Welcome to Kitchen Sanctuary where we strive to bring you beautiful recipes and food tutorials that are easy to follow. We’re all about delicious family-friendly food.
Hi I’m Nicky, and I run Kitchen Sanctuary with my husband Chris.
I started this website in 2014 after spending 14 years in the corporate world, and I managed to get Chris to join me full time on the blog in 2017.
I’ve always loved being in the kitchen and I started cooking from a young age – inspired by my Dad, who spent part of his childhood in Singapore, and my Mum who taught me how to make a roast dinner at the age of 11.
I’m a firm believer in sitting the family down at the table as often as possible for a nice home-cooked meal and a catch-up on the day. I generally cook quick and simple recipes during the week, saving the more complex or time-consuming cooking (as well as a bit of baking) for the weekend.
Why Choose Kitchen Sanctuary?
- Our site is full of easy to follow family-friendly recipes.
- All our recipes are tried and tested.
- We are both big foodies and LOVE to cook.
- We treat Kitchen Sanctuary as our cookbook, everything you find is the food we love to cook and eat.
- We run a cooking show on YouTube to show you how to make the recipes.
- We are based in the UK but also provide Imperial US measurements where we can.
- We listen, we read every comment!
Fun Facts About Nicky:
- I’ve always got food on my mind, and I’m constantly in the kitchen testing recipes for Kitchen Sanctuary or whipping up something delicious for the family.
- I’m a total introvert, but I do come out of my shell every now and then – like the time I won the Neff Cookaholic competition by competing on stage. I won BTW 🙂
- I’ve published a book – Seriously Good Salads – which is all about making salads into a full meal. It’s not a diet book.
- I’ve written and/or created content for many brands, websites and magazines including Neff, Brit + Co, The Telegraph, Superfood Magazine, The Vegetarian Society and Beautiful Home and Life Magazine.
- I HATE offal. I’ve only ever eaten it to be polite.
- My favourite treat is a Cadbury chocolate Easter egg that’s been refrigerated to chocolate-cracking perfection. I’ve been known to buy Easter eggs for all of my family, then eat them all and have to buy them again.
- I’m a bit of a food magazine and recipe book addict, so you’ll find some recipes on here that have caught my eye (I’ll always let you know the source) as well as lots of my own creations.
- I love lists, schedules and time plans. But I also love a bit of spontaneity (like the time we booked a surprise trip to Disney just 2 weeks ahead of time and only broke the news to the kids when we got to the airport).
Fun Facts About Chris:
- I used to work in a restaurant from a young age and LOVE cooking and eating OBVIOUSLY.
- I’m a tech geek and love anything to do with photo and video.
- Photography has been one of my passions for my whole adult life, I really enjoy travel, street and landscape photography the most.
- I’m actually Nik’s toyboy. She’s 3 years older than me 😘
- I once cycled from one side of the UK to the other in a coast-to-coast ride with my mate Lee – fuelled by pints of beer and Snickers bars.
- I managed a multi-million $ budget and teams of people across 4 continents in my last role in the corporate world. Now even the cats don’t answer to me (but I can live with it since I get to stay home with my beautiful wife all day (brownie points for me)).
- The studio kitchen you see in our videos (and the wall and shelves behind me on my picture above) was built by me. My Dad’s a builder – he built our kitchen extension and I built everything inside it.
- I love football (soccer) and am the assistant coach for my son’s team.
- I’m a planner too and love a good process, especially if I can automate it 😉
What you WILL find on Kitchen Sanctuary ✔
Lots of delicious family friendly recipes like:
✅ Comfort food recipes such as: Chicken and Bacon Pasta Bake, Creamy Chicken Puff Pie, Spaghetti Bolognese and Steak Diane Casserole
✅ Asian inspired recipes: Sesame Chicken, Stick Chinese Pork Belly, Sweet and Sour Chicken, Sesame Prawn Toast and more
✅ Curries: Like my slow cooked Beef Massaman Curry, Chicken Jalfrezi, Thai Green Curry, Chicken Madras and many more.
✅ British classics such as: Lancashire hotpot, Toad in the Hole, Roast Beef Dinner, Yorkshire Puddings & Cottage Pie
✅ Back to basics tutorials including: How to boil rice, how to roast a chicken, how to make rich gravy and how to make pasta.
What you WONT find on Kitchen Sanctuary ❌
❌ Lots of sponsored posts. I very rarely write sponsored posts on my blog (a handful a year) and when I do, it’s only with brands that I truly use and love.
❌ Overly technical or complicated recipes. I’m a busy mum of two, I haven’t got time for all that nonsense.
❌ Recipes that include lots of packaged goods. I’ll sometimes include the occasional curry paste, I do use pre-made pastry and I do like to add a stock cube here and there for added flavour, but you won’t find me using chicken/mushroom soup as a sauce, relying on cake mixes or cool whip.
❌ Healthy recipes that are lacking in flavour. I’ve got a few lighter recipes on the blog that I sometimes post when my jeans are getting too tight, but I NEVER sacrifice on flavour. If it doesn’t satisfy, I don’t want anything to do with it.
Some of our personal favourites:
- Sesame Chicken – it’s a long time reader favourite and I 100% agree with you guys.
- Spaghetti Bolognese – always on rotation at home.
- Roast Beef dinner with a huge batch of Yorkshire Puddings, Roast Potatoes and a swimming pool (well almost) of amazing gravy.
- Creamy chicken puff pie – it’s got to have a pastry base too. That’s a real pie.
- Chicken Madras – a reader requested recipe that I absolutely LOVE served with some homemade chapatis.
- Sweet and Sour Chicken with loads of homemade fried rice
- Beef Stroganoff – the ultimate date night dinner
- Chris’s Chilli Con Carne – I love it when he cooks (it helps that his Mum used to be a chef, and he worked in a restaurant so he knows his stuff)
- Lancashire Hotpot – a simple Northern classic, that despite having minimal ingredients, tastes eyeball rollingingly delicious
- Sticky Chinese Pork Belly – melt in your mouth heaven.
What’s popular now:
These recipes are super popular right now:
We are also on social media too, Our favourite platforms are:
Instagram < we share some behind the scenes and other things on our stories so that’s a great place to get to know is more.
YouTube < We are sharing step by step recipe videos on YouTube with new videos going live twice a week so be sure to subscribe and hit the little bell icon so you get notified every time we publish a new video.
You can also find us on Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook
Interested in learning how we create content?
Are you interested in learning how we take mouthwatering photos, want to understand how we make money and how we work through the challenges of blogging?
Did you know we also have a second blog called Living the Blog.
Chris and I both have such a passion for blogging. It’s totally changed our lives and we’re so thankful that our full-time job is something that we love. Living the Blog is where we help other people by showing them what we do and how we do it.
It includes lots on info on finding work, Food Styling and Photography, Video Production, income reports (a little un-British to talk about our earnings, but we learned so much from reading other peoples income reports), blogging schedules and how our blog grew from day 1.
Hi Nicky and Chris,
I can’t believe I’ve only just found you and that was by chance when I was looking on Google for a recipe for something. Look forward to exploring all that you do and to trying some of your fantastic recipes. Subscribed to everything.
Whenever I fancy making a particular dish, or just need inspiration, then Kitchen Sanctuary is my Go To on YouTube.
Your curry recipes are the best especially your curry gravy base!
But, there are so many other dishes I’m determined to try and because your videos are easy to follow then you just know it’s going to be a success.
And, you haven’t let me down yet!
Hi Nicky,
Your recipe are amazing!! Thank you so much for your recipe ideas! X
my brother in law introduced me to this site love all the recipes
Hi Nicky
Love your recipes ,Have you got a good recipe for Hot & Sour Soup please,
Thank you
Hello, Nicky, I have recently found you on YouTube and bought your new book, in which there are lots of delicious recipes I hope to try. As I am cooking for two I wondered if the dishes can be frozen or frozen after a stage and finished later as a quick home made “ready meal”.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for buying the book xx
Many of my recipes can be frozen. If the recipes are on the website, I usually try to include make ahead and/or freezing instructions in the notes sections of the recipe card (about 20 of the recipes in the book are currently on the website). Unfortunately there wasn’t room in the book to provide this kind of information for every recipe.
If you’re trying to figure out the make ahead/freezing instructions for a recipe in the book, but it doesn’t appear on my website, I’d suggest trying to find a similar recipe on my website (so if you’re looking at a noodle recipe or a pasta recipe, trying searching for ‘noodles’ or ‘pasta’ to see if you kind find a similar recipe).
There’s also some extra info on page 11 of the Quick & Easy book that gives a bit more info on the types of recipes that freeze well, and those that don’t.
Hope that helps 🙂
Hi. I wanted to read your Tuscan chicken soup recipe, but there was so much stuff popping up, much of it blocking the recipe with no obvious way to get rid of it, that I finally gave up.
Just thought I’d let you know.
By the way, I see you require me to leave an email address to leave a comment, so I hope to God it doesn’t result in me being on a spam list. I trust you have “unsubscribe” if it does?
Regards,
John
Hi John, there’s a ‘skip to recipe’ button at the top of every page that will take you straight to the recipe card. The recipe card also has a print button, which will bring up a simplified print page (you don’t actually have to print it).
Leaving an email address to comment doesn’t put you on any list (unless you check the tickbox asking to be included on our mailing list) – it just helps us to prevent spam comments.
If you left an email address asking to subscribe to our mailing list (to receive emails of our recipes), then there’s a secondary confirmation step that comes through via email. So you can ensure you’re happy to subscribe.
If you did, then there’s an unsubscribe link on the bottom of every email we send out, so you can unsubscribe at any time.
Hi Nicky (and Chris), long time no see… are you still in our not-so-small-anymore town in Cheshire? I never bump into you in town or the supermarkets… Anyway, I have rather rashly committed to doing an all-home-made curry night for me and four mates, who are coming round at the end of August. But the good news is, I know where to find a one-stop shop for my recipes, i.e. your site! So, I could do with a bit of advice on what could be prepared in advance that wouldn’t suffer by being re-heated. My menu (all your recipes) is:
Appetiser: Poppadoms (I’ll deep fry those, not pre-fried) with your mango chutney. (Do you have any other recipes for poppadom accompaniments?)
Starter: Chicken pakoras.
Main: Lamb Bhuna and Chicken Jalfrezi.
Sides: Dal Makhani, Pilau Rice and Garlic Naan.
I’m guessing the chutney, bhuna, jalfrezi, dal and even the rice could be done up front, but up to what step in each recipe? Are the pakoras and naans best done on the night?
By the way, one of my mates is a past MasterChef contestant, so the gauntlet is well and truly down… 👍
Hi David, nice to hear from you! We’ve down in Devon now.
You could go for raita, onion and tomato salad and/or sweet chilli sauce with your poppadoms.
The chutney, curries and rice could be fully made the day before (just be sure to cool quickly, then store in an airtight container in the fridge).
Reheat the curries in a pan, stirring every so often, until piping hot. You’ll probably need to add a splash of water or stock to loosen up when reheating.
The dal can be made the day before and chilled (just don’t add the cream and final tablespoon of butter) – reheat in a pan, and stir in the cream and butter when reheating.
The rice can be reheated in the microwave. Add a couple of tablespoons of water, then cover with a microwave safe plate and reheat, stirring every minute, until piping hot. Don’t reheat more than once.
I would do the pakoras on the night if possible, they’re much better fresh. They can be fully made ahead, then reheated in the oven or air fryer if that reduces the workload on the day though.
The naans could be made the day before (but don’t brush on the garlic butter). Cook them, cool and store in an airtight container at room temp. Then reheat in the oven on a tray, in a single layer, covered with foil. Brush on the garlic butter before serving.
Most of the recipes have some more detailed instructions on making ahead/reheating in the notes section of the recipe card.
Hope that helps and good luck!
I don’t think I’ve ever tried a recipe as instructed and have the dish turn out perfectly! Thanks!