My Top 3 Meal Prep Meals: Student-Friendly Version

By Lea

Meal prep friendly food, that is easy to make and reheat, cheap and most importantly yummy! I really enjoy cooking so I try to most days as I think it’s an easy way to start being healthy (ish) and it’s quite cheap too.

Also, before you see the insane amount of food I cook… my boyfriend and I usually eat together, and sometimes I make more by accident, which is always good because, meal prep baby!

To make my life even easier, I take leftovers to work the next day for lunch. Some people disagree with this and think lunch should be a salad / soup or something cold, but I don’t particularly believe in that. By taking in leftovers, I am able to spend less time in the kitchen and more time watching Netflix in bed, which let's face it, is 100x better. It also makes my meals cheaper (buying in bulk and all that)!

So here below are my 3 favourite meal prep meals - all quite easy to make and very delicious!

Chicken and Sausage Tomato Pasta Bake

This is such an easy dish and a good twist on a classic student pasta meal!

I completely made this meal up so I’ve included a quick recipe below if you want to try it (I'm sure there’s similar ones online too).

You can also easily make it veggie, by just replacing the meat with Linda sausages.

Recipe:

- Fry garlic with chicken and diced onions in olive oil for 2-3 mins

- Add sausages and mushrooms with basil, oregano and crushed chillies for some spice🌶

- After 5 mins add spinach, let the spinach wilt and then add tinned tomatoes and passata, simmer for 5 mins until sauce has thickened up

- Add the cooked pasta into sauce and mix well

- Pour into glass baking dish and layer with as much mozzarella as you want🧀

- Slide that sexy dish into the preheated oven😏

Once the cheese has crisped up (usually takes around 10 mins), your food is READY😋

Total cost of ingredients: £10.50 and I made 5 meals (£2.10 per portion) !!

Chicken and Chorizo Paella

This is probably my fave meal to cook! I use Jamie Oliver’s Recipe - his includes prawns but it’s more expensive to include seafood and also, I am allergic to shellfish lol, so I don’t add them in.

Click for Jamie Olver's Recipe

Tbh, there is a lot of chopping up / prep involved in this meal, but there are so many yummy flavours that it is very worth it! It’s also so easy to cook in large batches.

Total cost for all ingredients: £11.60 and I made 5 meals (£2.32 per portion).

Fajita Chicken and Veg
This is an absolute student classic and a really perfect meal prep meal as you can have it in so many different forms that it never gets boring: in a wrap to make a classic fajita, in a bowl with rice to have a burrito bowl or in a salad to make it healthier.

I’m v annoying and was so hungry post gym when I cooked this meal so completely forgot to take photos of the ingredients pre-cooking like the others above lol sorry!

It’s so easy to make:

- Slice the chicken, peppers and onions and fry with garlic

- Add fajita seasoning or you can make it the seasoning yourself with this recipe here.

And THAT’S IT! So easy and so yummy😋

Pair it with your fave carb / salad combo and some homemade guacamole and sour cream (I chose Uncle Ben’s Mexican Style Rice).

I also make my own guac, so here’s a recipe:

- Mash avocado in a bowl, mix in diced red onions and diced tomatoes (there were no nicely ripe avos at the shops so it's a little chunkier than i'd like😔)

- Sprinkle in some salt, pepper and a pinch of paprika

- Squeeze a bit of lemon

- Add some coriander (or LOTS bc its so yummy!!!)

Total cost for all ingredients: £10.06 and I made 4 meals (£2.52 per portion)

Hope this inspires you to meal prep this week so you can spend more time doing something else you love whether it’s the gym, going out for drinks, or lying in bed binge watching Netflix!

Let me know if you do or have ever tried any of these recipes too, would love to know which one’s your fave😊