Recipe Tips: Spice Up Your Uni Meals

Living away from home comes with a lot of freedom and responsibility however a sudden need to cook comes as the wrong end of the stick. Students tend to find their comfort zone and repeat the same readymade meals over and over again -Daria Istayeva gives some tips on how to spice up your meals with minimal effort and cost.

Noodles:

Noodles fuel a typical student lifestyle for a reason; they are both cheap and exceptionally easy to make (well except for that one time you left them out to boil for too long.) Nonetheless the same chicken-flavoured sachets can become boring and repetitive over time – here are some ways to add more excitement to your daily ramen.

• Condiments

By this, we don’t mean adding ketchup and mayonnaise to your noodles, in fact do NOT do that… again. There are various sauces that can change the outcome of your dish entirely. Thai curry paste, Indian hot chilli paste, rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil and other seasonings you may have stuffed at the back of your cupboard.

• Stir Fry

Instead of simply boiling your noodles for three minutes, try to follow it up with a bit of frying, yes it will add an extra pan to your washing list but it will most certainly be worth it. Basics like eggs, bacon and peppers can complement your dish, while chicken and shrimp can replace the artificial flavouring for a much more rewarding sustenance.

• Pancake It!

The principle of a Latke, otherwise known as a potato pancake can apply to your noodles. Latke is a genius creation that combines fried potatoes and onion pancakes with sour cream. In order to apply this to your ramen, simply stir your noodles along with half of a sliced onion, table spoon of flour and an egg and place all to fry on a pan. As catastrophic as it may sound; it is an easy and delicious way of consuming your everyday super noodles.

Pasta:

Pasta comes secondary to noodles and toasties as it requires a little more dishwashing but here is a simple recipe to change up your regular Mac n’ Cheese.

• Fajita Pasta

As the name suggests, a unique way to add variation to your pasta would be combining it with another easy make dish – fajitas. All you will need for this recipe is:

• 275g penne pasta
• 1tbsp olive oil
• 500g chicken fillets -> cut into strips
• 1 onion, sliced
• 3 mixed peppers, sliced
• 30g pack fajita seasoning mix
• 1tbsp. tomato puree
• 2 x 200g tubs of fresh tomato salsa

Cook pasta according to the instruction on the back of the packet. In the meantime, fry the chicken strips with olive oil until cooked, roughly 10 minutes. Over medium heat proceed to fry onion and peppers for about 8 minutes. Add the fajita mix, tomato puree, and salsa with 50ml of water. Let everything simmer for a couple of minutes and then add drained pasta to the mix. Lastly add salt and pepper to taste.

The beauty of this particular Fajita recipe is that the chicken fajita mix can be added to rice, couscous and of course the fajita rolls. It is very easy to make and is interchangeable between different dishes. You can even try adding it to your noodles!

Use these recipes as a mean to spice up your meals and save money on takeout at the same time!