3 First-Apartment Foods For Off-Campus Living

By Julia Dunn on June 30, 2016

The jump from living on campus with a dining hall to an off-campus house or apartment can be scary for students who aren’t used to cooking for themselves. Those who aren’t even interested in the prospect of cooking all that much may feel confused about how to prepare meals that can energize them throughout the day.

Food insecurity is facing many young people who do not have ample funds to feed themselves healthy food, and affordability is more important than ever when deciding which foods to purchase. Here are three simple and fast meals you can prepare when you move into your first apartment and don’t know where to turn for college student-friendly meal advice.

1. Scrambled egg sandwiches

Image via Wikipedia Commons

A tasty and easy vegetarian breakfast, scrambled egg sandwiches are yummy anytime of day.

What you need:

Eggs (about $1.20), any kind of bread (between $2-4), butter (if desired — about $2), nonstick cooking spray (about $3).

How to make it:

Crack a few eggs and stir them in a bowl with a fork or spoon. After heating a frying pan (sprayed with canola oil/nonstick spray or butter), pour the eggs into the pan and cook until eggs turn white/yellow. Place eggs between two slices of bread (this is why chopping the eggs into smaller pieces during cooking is not advised here).

Why it’s great:

You can choose any kind of bread you like, and you can even scramble your eggs with chopped vegetables inside! Diced tomatoes, mushrooms, black or green olives and various colors of bell peppers make excellent mix-ins for an egg sandwich. You can either mix these into the stirred-up eggs themselves before pouring the mixture into a frying pan, or you can sprinkle them into the egg after pouring it into the pan.

Adding ingredients to the eggs makes your sandwich more filling, nutritious and flavorful. Busy students without time to chop vegetables during the week can chop a bunch of vegetables on the weekend and store them in plastic containers in the refrigerator for easy use on weekday mornings.

One box of eggs and one package of bread should make around six sandwiches.

2. Pasta with marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese

Image via Pixabay

Pasta is one of the most basic foods there is, and you would think it an easy enough meal that it doesn’t need to be written about — but plenty of students with limited to no cooking experience may not know how to get pasta going.

What you need:

Dry pasta (any shape: penne, rotini, farfalle, spaghetti, linguini, etc. — around $1-2), pre-made marinara sauce (or alfredo if you prefer — around $2-3), and cheese if preferred as a topping (around $3-4).

How to make it:

Boil a pot of water on the stove. When the water is bubbling, pour in as much pasta as you’d like (leave an inch and a half or two inches worth of water above the pasta so the pasta does not become exposed as water evaporates). Stir the pasta every 45 seconds or every minute so it does not stick to the bottom of the pot — it’s an annoyance to scrape off, otherwise. Heat up your pasta sauce in a microwave and pour it over your pasta. Add shredded cheese on top for extra flavor if you so choose.

Why it’s great:

It’s a comfort food, it acts as a blank canvas as far as food goes (as with the scrambled egg sandwich, you can add any vegetables you want to cooked pasta for a more fun meal), and it’s very inexpensive (a bag of pasta is 99 cents at Trader Joe’s)! Pasta is the easiest meal to make for most students and it does not require much preparation at all.

Busy student tip: cook an entire bag of pasta on the weekend and store leftovers in the fridge for lunch you can grab in the morning before school and take to school. Many on-campus convenience stores or libraries provide microwaves you can use to heat up a microwavable storage container.

3. Rice with mixed vegetables

Image via Wikipedia Commons

Like pasta, rice is a blank canvas that you can dress up however you like. Most students like being able to customize their food to align however they’re feeling, and rice allows you this convenience because it takes on the flavor of whatever is mixed into it.

What you need:

Dry rice (between $1-4 per bag), desired mix-ins (read on for suggestions)

How to make it:

Many stores carry flash-frozen packages of white Jasmine rice, brown rice, wild rice and others that can be cooked via microwave in about three minutes (it tastes as great as it would freshly cooked). Or, you can put dry rice into a rice cooker, add enough water so that it is submerged in the pot, and wait until the grains look fluffy. Once you’ve got your rice base, add spices, soy sauce, black or pinto beans, corn, fish, or anything else you’d like. Steam vegetables to eat on the side or mixed into your rice.

Why it’s great:

Rice is another inexpensive food (depending on which type of rice you buy) and in its dry form, it lasts forever! Rice is a great addition to any other meal you may be making, and can act either as a side dish or a main meal.

Students should not have to feel like they’re too busy to eat well, or that they can’t learn to cook — learning to cook is simply about following directions! Eat well and feel well!

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