Kitchen Essentials For Private Student Residential Halls

While many private student residential halls will provide the kitchen essentials, some may not which may leave some students wondering what they should provide.

The halls will offer either a communal kitchen area shared by students living in a cluster of studios or they will have a kitchenette in their apartment.

Whichever property or city a student chooses, they will be provided with a great space for cooking, socialising and procrastinating over an essay by making endless cups of tea.

Moving into private halls of residence:

The cooking departments of most shops on the high street are full of useful items but ridiculous fripperies do sneak onto the shelves too. Here’s our list of what will be useful for those moving into private halls of residence:

• – Saucepans: one small for individual meals and one large for if you fancy becoming the (no doubt very popular!) chef of your private student halls of residence. When choosing, imagine a portion of pasta for you for the little pan and a chili for four in the big one.

• – A frying pan: preferably a good quality non-stick model. Try and convince someone lovely to gift you a really good brand and we promise you’ll still be using long after student accommodation is a distant memory.

• – A well-made wok. Our recommendation would be to purchase from a Chinese supermarket but most shops will sell a decent version. A wok is a bit of a luxury as a high sided frying pan will do a similar job. Woks are just the job for a super quick stir fry after a long day of lectures or a luxurious curry left to marinade on a lazy Sunday.

• – A cheese grater. There’s no need to spend more than a fiver. For cheese, chocolate, carrot, ginger, and garlic… useful!

• – The biggest measuring jug you can find. For measuring amounts large and small and for use as a mixing bowl, a multi-tasker that should cost very little.

• – A can opener: vital for when living on a budget in student accommodation. It will be your key to cooking delicious but cheap meals with tinned tomatoes, beans, tuna and chickpeas amongst hundreds of other store cupboard staples.

• – Two pairs of scissors. One pair for the safe, easy and quick slicing of meat or fish. Another pair to ‘cut’ slices of pizza, herbs, veg and the top of bags of pasta.

• – A colander and a sieve. We recommend both so you can drain both cooked pasta and a tin of tuna or sweet corn. No need to spend a lot of money and both metal and plastic to a good job.

• – A worktop protector or chopping board. When leaving your private student accommodation, it would be kind, responsible and prudent not to have gouged chunks out of the worktop in the communal kitchen. The chunky wooden ones are lovely but can be expensive. Plastic boards come in funky colours and work well.

• – Vegetable peeler. Don’t try peeling carrots with a knife. Considering the price and space needed for a peeler it’s just not worth the aggro. Or the cuts.

• – A potato masher to make sure the king of comfort foods is always an option to serve up to your friends living in your private student accommodation. A ricer is a nice idea but a masher can also be used for swede, carrots and butternut squash.

Those are our culinary tips when moving into private student halls of residence – enjoy!