Leaving home for the first time at age 18 is an inherently emotional yet wonderfully exhilarating experience for all those involved.
With the help of parents, guardians or friends, an entire car’s worth of fairy lights, going-out clothes, novelty bed sheets, value-for-money cookware, fresh fluffy towels and more is packed haphazardly into laundry bags and plastic crates. The moment the boot closes and the fresher in question drives off into a crisp September morning, they begin their first foray into real young adulthood.
Following a summer’s worth of revelry and delight after receiving well-earned A-Level results comes the moment every child’s school career leads up to: the beginning of higher education. More than exploring academia and the wonders of nights out on the town without curfew, becoming a fully-fledged fresher is all about realising the value of a fully stocked fridge, the joys of Mum and Dad’s home cooking, and the sheer luxury of having a dishwasher.
To prevent the onslaught of Freshers’ Flu, and to ensure you have enough energy to enjoy everything University life has to offer, it’s incredibly important to nourish yourself with wholesome home-cooked meals. With the cost of living across the UK on the rise, it feels more difficult than ever to enjoy healthy meals at a value-for-money price.
Fear not, for there are a myriad of cookbooks on the market which have been curated with students and money-savers in mind. Cooking on a budget doesn’t mean that you have to compromise on flavour, nutritional value and variety.
Below, we’ve curated a selection of the best cookbooks for students, from five-ingredient dishes to upscale options for budding chefs. Before long, your parents will start to envy your cooking, instead of it being the other way around.
Comfort MOB
MOB is more than a social media sensation: it’s a movement. Comfort MOB pulls its viral videos together to create a guide to pure gourmet joy.
This book is stuffed with nutritious ideas and old-school recipes to provide both comfort and satisfaction, especially for anyone who needs to build confidence in the kitchen. The recipes are affordable and achievable for all levels.
Pasta fans will adore getting stuck into recipes like Ben’s Dad’s Puttanesca. Comforting and glorious.
Buy now £13.02, Amazon
Curry Easy by Madhur Jaffrey
Otherwise known as the Queen of Curry, Madhur Jaffrey delivers an eye-watering 175 different quick and easy curry recipes to master in this classic cookbook. Illustrated with gorgeous photography and complete with mouth-watering descriptions, you’ll never again struggle to come up with a new and exciting curry dish to serve dinner guests at home. Recipes include a delicious prawn curry from Goa, Sri Lankan beef with coconut milk, creamy potato and pea curry, and so much more.
Buy now £23.25, Amazon
Poppy Cooks: The Actually Delicious Air Fryer Cookbook
Professional chef and TikTok maestro Poppy O’Toole has finally put all those reels and videos that you’ve saved and never gone back to into a handy cookbook. With a whopping 100 total recipes, Poppy teaches us how to create delicious honey soy salmon and asparagus, addictive fakeaways, roast chicken, mac and cheese, brownies and so much more.
Buy now £15.49, Amazon
The Green Roasting Tin by Rukmini Iyer
Rukmini Iyer’s roasting tin cookbooks have started a revolution. Not only does the cooking mainly consist of bunging some bits in the oven, it also drastically reduces the washing up. The dream.
Her green edition is half vegetarian recipes and half vegan recipes, with each section divided into quick, medium and slow cooking times. There’s also a final section that recommends recipe pairings, which is super handy (as great as the recipes are, some of them don’t add up to a full meal.) If you’re after some simple, stress-free dinner ideas, Iyer’s book is a must. The flavour combinations are smart too - the leek orzotto with asparagus, hazelnuts and rocket is divine.
Buy now £13.60, Amazon
Bored of Lunch: The Healthy Air Fryer Book
No matter how literate we believe ourselves to be, there’s nothing more disappointing than happening on a recipe and finding that there’s no demonstrative picture. Sure, the dish may sound delicious, but what are we supposed to think until we see the finished product? And how are we supposed to know that we’ve cooked the meal correctly?
Nathan Anthony’s Bored of Lunch: The Healthy Air Fryer Book contains 80 quick and easy recipes with a lovely photo next to each one. Each recipe also has a calorie-per-serving badge for the diet-conscious. One of our personal favourites has to be the ‘Nduja stuffed arancini balls.
Buy now £9.49, Amazon
Yiayia by Anastasia Miari
A love letter to the sheer mystical power of a grandmother’s belly-filling, delicious and nourishing home-cooking, Yiayia by Anastasia Miari is an anthology of traditional Greek recipes created and continued by grandmothers from all corners of the country.
From stuffed courgettes perfected in Lesvos to mouth-watering Ionian pasta dishes - Miari ditches the dishes that the general public traditionally associates with Greek cooking to delve into deeper historical knowledge.
This delightful cookbook would make a fantastic gift for those who live away from their Greek families and are looking to cook up some nostalgia, or culinary enthusiasts looking to explore recipes perfected by the passage of time.
Buy now £27.00, Waterstones
5 Ingredients Mediterranean: Simple Incredible Food by Jamie Oliver
Jamie Oliver’s 5 Ingredients Mediterranean makes an ideal springboard for those unfamiliar with the cuisine of far sunnier climates. Despite the overwhelming popularity of vegetables like aubergines and courgettes in recent years, not every Brit has been brave enough to embark on a recipe containing the essential veggies.
Fear not as Jamie Oliver has compiled 125 easy-to-follow, empowering recipes that will inspire you to be more daring with your foray into the Mediterranean diet. You’ll be graduating from the Soups & Sarnies section into that of Seafood in no time. In the mood for something vegetarian? 65 per cent of the recipes are meat-free or meat-reduced to save you time and money.
Buy now £14.00, Amazon
Modern Slow Cooker: 85 Vegetarian and Vegan Recipes to Make your Life Easy by Alyce Alexandra
Alyce Alexandra answers all your vegetarian, slow-cooked prayers in Modern Slower Cooker, which includes an impressive 85 different delicious and nutritious recipes which make use of healthy and cost-effective ingredients such as veggies, grains, pulses and legumes. A fan favourite among Alexandra’s following is the deluxe caramelised banana breakfast pudding.
Buy now £13.75, Amazon
Curry Guy One Pot by Dan Toombs
With two decades of travel-based research into the best curries across the world, it’s safe to say that Dan Toombs – otherwise known as The Curry Guy – can offer an authoritative perspective on the subject. In One Pot, Toombs collates over 150 recipes from his lifetime of global travels. Unbeatably moreish recipes include Malaysian Devil Curry, Sri Lankan Black Pork Curry, Cape Malay Bobotie and even Hungarian Goulash.
Buy now £19.70, Amazon
The Hungry Student Cookbook
University cooking has never been easier thanks to The Hungry Student Cookbook. It provides 120 exceptional and varied meals on an incredibly tight budget. Before you start venturing into the kitchen, browse the introductory pages that provide invaluable advice on how to stock a store cupboard and embrace clever cooking.
You won’t find any cans of soup or baked beans here; this is hearty cooking but in a simple and easy to follow way (the photographs are a BIG help). Our favourite crowd-pleasing dishes are the lasagna, fajitas and toad-in-the-hole.
Don’t miss ‘The Morning After’ section for some tips and recipes on how to battle through that inevitable hangover.
Buy now £10.92, Amazon
Freeze: Super-nourishing meals to batch cook, freeze and eat on demand
If you find cooking to be a chore, especially after a hard day in the lecture hall, master the art of batch cooking with Freeze. Offering plenty of delicious and nutritious recipes that are also super speedy, this cookbook will teach you everything there is to know about convenient cooking.
It’s also great for those starting off in their culinary journey thanks to endless tricks and tips as well as suggestions on how to alter ingredients based on dietary requirements. We love the Easy Midweek Meals chapter that includes Wild Mushroom Risotto, Keralan Vegetable Curry and the most heart-warming Thai Sweet Potato Curry. There are also chapters on essential sides and condiments - so replace that shop bought pasta sauce with a homemade one that takes minutes to make and contains no nasties.
With smart meal-prep solutions, you’ll be able to show off your packed lunch that’s more than a measly sandwich (much to the envy of your friends).
Buy now £21.25, Amazon
Made in India by Meera Sodha
From classic street food recipes to fragrant curries, Meera Sodha covers it all in her critically acclaimed cookbook Made in India. The Guardian columnist introduces readers to proper British-Indian home cooking with over 130 different easy-to-follow recipes, collated from three generations of her family. As Sodha puts it herself in the introduction, “An Indian kitchen can be anywhere in the world. Mine just happens to be in London.”
We’re particularly fond of the ‘Cooking in Advance’ section which includes recipes like Slow-cooked Red Pepper and Paneer Curry, Mum’s Chicken Curry and Howrah Express Cinnamon Lamb Curry.
Buy now £18.71, Amazon
Vietnamese Food Any Day
Celebrity chef, teacher and food writer Andrea Nguyen’s recipes can often be found over at the NYT Cooking – but if you’re already well acquainted with her online recipes, you might be looking to take it up a notch. Vietnamese Food Any Day works through a variety of classic, speedy Vietnamese dishes including Bánh mì, Phở, honey-glazed pork riblets, turmeric coconut rice and more. Dedicated to helping you work with the ingredients you’ve got, you won’t have to take a trip to a speciality grocery store in order to cook with Nguyen. Named one of the best cookbooks of the year by NPR, you’d be remiss not to add this bible to your collection.
Buy now £16.95, Amazon
The Secret of Cooking by Bee Wilson
Crafted for the home cook who is constantly stretched for time, Bee Wilson shows us how to get delicious, simple and beautifully flavourful meals on the table no matter the occasion. Beloved by the likes of Nigel Slater and Nigella Lawson, The Secret of Cooking is a veritable kitchen bible which reveals the surprisingly simple truths behind maintaining an active, clean and delicious kitchen, as told by someone with a lifetime of experience.
Buy now £20.83, Amazon
