Earlier this month, Student Health released the USC Student Cookbook –– a digital guide for home recipes, cooking tips and more available for free on the Student Health website. The new initiative is helpful for students looking to prepare meals under a time crunch, said Chief Student Health Officer Dr. Sarah Van Orman in a briefing with the Daily Trojan Tuesday morning.

Van Orman said students often don’t have access to a proper kitchen or equipment and tools, which become barriers for students when it comes to cooking. Some students may also not have experience with cooking and find it difficult to prepare meals for themselves. 

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“The focus [of the cookbook] is on when you have a few ingredients, you have a limited amount of [equipment], maybe you just have a hot plate or you just have a rice cooker,” Van Orman said. “The idea being simple, healthy things that people could eat [and] that people can make with a limited amount of materials.”

The cookbook, curated by the Well-being and Health Outreach Ambassadors — a student group at Student Health — is filled with recipes submitted by the students and reviewed by registered dieticians. RSOs on campus, including USC Helenes and USC Medical, Educational Missions & Outreach, also contributed to the diversification of the cookbook by providing recipes that help students feel at home.

“There’s lots [of recipes] in here that are easy to do,” Van Orman said. “Some of my favorites are the Vietnamese spring rolls … that [are] actually pretty easy. You can make [them] with [a] very limited amount of cooking supplies.”

The cookbook includes chapters organizing recipes by their type such as breakfast, small meals and sides, main meals, and desserts. It also contains a key indicating which meals are dorm-friendly, if they are vegetarian recipes or if the meals are able to be made in five to 10 minutes. 

“We know students often skip breakfast, so for example, the baked oatmeal is a favorite,” Van Orman said. “That’s something you can just quickly throw together on a Sunday and then you have it available for the whole week.”

The cookbook also has tips on how to shop for groceries efficiently, cook chicken thoroughly and what the best tools to use in the kitchen are. Together, these recipes and tips are designed to take the stress off students when it comes to cooking healthy meals. 

“Cooking has mental health benefits,” Van Orman said. “Preparing meals has mental health benefits, as well as just making sure that [students] are eating nutritious, balanced meals.”