I need some ideas on cheapish, easy to cook, healthy meals for college students. My daughter is going to be in an apartment this fall for the first time. She's been in the dorm with a meal plan for the past 2 years. I'm trying to figure out a reasonable amount to give her for grocerices and really need some suggestions for cooking. She has a small fridge in her private room and there will be a shared "not quite full size" fridge in the common area. The dorm plan included "dining dollars" which meant access to a lot of fast food places on campus. I'm trying to figure out how to balance convenience and cost. I have already told her she can't eat out like she used to - we're going to have 2 in college this fall and money is more of an issue now. Plus it's not that good for her anyway. I plan on giving her a set amount in a grocery gift card and a small amount monthly for incidentals. I will also probably go to Sam's or somewhere every other month and get some frozen chicken breasts or something that's easily cooked, although she doesn't have a lot of storage area. I'm giving her my old George Forman so she should be able to grill easily.
I commuted for college so I lived at home...but at a time I was thinking of going to a different college and living in either dorm or apartment and wondering what I would have eaten...
My food is usually very simple and repetitive meals.
Breakfast-fresh fruits, raisins & oatmeal-I just get the big cylinder of oatmeal and put 1/2 cup into a dish w/ water and microwave it for a minute or two. I add fruit or cinnamon and raisins
For lunch I take to work a turkey sandwich-just bread, veggies-like spinach & red pepper, and lunch meat turkey and a yoplait yogurt. I sometimes mix it up and make a fresh salad-especially in the summer-lots of spinach, peppers, cucumbers, tomatoe ect.
For dinner I really like homemade soups-like veggie soup or chili. Other than the meats, this is very cheap but healthy w/ the protein & fiber & nutrients in the beans & tomatoes
I also like to just have some meat and some veggies as a side for dinner some nights. Salmon patties are simple enough to make-canned salmon, some whole wheat crackers & olive oil mixed together to make a patty and grilled it. You could really even spice that up depending on what veggies you like & have on hand. I've added green peppers to mine, though I am sure you could add onions, maybe mushrooms ect.? And then a side of veggies which could even be those steam fresh microwave things if she only has a microwave...sometimes those are only $1 at the store!! If not those, I like steamed fresh broccoli or cauliflower. My mom even boils/steams carrots and those are good. I love fresh steamed/boiled green beans...
In college my roommate and I did a lot of soups, chili, borscht, stir-fry, sandwiches, and broiling fish in the toaster oven (it's very easy).
I recommend looking around for cookbooks that are tailored toward college students - living alone (there are "cooking for one" kind of books out there, I have a few) or with roommates, with a budget, and are easy but still healthy. Then you can send her on her way with books that she can refer back to any time she wants to mix things up. My mom did this for me and my cookbooks have been very helpful, even now two years after I've graduated and I'm living by myself.
Last edited by cornellchick; 06-03-2012 at 01:59 PM.
What if she could get with some of the other students and they could pool their money and make enough to share? Healthier versions of casseroles and such. They could get together and cook, and everyone could split it. Soups, meatloaf, chicken and rice, beans, etc... I love beans and rice and they go a long way. Then there's always peanut butter, and stuff like tuna fish, and spaghetti is pretty inexpensive and can be made with whole wheat pasta and be made meatless or without red meat like turkey.
I'm in college right now, and I tend to eat a lot of brown rice w/ veggies 'stir fries' (or brown rice in almost any form, actually haha...), soups, oatmeal, I bake muffins a lot for breakfast, which are super cheap when you consider that the cost you're paying for the ingredients for a batch of 12+ is the same as a single pre-baked muffin!
I also don't drink anything but water and occasionally milk, which really helps to cut back on cost, as well as being more healthy for me!
Frozen pre-cooked chicken breast 'bits' from a local store are also life savers - they can go in quesadillas and sandwiches and stirfries.
What I did in collage was cook stuff on the weekends and put leftovers in lunch sized portions, like soup etc. I also used my crock pot a lot. There are good cookbooks for collage students out there too.
I hated my mom putting me on the dining plan at school when I was in the dorms. A more general grocery card or even a general prepaid VISA would have been more useful to me because as you say -- it's just mainly junk food on campus! This was almost 20 yrs ago and I'm not sensing it is any better out there. So good for you in trying to help!
As someone who's just recently started cooking her own meals, I have to say that a lot of simple recipes that I've found in cookbooks require a bunch of spices and materials that I just don't have unless I go out and buy them (which isn't worth it since I'll probably only use it once or twice). I actually ended up tossing the cookbooks aside. I find that looking up "simple/easy recipes" on google or using sites like allrecipes.com much more effective since you can input what ingredients you want to use instead of letting the recipe dictate what ingredients you need to get.
A lot of times, I find even "simple" recipes a big pain in the butt to deal with though and stick with even simpler things - like eggs and potatoes. They never get old, and you can always mix & match them with meats and veggies, plus it's not hard to stick it in a pan and wait for it to be ready. Then there's veggies, fruits, salads, and nuts. Veggies can easily be steamed or grilled, and fruits + nuts come fully ready to be eaten. Salads never get old since you can put whatever you want on it and switch up the dressings. As for fish (I only buy fillets, easier to deal with) & meat, I usually just stick whatever bottled seasoning I have onto it and then let it cook in the mini oven and sometimes on the pan!
Last edited by Elsewhere is Fine; 06-05-2012 at 01:39 AM.
Feeding a college student
I'm trying to figure out how to balance convenience and cost. I have already told her she can't eat out like she used to - we're going to have 2 in college this fall and money is more of an issue now. Plus it's not that good for her anyway. I plan on giving her a set amount in a grocery gift card and a small amount monthly for incidentals. I will also probably go to Sam's or somewhere every other month and get some frozen chicken breasts or something that's easily cooked, although she doesn't have a lot of storage area. I'm giving her my old George Forman so she should be able to grill easily. 
