The best midnight snacks for hungry students

When I was a student, midnight snacks meant what you ate when you come back from dancing all night, and that meant only two things: a big mug of tea, and toast with Marmite. One of my housemates would always put on the kettle, another would light the gas grill and put a load of bread under it. While the bread toasted and the tea brewed, you'd get to put your feet up, kick your shoes into the corner of the room, and have a laugh about all the stuff that happened over the night.

Now I'm at university for a second time and a bit older -- oh alright, a lot older -- there's no housemates apart from Mr Flicking the Vs, no dodgy gas grill, and most of the late nights I have are when I've been staring at anatomy and histology text books until the early hours.

Two things have remained constant in my midnight snacking though: tea and toast.

I still love Marmite on my toast, but if I'm going to the trouble of making a midnight snack, I want something a bit more fancy on my bread.

For some reason whenever I make a batch of cheese sauce (cashew cheese sauce, obvs) I always end up with a few tablespoons left over in a plastic tub in the fridge. If I'm looking for a lazy late night snack, it's a matter of warming up said tablespoons, sticking some tempeh rashes in the frying pan, and pushing the button on the toaster.

By the time the toast pops up, I've got the sandwich of my dreams:


But that's not where my love of cheese, proteiny sandwiches stops. I've recently become acquainted with Sainsbury's vegan meatballs. Vegan meatballs in a standard issue supermarket -- what a time to be alive! And what if I put them in a big puffy bap, and poured cheese sauce over them? Wouldn't they be ever better? Yes, yes, they would. And what if I did all that, only I chucked a bit of marinara sauce into the mix? Would I have created one of the best sandwiches I've ever troubled my face with? Yes, I'd do all that too.

OK, making something that requires turning on the oven -- as this sarnie does -- would have been considered a bit of a health and safety risk after a night of rum down the student union, but when it's studying not throwing shapes that's causing me to burn the midnight oil, it's not so risky, and the payoff is definitely worth it.

And, I'll be honest with you, going back to university second time around and a lot later on in life, those late nights are few and far between. These days, I'm more likely to be getting up stupidly early to revise than staying up late to hit the books. Still, the best thing about both of these sandwiches is that, as well as being great midnight snacks, they make great breakfast sangers too.


Comments

  1. Ahhhh, the post night out tea & toast was a classic staple of mine too. These days it's decaf tea though, how times have changed!

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  2. I think my snacks after student nights were more likely to be a bag of chips on the way home but also when I lived in college I remember raiding the kitchen - though as the food was awful that they fed us I can't imagine we found anything good there!

    I love your cheese and protein sandwiches - could definitely go one right now and it isn't midnight for another 30 min :-)

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  3. Oh wow, these look so good. I need to get some of those Sainsbury's meatballs.

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  4. my student snack was always a bag of chips on the way home. But Marmite toast still remains on the list for me, though not all the time - my mood depicts what i want. I do love the look of your meatball sandwiches but think it would be heavy for me, my husband would love them, but his eve munchies choice is cheese on crackers or cheese on toast.

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  5. Yum! I wish they would sell Sainsbury meatballs in the states. I've heard nothing but rave reviews. Plus I love your writing. The tea and toast routine sounds perfect.

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  6. A field roast sandwich with fig spread on ciabatta is the only food that prevents a Bikram yoga headache for me. Those meatballs looks great! I go to bed around 9 or 10 these days so a midnight snack is super rare, but I would love something like that if I was awake. :)

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  7. I was never much of a midnight snacker myself no matter how late I stayed up. I always worried my stomach would decide having a midnight snack should be a nightly event and I would wake up hungry in the middle of the night. I'll take either sandwich any time of the day though. :-)

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