10 Easy Student Recipes

That’s right, we’ve got ten of the best student recipes for saving money as a student. These recipes are healthy...ish, delicious and most importantly of all, affordable.

Here, we have the ingredients and method for you.

So let’s jump in and see what cheap student recipes we've got for you!

1.) Homemade Pizza

The Holy Grail of Italian cuisine that the English and Americans have somehow managed to totally butcher. However, this is certainly one of the more simple student recipes and will be one of the student recipes that you will probably use the most!

Ingredients:

• Self-raising flour: 100g
• Milk: 60ml
• Chopped tomatoes: 1 Tin
• Grated cheese
• Olive oil: 1 Tablespoon
• Herbs: A light sprinkle
• Toppings: Anything you like, just not pineapple.

Method:

• Preheat your oven to 200°C (if it’s a fan oven, then 180°C and if it’s a gas oven, then Gas Mark 6).
• Have your toppings ready (pro tip: If it’s pineapple, throw it in the bin and don’t use it).
• Put your self-raising flour, milk and oil into the mixing bowl and mix with your hands to form your pizza dough.
• Sprinkle some flour onto a hard, flat surface.
• Tip your pizza dough onto the flour and roll into a circle (or whatever shape you want your pizza to take). Roll your pizza dough to the thickness of about two pound coins.
• Place your dough onto a baking tray.
• Spread your tomato and cheese.
• Bake on the top shelf of the oven for about 20 minutes.
• Serve and eat.
• Take out the rubbish with the pineapple slices you foolishly prepared earlier.

Easy enough, right? Well, that’s the beauty of a homemade pizza, it’s easy to make, creative and tasty, this also qualifies as one of many student vegan recipes as well, depending on your toppings.

2.) Spaghetti Bolognese

In keeping with the Italian theme and the butchering of classic Latin dishes, we've gone with the hugely popular spaghetti bolognese! Depending on what meat substitute you use, this also counts as one of our vegan student recipes as well as a carnivorous meal.

Ingredients:

• Beef mince: 250g (or whatever meat substitute any of our vegan students want to use)
• Onions: 2
• Garlic cloves sliced: 2
• Mushrooms sliced: 100g (optional)
• Chopped tomatoes: 2 tins
• Herbs
• Sauce of your choosing: 1 tablespoon
• Packet of spaghetti: Half
• Cheese (optional, although let’s be fair here, you’re going to want cheese)
• Rocket

Method:

• Heat your 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large frying pan and then add your beef mince and break up the mince. Fry until the meat is brown.
• Add in your onions and fry them until they are soft, then add in mushrooms (if you're having them) and fry them until soft, then add garlic.
• As this is going on, cook your spaghetti in salted boiling water for 10 minutes, don’t use too much salt, a light salting will be enough.
• Drain and then serve with bolognese, tomatoes, herbs, sauces and sprinkle on the no doubt mountain of cheese you’ve made and salad.

Any culinary expert will soon be whipping up Italian dishes, like they’re in the prison scene of Goodfellas before long. This is easily one of the best student recipes for university students and it’s an extremely healthy dinner as well!

3.) Homemade Pot Noodle

When we saw that this was one of the easy student recipe, we thought it would be a simple explanation of buying a Pot Noodle and then sticking it in the microwave, and we could all head down the pub for a job well-done, but alas, no.

This is actually one of the more healthy student recipes, student noodle recipes and also counts as yet another one of our vegetarian student recipes as well!

Ingredients:

• Nest of noodles: 1
• Fresh chilli: half (chilli flakes work well too)
• Chicken or vegetable stock: 2 tablespoons
• Small tomatoes: 3 or 4
• Accoutrement (basically, chopped and cooked chicken, mushrooms, cabbage or anything else you want to use)
• A lot of boiling water on hand to cover the food

Method:

• Put all the ingredients into a bowl (the larger the better, but small enough to apply) and pour in boiling hot water.
• Let it rest for 2 or 3 minutes, with a cheeky stir here or there.
• Serve and eat.

Yep, that’s all you need! How simple is that? Quick student recipes are rare to come by, especially when they’re this tasty as well! And as Brooklyn 99’s own Jake Peralta tells us, you can even crumble some noodles on top to give it that extra crunchy taste, who knew that Netflix could be so useful for good student recipes!?

4.) Homemade Pasta Sauce

After a brief interlude to head over to Asia to check out how to make noodles in our quest to find the ultimate student meal recipes, we head back to the world of Italian food. However, this time we will be looking at how to make pasta sauce, rather than a fully-cooked meal.

Ingredients:

• Olive oil: 1 tablespoon
• Chopped tomatoes: 1 tin
• Garlic cloves (chopped): 2
• Herbs
• Vegetable stock: 1 tablespoon
• Cooked pasta
• Cheese (optional, although you’re probably going to make a mountain of it anyway)

Method:

• Heat the olive oil in a small saucepan and then add the garlic and fry for 30 seconds.
• Pour in your chopped tomatoes and your vegetable stock as well as the herbs you have.
• Stir it until it’s nice and hot and add it to your pasta.
• Sprinkle cheese.
• Serve and eat.

As easy as it gets, maybe not as easy as the Homemade Pot Noodle, but still effective nevertheless. This is good if you’re looking for student recipes for one, student veggie recipes or general student pasta recipes. Just be mindful that pasta sauce should be spread across your pasta for maximum flavour.

5.) Fajitas

After rinsing Italy for all the best cuisine, we’re now taking a stopover in Mexico to see if there is an easy way to make the wonderful food of fajitas! Our uni student recipes are always aimed at making your dinner as cheaply as possible, but here we have the winning combo of being cheap and being delicious as well.

Ingredients:

• Sunflower oil: 1 tablespoon
• Chicken breast (diced): 2
• Mixed peppers (sliced): 2
• Onion (sliced): 1
• Garlic cloves: 2
• Chilli powder: 1
• Paprika: 1 spoonful
• Cumin: 1 spoonful
• Tortilla bread

Method:

• Heat your oil in a large frying pan.
• Fry the chicken until nearly cooked the whole way through.
• Add peppers and onions and fry them until soft.
• Add garlic and fry for 30 seconds.
• Add in chilli powder, paprika and cumin and stir.
• Serve in the tortilla wraps.

Another cheap and easy one of our student-friendly recipes and quick student recipes for you to have a look at!

6.) Hamburgers, Chips and Salad

Okay, so not every student recipe that we have in here is going to be particularly healthy, in fact, in this case, it’s very unhealthy, but we all need a bit of a cheat day every now and again, right!?

Anyway, there’s plenty of ways to living a healthy university lifestyle, but here, we’ll indulge the more unhealthy side of it.

Ingredients:

• Sunflower Oil: 1 tablespoon
• Burger buns: 4
• Beef burgers: 4 (or alternatively, use mince to make your own burgers)
• Oven chips
• Salad bag: 1
• Tomato (sliced): 1
• Cheese (optional)

Method:

• Bake your chips in the oven.
• Fry your burgers on medium-high heat for around 6 or 7 minutes on each side.
• Serve in your burger buns.
• Serve and eat.

This one is just as easy as the noodles and a little bit more exciting as well!

7.) Twice-Baked Potato

Filling, easy-to-make and doesn’t run the risk of burning your student accommodation down? Then you need the twice-baked potato! It’s delicious, healthy and also a good vegetarian option as well!

Ingredients:

• Large baking Potatoes: 4
• Olive oil: 2 Tablespoons
• Spring onions (sliced): 6
• Bacon lardons: 100g
• Unsalted butter: 50g
• Salt and pepper

Method:

• Preheat your oven to 200°C (if it’s a fan oven, then 180°C and if it’s a gas oven, then Gas Mark 6).
• Pierce your potatoes all over with a fork (don’t go all Patrick Bateman on them), rub half of the oil on them and apply salt and pepper.
• Put them in the oven for an hour and fifteen minutes.
• Fry your spring onion and your bacon in the oil you have left, once it’s cooked, place on some kitchen paper to dry off.
• Cut your potatoes in half lengthways and scoop the potatoes into a bowl.
• Sprinkle your spring onions, bacon and butter on top.
• Put the potatoes back into the potato skins.
• Sprinkle cheese or butter over the top.
• Bake for another 15 minutes or so.
• Serve and eat.

This one takes a little longer than our other student healthy recipes or other student dinner recipes, but it will taste just as good and will look just as nice! You also get the added benefit of some nutrition and fibre into your diet, which is pretty nice as well, and also, you get bacon, and bacon is always a win.

8.) Halloumi flatbread

Now we’re onto something that’s really more of a snack than a meal of sorts, but we’re looking to get you some healthy and cheap food, so this will still tick all of the boxes required. This is about medium cooking time, including prep and can serve quite a few people. It may not be a lazy student recipe, like beans on toast, but it’s as effective, if not more so!

Ingredients:

• Pumpkin seeds: 50g
• Cumin seeds: 2 tablespoons
• Red cabbage (650g, no core and shredded): 1
• Mixed peppers (stripped): 2
• White wine vinegar: 2 tablespoons
• Extra virgin olive oil: 2 tablespoons
• Flatbreads or wraps: Between 6 and 8
• 80g rocket: 1 bag
• Hummus: 100g
• 250g blocks of halloumi cut into 12 strips: 2

Method:

• Toast the pumpkin seeds with the cumin seeds in a larger frying pan until you can see them popping, then put them in a large bowl.
• Add the cabbage, vinegar and peppers and season them, mix them and then set them aside.
• Heat your oven low and put the bread in to warm all the way through.
• Fry the halloumi in batches for 3 minutes on each side until crispy and golden, using the pan that you used to toast the seeds.
• Put them in the oven.
• Put some hummus on each flatbread and top it off with some rocket.
• Add the pumpkin seeds and cabbage on top of the flatbread.
• Serve and eat.

While it can be fiddly, halloumi flatbread is the way to go! It will have you wanting more as it’s quite moreish, but you’ll want to cook it again and again, so you’ll become a student chef in no time at all!

9.) Tomato Soup with Cheesy Bread

If the rapper Chamillionaire is correct in that he has been stacking cheddar, then this is the perfect recipe for him and it’s also one of the perfect student soup recipes as well. It doesn’t take long to cook and it’s easy to make as well as being pretty darn delicious as well!

Ingredients:

• Ciabatta bread mix: 500g
• Garlic butter: 100g
• Dried oregano: 2 tablespoons
• Grated cheddar or mozzarella: 175g
• A little bit of oil (you can pick the kind and amount)
• Carrot (chopped): 1
• Onion (chopped): 1
• 400g canned plum tomatoes: 2
• Vegetable stock cube: 1
• Half-fat crème fraîche: 100g
• Pinch of sugar (optional)

Method:

• Heat your oven to 200°C (if it’s a fan oven, then 180°C and if it’s a gas oven, then Gas Mark 6).
• Make up the bread mix using the instructions on the pack and roll into a smallish rectangle.
• Spread the 75g of garlic butter and half of your oregano and sprinkle the cheese on and roll it all up, like you would with a Swiss Roll.
• Cut into 8 slices.
• Cover the bread with any leftover butter and bake the bread for 25-30 minutes. Pro Tip: leave them in cling film, while you prepare the soup.
• Heat the remaining garlic butter in a pan until it starts foaming.
• Add onion and carrot and cook until softened.
• Pour in your tomatoes.
• Crumble the stock cube over and add in the remaining oregano and simmer for 20 minutes, then stir and add in your half-fat crème fraîche.
• Blend and season.
• Add boiling water.
• Serve and eat.

Homemade soup is always the way to go, and it beats some of the canned alternatives that you can find in Tescos and in other shops.

10.) Smoky bacon pot noodle

Our final recipe is about as easy as it gets! For the fans of one of our earlier student noodle recipes, you will love this one! Here we have a pot noodle, but with the most delicious of foods...bacon! Easy recipes students can make are difficult to come by, but this one is as easy as it gets!

Ingredients:

• Frozen Peas: 50g
• Rasher smoked back bacon (trimmed and chopped): 1
• Spring onions (sliced): 2
• Paprika: Quarter teaspoon
• Cornflour: 2 tablespoons
• Vegetable stock: 200ml
• Noodles: 150g
• Worcestershire sauce: A splash

Method:

• Fry your bacon on a small non-stick pan.
• Add your spring onions.
• Cook for 1 minute.
• Mix the cornflour with some stock to create a paste, stir this into the pan with the rest of the stock, noodles and your Worcestershire
• sauce.
• Simmer for a few minutes until it is thick and saucy.
• Serve and eat.

Noodles and bacon? Is there a better combination? University and no tuition fees? Well, yes, but this is the best culinary equivalent!

And there you have it! Ten extremely easy-to-cook student recipes, these student cooking recipes are as easy to make as you think and will give you a great tasting dinner as well as an incredibly rich palette moving forward.

Your health is a very important thing to be aware of at university, it's just as important as your UCAS Tariff Points when you're applying to university. You need to make sure you look after yourself, not just the physical side, but also looking after your mental health at university as well.

Who knows? You might even like these recipes so much that they make you want to visit some of these countries and learn more about the local cuisines and even consider the chance to do some apprenticeships abroad.

Bon appétit!