The ultimate guide to summer cooking in Cardiff on a student budget

The sun has finally appeared over Cathays, everyone is pretending they enjoy revision in Bute Park, and your bank account is hanging on by a thread after one too many iced coffees on Salisbury Road. But eating well this summer does not require a trust fund or a Waitrose loyalty card.

Cardiff Central Market: Your wallet’s best friend

Forget the supermarket. Cardiff Central Market on St Mary Street is where your money actually stretches. While Tesco Express is charging £3.50 for a punnet of strawberries and one emotionally unavailable avocado, the market offers proper value. Local butchers sell Welsh lamb mince for next to nothing, the vegetable stalls are far cheaper than supermarkets, and the fishmonger can provide prawns that make your disposable BBQ look surprisingly classy.

Saturday morning before 11am is the golden hour. Prices start dropping, and a fiver can go a very long way.

BBQ

Cardiff summer has one sacred ritual: six friends, Bute Park, a disposable BBQ, and someone inevitably forgetting the lighter.

The shopping list:

• Welsh lamb burgers with cumin, garlic and chilli
• Corn on the cob wrapped in foil with butter and paprika
• Halloumi, grilled for two minutes each side and eaten before anyone else gets to it

Total cost for six people: under £15. That is less than two rounds at Live Lounge and infinitely more satisfying.

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Pasta Salad: The unsung hero

When it is too hot to cook and too expensive to order takeaway, pasta salad saves the day.

Cook any pasta you have, add roasted vegetables, feta and spinach, then toss with olive oil and lemon. It lasts for days, travels well to the park, and makes you appear far more organised than you actually are.

Strawberries and DIY ice lollies

Pick-your-own farms near Cardiff are perfect for cheap strawberries and a wholesome day out.

Blend strawberries with yogurt and honey, freeze in old yogurt pots, and you have homemade ice lollies for pennies.

Summer cooking in Cardiff is all about shopping smart, cooking with friends, and making the most of the three sunny days Wales gives us each year.

If your dinner costs less than your train fare to Barry Island, you are doing something right.

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