I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about doing this and haven’t done it.
Now’s the time I’m doing it.
As a 21-year-old college student, it’s easy to fall into the trap of eating poorly, eating outing or eating anything that doesn’t seem off at the food facilities on campus.
I eat an overall healthy diet. Do I have my “cheat” moments? Yes, but I always try my best to know what I’m putting in my body and that it’s whole foods. When I went off to college three years ago, I struggled with not being able to cook. Cooking is a passion of mine. It’s something that always reminds me of my Nonna and being in the kitchen is such a comforting space for me.
While I rarely cooked throughout my first two years of school, I’ve found that now being a senior (I’m graduating a year ahead) I’ve found my way back into the kitchen. I can’t attribute that to finally deciding to head to the shared kitchen in my dorm building. I’m extremely lucky that my boyfriend lives a short distance from campus and his family lets me use their kitchen to cook us dinner whenever I’m over. And even when I first started to be there more often, I can’t say cooking was our go-to on weeknights. We used to still order out, but then I started to notice how much that costs. Sure, it’s easy sometimes when you have no time to make something, but I’ve made it a point to try and cook at least two meals a week for us to enjoy.
What I realized in all of this is that the meals I’m making aren’t difficult to make in a dorm. They’re things you can store and reheat the next day. And the best part? They’re healthy and not expensive either.
I’ve always thought about using this website as a platform for recipes and food, but I always stopped myself. I recently read You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero and it’s gotten me motivated and excited again about the projects I’ve wanted to start, but have made excuses for. I highly recommend this book to everyone and it’s one I enjoyed from beginning to end.
So with that little introduction being said, I welcome you to my first recipe!
Healthy Chicken Noodle Soup
This recipe is adapted from one of my favorite health Instagrammers Tayler McKellop. You can view her Instagram here and her original recipe here. She has great content, so go give her a follow!
//Makes 6 servings//
Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
One box pasta of your choice (I used half Banza Chickpea Pasta – Rotini and half Barilla ProteinPLUS Farfalle Pasta
1.5 lbs boneless chicken breast
4 vegetable bouillon cubes
8-10 cups water
1.5 cups quartered baby gold potatoes
1 cup chopped carrots*
1 cup chopped celery*
1 cup yellow squash*
1 yellow onion
3 cloves garlic
Spices:
1 tbsp cumin
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp turmeric
Sea Salt & black pepper
*Feel free to add any vegetables you’d like. Adding some spinach, broccoli or mushrooms would also make this taste delicious.*
Directions:
- Add bouillon cubes to eight cups water in large pot. Allow cubes to dissolve and bring to boil. Once boiling, add your chicken breast to the pot and reduce to a simmer. These will take 8-15 minutes to cook depending on their thickness.
- Once the chicken breast are done, remove them from the broth and allow to cool.
- Add your potatoes to the pot and bring back to a boil.
- As the potatoes cook, in a large skillet, add your olive oil along with the onions and garlic. Cook until the onions soften.
- Add the celery, carrots and squash to the pan. Add in your spices, except the salt and pepper, and saute until the veggies soften.
- While the potatoes and veggies are cooking, shred the chicken once cool.
- Once the potatoes are fork tender and the veggies are soft, add veggies and chicken into the large pot.
- Add the extra cup(s) of water if needed and bring back to a boil to make sure everything is heated through. Salt and pepper as needed.
We paired ours with some sliced pieces of toasted ciabatta bread, but toasted sourdough would also be great.
Serve it up and enjoy!
Alexandra Licata 