Here's how you can cook amazing meals without burning through your wallet

Students living off-campus and in on-campus apartments, usually upperclassmen with a desire for some independence from the youthful bustle of residence halls and suites, have to cook for themselves maybe for the first time in their adult lives. 

Befriending the kitchen is a task when you get used to the comforts of the Rutgers dining halls. Rutgers Dining Services make eating on campus a breeze, with a variety of healthy foods available to fuel you throughout the day. Rutgers Dining Services even have a dedicated Healthy Dining Team to communicate with the student population on how to utilize dining halls to their maximum potential.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic was a turning point in my relationship with food and became a hands-on learning experience in mastering cuisine for me. I also lived alone this summer for an internship in New York City and couldn’t afford to eat out every day despite my love for the multicultural and dynamic food scene surrounding me. 

Going into my senior year, eating nutritious food on a budget has become an important challenge for me to undertake, but I've quickly learned to love the domestic, creative and intellectual nature of cooking for myself. 

Food content creators — Vaughn Vreeland, Alix Traeger, Joshua Weissman, Mike Greenfield of Pro Home Cooks, Samantha Seneviratne, Sohla El-Waylly and Chetna Makan — and of course my greatest influence, my mother, have inspired me to get creative in the kitchen and make it my happy place. 

Here are some quick tips to master the kitchen from an aspiring home chef.

The freezer is your friend

While the freezer is often associated with more fun foods from our childhoods like chicken nuggets, pizza rolls and Bagel Bites, yummy foods that are nutrient-dense can also be stored in the freezer.

Frozen vegetables are often frozen at peak freshness and are an inexpensive way to incorporate more veggies into your diet. They often come in mixed bags that are easy to add to stir-frys, soups and more. Frozen fruit is also delicious to have on hand to add to oatmeal for a quick flavor bomb, or make smoothie bowls with.  

As someone who doesn’t have a car on campus, I also freeze bread and tortillas in bulk to save me more trips to the grocery store. If you’re a dessert person like me, I’d also recommend whipping up batches of your favorite cookie dough and portioning it out in the freezer so you can have warm, fresh-baked cookies whenever your heart desires it.

I recently did this with Claire Saffitz’s chocolate chip cookie recipe and was really pleased with the results. Additionally, chilling cookie dough allows more complex flavors to develop in the final product.

Plan ahead and communicate

Writing out a grocery list is a fundamental part of shopping that most people neglect. If you live with a group of people, carving out time to take inventory of your kitchen can help you have a more productive shopping experience.

Working together helps you divide and conquer the grocery store once you’re actually there. If a piece of paper or the notes application feels like too much work, many apps like the Target app have a feature where you can add items to a grocery list and it will give you important information on the item’s availability and location within the store you’re visiting. 

Master the basics

Pantry essentials like oil, butter, salt, flour and sugar should be at the top of your list as they don’t have to be replenished too often once you have them. It’s important to also make sure that you have good quality pots, pans and food storage (for lovers of leftovers), as well as any other kitchen tools and appliances (that you know you will definitely need and use) when starting out in a kitchen from scratch. 

Things to shop for fairly often would be perishables like dairy products, eggs and fresh vegetables and salad kits. Additionally, learning how to cook basic starches like pasta or rice makes life infinitely easier as they allow you to meal prep foods that last in the fridge for around a week or less.

Initially taking account of what kinds of herbs and spices (dried and fresh) and sauces you enjoy will help you enliven anything you cook throughout the semester. Spice mixes from stores like Trader Joe’s or stores that cater to culturally specific cuisines are also useful to have on hand and add excitement to dishes.

A good source of inspiration to conquer the basics in the kitchen would be to look to Samin Nosrat’s four elements of cooking: salt, fat, acid and heat. Nosrat’s Netflix show “Salt Fat Acid Heat” is based on her bestselling cookbook of the same name and is a delight to watch when cooking something more time or labor-intensive.

The kitchen is a lot like a classroom and living without the aid of a meal plan is a tricky learning process that can eventually become a therapeutic hobby. The key is to enjoy the journey. Happy cooking!