8 Cheap, Easy, Delicious, Vegetarian Recipes to Feed a Crowd

by Moira · March 25, 2019

I come from a family of incredible cooks and bakers. My grandma’s rusk recipe is the best I’ve ever had. Nobody can barbeque as well as my dad. My mom’s chocolate cake (the one we have for every birthday) has been auctioned off at church fundraisers for $400.

Mom’s legendary chocolate cake, which gets decorated with Smarties by the person whose birthday it is.

But while I learned a lot about cooking and baking from my family, I didn’t have a lot of experience cooking for groups when I moved to the Netherlands. When I lived off-campus in Victoria in second year, my housemates and I cooked for ourselves. Thanks to my South African roots, I also grew up eating a lot of meat.

But since moving into a house with international students who often eat dinner together, I have learned a lot about how to make cheap, easy, delicious meals to feed a group. And because some of my housemates are vegetarian, I have also learned that meatless meals can be both filling and tasty.

Dinner with my housemates in Utrecht

Cooking for others can be scary. It’s hard to know how much food to make and impossible to predict whether people will like it. The first time I cooked for my housemates, I spent an entire day trying to decide what to make, asked my mom at least 50 questions, and felt too anxious about what everyone thought to enjoy the meal myself.

Since then, my confidence has grown a lot. Cooking is one of those things that takes practice. The more you do it, the better you get. It helps to remember that delicious food doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive.

Here are links to some recipes that my housemates and I have enjoyed. They’re affordable, easy to make, and use simple ingredients. Best of all, they taste great too!

Smoky Potato Chickpea Stew