How to Deal with Hostel Food: A Student’s Guide

Hello future hostel survivors. College is already a very big challenge. On top of that, the food at most colleges is shitty too. Whether you’re dealing with a mess that’s actually a mess or just missing home-cooked meals, there are always ways to make it better. Here’s your guide to surviving on hostel or canteen food. Read till the end to know my own food routine.

Adjusting to Hostel Food

Let’s be very real, initially, you will have to compromise a lot. Sometimes the food will be decent and edible, and other times it will be…well, let’s just say it’s an acquired taste.

See, if you have canteens in your college, it won’t be that big a problem in the beginning. You will definitely find at least 1 or 2 items that are edible. Food that you don’t have to shove down your throat and swallow with lots of water.

If you have a mess, where you have a fixed menu and prior payment, then I totally sympathize. It is going to be okay for a few days, but you will get very exhausted soon. One month tops. It can be tough dealing with food that’s bland, repetitive, and watery.

So eventually, in a few months, everybody’s going to look for options. These will be the alternatives to mess food.

Choose Tiffin Services

This is the first step to surviving in a hostel. Ask seniors, or ask the workers that clean your rooms. They might have an idea. If you don’t find any, you can also look online or contact nearby colleges for tiffin services. You might find some tiffin service that people in your college do not use.

Tiffins are way more hygienic than mess food, and the food is also better in taste. There is more variety than mess food too. Mostly, you might find native aunties cooking and selling tiffins that have the regional taste. But, if you search, you might also find tiffin services that are similar to your home-cooked meals. 

Still, after some time, you will get bored of tiffins too. So the hunt for good food hasn’t ended yet.

Nearby Eateries

Explore the area around your hostel. There has to be some decent eateries and canteen-style restaurants. There are a lot of small eateries next to hostels, you might find food stalls too.

Look for the fruit market too, you can get some fruits for breakfast and evening snacks. You can also find  junk food stalls that you go to occasionally to keep your taste buds happy.

Cloud kitchens

Look online for cloud kitchens. These are basically kitchens that do not serve food in a restaurant but only deliver online. The food is thus cheaper and more sustainable on a budget. 

I used to order a lot of ‘Rajma-Chawal’ bowls from a cloud kitchen that delivers to my college. 

Read More : How to deal with online distractions

Collective Ordering

If you do not find cloud kitchens, ordering from restaurants can obviously become expensive. I would suggest for you to talk to the next 2 rooms, and order together. You can order 2 Sabzis and get some chapatis and rice from the canteen. This will be cheaper and more durable than ordering expensive one-person meals every time.

What I used to do:

I was on a budget too. Although we have a lot of canteens in our college, I was soon fed up with them. I just wanted some good food to sustain me. Here’s my personal survival kit for hostel food:

Breakfast in the Hostel: 

Usually, breakfast is the most manageable meal. There is some good South Indian breakfast in my canteen. There’s also Bun-Maska or Samosas. If nothing else, there’s packaged biscuits and chai. Just a small meal for breakfast from the canteen. It is enough to keep your stomach full for some time.

Sometimes, I also walked to the nearby fruit market and got some fruits for the week. I would eat an apple some morning or an orange on the other.

Muesli or cornflakes with milk was also an option on some days. I used to order cornflakes using apps like Instamart, Zepto, Blinkit, and got milk from a nearby dairy.

Lunch 

I brought a lot of sides from home – aachar, chutney, thecha, you name it. Along with this, I used to alternate between the tiffin and canteen food every month. When I was eating the tiffin, it was not necessary that the sabzi would be of my liking. Sometimes it was very oily and smelled weird. So I switched out the sabzi for a pickle or a chutney. I kept small cans of these in my hostel room and sometimes in my bag too.

I could easily digest a few chapatis or some rice for lunch this way. Since lunch has a time constraint, this was my plan for lunch on most days.

Evening snacks

Luckily, my hostel canteen had good snacks. If yours doesn’t you can just use the same breakfast options.

Dinner

This was my best meal of the day. It was a choice between: Walking to a local canteen, ordering from a cloud kitchen, ordering with friends, or cooking up something in my kettle. 

Cooking- invest in a Kettle and an electric HotPot. These are must haves for hostel life. You can easily cook some rice or Pulav. Quick vegetables are also an option. Additionally, you can make dishes like khichdi, Upma, or Poha. It is a lifesaver.

Also you can obviously cook Maggi if you find nothing else.

Conclusion

Dealing with hostel food is all about creativity and making the best of what you have. Try to look for the best options available and make the best use of them. Just hang it there, and keep thinking about when you get to go home and have the best food again.

If you need any more tips or have any specific questions, feel free to ask. Bon appétit!