Meal ideas - dorm living, no kitchen

[Anonymous]

Freshman DS has to be on some kind of meal plan; however, the dining hall food is apparently very bad.
He's unable to find much that is appealing. He has a fridge and microwave in his dorm, and we have moved his meal plan down to the lowest allowed, which is 10 meals per week. He can use the 10 meals at the dining hall or as "swipes" at a few fast food restaurants in the area.

He is asking me for ideas for healthy-ish meals he can prepare for himself that just require fridge/microwave. He's not allowed to have a toaster, or a toaster oven or do real cooking in his dorm room. The dorm has a kind of kitchen, but it only has a microwave. No access to a stove or oven, basically, and he's not going to do elaborate cooking.

He's got a decent grocery store a 5 minute walk away. The only dining hall (again, food is bad!) is a 13 min walk away from his form.

So looking for easy meal ideas for one, that can be prepped from shelf stable ingredients or fridge/microwave to supplement what he can stomach from the dining hall or fast food restaurants allowed on his swipes. Just until he can move into an apartment with a kitchen - he can cook the basics.

[Anonymous]

Salads. Nothing that can be made in a microwave is healthy. Why is it up to you to solve?

[Anonymous]

I would not help. He can manage with a meal plan and should up it.

[Anonymous]

Can he have a hotpot type thing to boil water? How about a crockpot?

[Anonymous]

Interesting that a school would ALLOW an on campus resident to only have 10 a week meal plan. Dorm life doesn't seem particularly conducive to preparing meals. However I'm not that creative either. Could end up getting expensive.

[Anonymous]

I lived off-campus all 4 years so I could cook my own meals. How soon can he move?

[Anonymous]

Lentiful

Immi

PBJ

Baked potato in the microwave

A meal delivery service like Factor where everything is 100% prepared?

[Anonymous]

I’ve had this issue with my daughter, and she doesn’t have a microwave in her room! So he’s lucky he does. I try to get her to use anything she can from cafeteria to make a meal in her room- cooked veg, cooked pasta, etc

Canned soups
Spring rolls using stuff from caf salad bar
Premade brown rice cups that he can mix with microwaved mixed vegetables and sauce from caf
Potatoes (bake in micro) with baked beans
Apples
Dried fruit
Nuts
Peanut butter
Oatmeal packs
Small soy milks
Frozen edamame packets

I also do a Walmart grocery delivery to her before finals or midterms, no more than $30 worth but including bread, sandwich stuff

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that a school would ALLOW an on campus resident to only have 10 a week meal plan. Dorm life doesn't seem particularly conducive to preparing meals. However I'm not that creative either. Could end up getting expensive.

I had a 10 meal plan in college because I ate dinner at my nanny job most evenings before coming back to the dorm.

[Anonymous]

Microwaved potato, broccoli, cheddar cheese.

Microwave fried rice with microwaved frozen veggies

Frozen or canned soups.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Salads. Nothing that can be made in a microwave is healthy. Why is it up to you to solve?

He is asking me for suggestions and to help him make a plan for foods he can make on his own without access to a kitchen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I lived off-campus all 4 years so I could cook my own meals. How soon can he move?

Sophomore year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can he have a hotpot type thing to boil water? How about a crockpot?

He can certainly boil water in the microwave.

I think a crockpot would be allowed since it has no exposed heating elements like a toaster oven does, but tbh that's a level of cooking that would be more complex and I don't think he's up for that without a kitchen.

[Anonymous]

This is his problem to solve. He decided that every single thing on offer in the dining hall was inedible? I mean, THAT’S the place to go to put together meals — salad bar + grilled chicken + rice = stir fry; pasta + peanut butter/soy sauce/brown sugar = sesame noodles; just about anything can be made into a taco or put in or on a salad.

Cooking in his room is going to piss off his roommates/hall mates, because of the smells and cleanup, which he won’t do promptly or completely.

This is a time to learn flexibility and creativity, rather than noping out and expecting Chef Mom to swoop in with a bunch of pre-packaged solutions. Are you sure he’s not saying this because he hasn’t found people to eat with? Or some other issue that he’s instead blaming on the food?

For anyone with a junior or a senior, this is why eating in the dining hall is so important. Impress on your kids that this will be home for 4 years, and it’s important they enjoy the nonacademic parts of the experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Salads. Nothing that can be made in a microwave is healthy. Why is it up to you to solve?

Overnight oats, heated up in the microwave, topped with fruit and nuts.

You can cook eggs in the microwave - I use this: https://www.amazon.com/Chef-Buddy-82-Y3496-Microwave-Essentials/dp/B004SJUGPI?ref_=ast_sto_dp