Stocking a Freshers food cupboard – a list of essentials.

The A Level results are in, you are busy buying all the student essentials your little one (!) needs to keep themselves warm, clean and fed whilst away. If you haven’t started this yet then I have a blog post that might help here, What do you take to Uni?

After all that excitement, reality sets in when you and they cotton onto the fact that kebabs, discounted Domino’s pizza and vodka don’t make for a balanced diet and some cooking will have to happen at some time. All students need some help so that they don’t subsist on microwave meals either, that takes some discussion – my tips are here. How to stop your student from starving.

The key to making food varied and tasty is a well stocked pantry. This is a little unrealistic for students but give them a hand by putting together a box of basics that no student cook should be without.

Student pantry list

Salt and pepper (in a mill – not that dust!)

Dried herbs – useful to add to basic pizza bases, into omelettes, on top of spag bol

Chilli flakes – turns mince into chilli, adds heat to cheese on toast

Stock cubes -add flavour to rice, meals, as a soup base.

Tinned tomatoes – adds flavour to chilli, spag bol or simply on toast at 3am

Baked beans – with an egg, in a baked potato, on toast , straight out of the tin – I’m not judging.

Tinned pulses and beans, bulk out a meal with meat, no need to soak, look in the world food aisles as they are usually much cheaper there.

Tinned tuna – as with beans but you can make a pasta bake too.

Rice, long grain (and risotto)- make sure they know how much to cook at one time. Use a portion measure, make your own.

Pasta – shapes and spaghetti – ditto make a measure to get the potions right. Egg noodles to add to stir fries.

Plain flour – for pancakes and white sauces – there are recipes for these to come on Mintcustard.

Oats – for porridge, for flapjacks or for coating chicken for a change.

Sugar

Mustard – on your burger or in your sauce for cauliflower cheese

Ketchup – do I need to explain this?

Pesto – on pasta, in a soup, on top of a basics pizza base

Soy sauce

Spices you are familiar with as a family – the taste of home.

Tea and coffee

Squash

This is NOT an exhaustive list. If you need to add HP sauce, sea salt flakes or jars of tahini as essentials then be my guest. Let me know what you would take as an essential.

 

 

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