Personally, the most daunting idea of living alone was always the idea of having to cook. Dorms and the convenience of the dining halls provide a safe buffer for new college students between the comfort of living with your parents and becoming more independent. When the time comes for most sophomores to start looking for off-campus housing for junior year, the focus is finding a place close to campus and getting to live with friends. The kitchen is an afterthought.
Now it’s time to prepare dinner, but your fridge and your pockets are empty. You search for easy recipes for college students, but the only results either involve ramen or require 15 different ingredients.
While learning to cook, I also learned how to stick to a budget, and my grocery bills are consistently under $40 per week. These are just some of the staples that have kept both my stomach and bank account happy, the ingredients purchased exclusively from Trader Joe’s.
- Chicken Gyoza
The easiest meal in my rotation is chicken gyoza with whatever is in the fridge. The upfront cost is $1.99 for a bag of frozen broccoli, $3.99 for rice and $3.99 for the gyoza; totaling $9.97. The bag of rice will last you for the entire semester, and you can get at least four to five additional servings out of the broccoli and gyoza, so the cost per meal is $3 if you can stretch it far enough.
To prepare, heat up your oil in a sauce pan and crisp the bottom of the gyoza until golden, then lower the temp to a simmer and add frozen broccoli to the pan with some soy sauce. Cover the pan with a lid and cook until the broccoli isn't hard as a rock. In the meantime, wash about a half cup of rice, add it to a pot with one cup of water, bring to a boil and then cover with a lid and lower the heat to a simmer for 15 minutes.
With this meal, corners can easily be cut: The gyoza and broccoli can be tossed in the microwave for a few minutes, and the rice can be substituted with any instant noodle. This is how I end up throwing everything together when I don’t have the time or energy to do anything more.
2. Beef ‘Tacos’
The next meal I make at least twice a week. I don’t want to call them taco’s, but they’re not exactly quesadilla’s either, so I’ll just stick with tacos for now. The cost for these ‘tacos’ are $6.49 for one pound of 80% lean ground beef, $1.69 for corn tortillas and the cost of whatever cheese you want. I prefer Trader Joe’s Light Sliced Cheddar Cheese which is $4.79, totaling $12.97. I use about one-third of a pack of ground beef, three slices of cheese and two small corn tortillas, which is around $3.40 for two tacos.
First, add your ground beef to a pan on medium heat (getting 80% lean beef means there’s no need to add any oil) and throw on as much seasoning as you desire. While your beef is cooking, you can make an optional guacamole. Once your beef is browned, set it aside on a cutting board, and fry two tortillas on the same pan with the beef fat. Once one side has browned, flip the tortillas and add the cheese on top, wait for the other side to crisp and then flip the tortillas cheese side down. This allows the cheese to get perfectly ooey gooey. Once the cheese is fully melted, flip back over, add half of the ground beef to each tortilla and fold to create a ‘taco.’ Continue heating until the tortillas have reached your desired crispiness. Top with your optional guacamole, and you have just made delicious beef ‘tacos.’
3. Chicken Cutlet and Alfredo Pasta
I often reserve this last entree for a weekend treat because the cleaning process tends to be slightly more time-consuming than the other options. The ingredients for this include $4.99 per pound of chicken, $3.49 for alfredo sauce, eggs for $2.29 per dozen, panko bread crumbs for $2.19, spaghetti pasta for 99 cents and flour for $2.99. In total, this comes out to $16.94.
As with the other dinners, each ingredient goes a long way. The flour and panko will last the entire year: You only need about one egg, the jar of alfredo can yield at least four servings and the cutlets from one chicken breast can last about two dinners depending on how hungry you are. Individually, the total is around $3.40 per plate.
To start off, cut your chicken breast into horizontal strips — I normally get around three strips. Pound the strips thin with a pan.
Then, get out three bowls: in the first, add a raw scrambled egg; in the second, eyeball a cup of flour and seasonings; and in the last, eyeball a cup of panko. First dip your beaten cutlet into your egg, then the flour, back into the egg and lastly into the panko. Once all your chicken has been breaded, add it to a pan of oil that has been cooking on medium heat and fry until golden brown and 165 degrees Fahrenheit.
While your chicken is cooking, bring a pot of water to a boil, add your pasta and cook for eight minutes.
Set aside your chicken, and to the same pan, melt butter and add your alfredo sauce. Once your pasta has cooked, drain the water, set aside about a tablespoon of pasta water to add to your alfredo sauce along with the noodles. Finally, plate and enjoy.
I certainly am not a chef, but overtime I have realized that dinner really is not as daunting as it seems. Hopefully, these meals will help you grasp of the basics of cooking and creating a cheap shopping list.
Natalie Chamberlain is a member of the Class of 2028 in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is a staff writer for the Lifestyle department and can be reached at ngc32@cornell.edu.
