leftovers. After all, you’ve gone to all the trouble of cooking. May as well keep what you make.
Pasta of your choice.
Spaghetti sauce.
Ground beef (optional)
Boil water. Dump pasta in with a little bit of butter or oil to keep the noodles from sticking together. A pinch of salt will keep it from boiling over. In a skillet, brown ground beef and drain the grease off. In that same skillet, add sauce. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Let it simmer (stirring occasionally) about 15 minutes. Drain pasta. Top with sauce and serve.
I made spaghetti for myself and two other people and still came away with enough leftovers for about 3 meals.
Boil water, dump in macaroni. Let cook until tender. Add cheese sauce/powder and milk. Stir until sauce is evenly distributed. Slice hot dogs, cook in microwave until done. Dump pieces in macaroni, stir, and serve. If you decide to use canned chicken, drain the chicken before dumping it into the macaroni.
Minute Rice
1/4-1/2 tsp Curry Powder
Raisins
1/4 cup Honey.
Cook rice, then while it is still hot add curry powder and some raisins. Add honey. Stir until curry powder is evenly distributed. This is the most expensive recipe in this article; spices in general are a bit pricey. Works well with just about any meat you want to pair with it.
If you refrigerate the dip, it should last for a while. If it starts sprouting bits of green fuzz, do not eat it. Give it to the nearest biology major or throw it out. Throwing it at the roommate does not count as throwing it out.
Square or rectangular baking pan with sides.
Large can peaches.
Yellow cake mix.
Dump peaches into baking dish and spread them out until they are more or less even. Sprinkle cake mix on top. Bake at 350 until cake mix turns golden-brown. Do not let the cake mix on top turn black. Letting it turn black may result in the smoke detector going off and the fire department being called.
The key to college cooking is to cook things that you can get more than one meal out of. This will keep you from buying as many groceries, which will keep your costs down. College dorms do not always have spectacular storage space, so try to cook recipes that do not require a lot of equipment. Good luck and bon appetit!
