The struggle meal

By Freya Livingstone

I see you, ketchup on spaghetti and collection of yellow sticker food. Whether it’s down to poor organisation, a limited budget or a lack of experience in the kitchen, university students are famous for their creative, if questionable, food choices. I have witnessed my housemates make some truly shocking creations and call them ‘dinner’. So, when your fridge is bare, your stomach is rumbling and a meal deal is calling, this is what you should do. 

I have witnessed my housemates make some truly shocking creations and call them ‘dinner’

Pasta is probably the key student ingredient. Versatile, cheap and something you can store for ages without filling up your one shelf in the fridge, it’s hard not to be a fan. It can form the backbone of almost any dish and be had in combination with almost anything else you might have.  

A tin of chickpeas Cheap, filling and somehow always lurking at the back of the cupboard, chickpeas are the unsung hero of the skint student kitchen (or swap for a tin of beans if you’re that way inclined). Chuck them in a pan with whatever oil you have, a pinch of salt and maybe some paprika if you’re feeling fancy, and you’ve got something that actually resembles a proper meal. Toss them through your pasta, mash them roughly into a kind of accidental hummus, or just eat them straight from the tin over the sink. No judgement here. 

A sauce; chilli oil If you don’t have a bottle of chilli oil, or a jar of crispy chilli on your shelf, go and get one immediately. It costs about £2, lasts for months and makes virtually everything taste like you meant to cook it that way. Pasta, eggs, plain rice, toast, drizzle it over anything and it instantly feels intentional. It is the culinary equivalent of putting a clean jumper on over the t shirt you rummaged for in your dirty laundry pile.  

A spread; peanut butter or marmite. Hear me out. Peanut butter pasta is a real thing, it is delicious, and anyone who tells you otherwise has simply never been hungry enough to try it. A spoonful stirred through hot pasta with a splash of soy sauce and a squeeze of lemon (or not, whatever you have) makes a sauce that tastes far more sophisticated than it has any right to. Marmite works similarly, a small knob of butter and a teaspoon of marmite melted through pasta is salty, rich and ready in the time it takes to boil the kettle. 

A meat; sausage meat. Whether it’s actual sausages, some leftover mince or a lonely rasher of bacon that’s been in the fridge for slightly too long (and whose edges are starting to curl), adding meat to pasta transforms it from a side dish into something that can actually be called a meal. Squeeze sausage meat out of its casing and fry it up with a bit of garlic and tomato if you have it and you’ve essentially made a bolognese. Not a nice bolognese, necessarily, but a bolognese all the same. 

University is about so much more than having a fully stocked fridge and perfectly tidy kitchen

A vegetable; literally anything. Frozen peas, a sad half-onion, one wilting courgette, the cherry tomatoes that are just starting to wrinkle, all of it has a place. Add a bit of salt, roast it, fry it or mush it up and turn it into ‘sauce’. Vegetables don’t need to be at their freshest to make you feel healthy and if in doubt tell yourself it’s just ‘fermented’, and you are incredibly trendy.  

The truth is, making the most of an empty fridge isn’t really about recipes. It’s about lowering your expectations just enough, and raising your creativity just a little. A clove of garlic here a sprinkle of salt there, can make all the difference in turning something really unappetising into something, just about,edible. Some of the best things people eat at university come from the most desperate circumstances. And university is about so much more than having a fully stocked fridge and perfectly tidy kitchen. The struggle meal is a right of passage and if it all goes horribly wrong, there’s always the meal deal. 

Image: Freya Livingstone