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, I love your site! I am also food blogging and have just used an adaptation of your Korean Chicken on my blog – hugfromthekitchen. I credited you on the blog post and also tagged you on instagram when I posted there too. The recipe was great and I have made it again since as it is so easy to put together. Thanks for all you do. Liz
Thanks Liz, I really appreciate it 🙂
Been following on YouTube few months now. Family meal times have dramatically changed & not by chance…but selecting a few new KS receipes every few week. No more ‘yapping’ at tea time from my wee clan…very little packed food used as well. Enough variety to keep ’em surprised.
Few things about KS that works for my busy home…simple instructions, easy to buy/find ingredients, kitchen doesn’t get cluttered, mostly 1/2 hr cook time on meals….flavour/colour/textures spot on every time.
Per chance do u have a recipe for an easy chicken paella ?
Thank you so much Gary, I’m so happy the recipes have been a help you you 🙂
I haven’t got a paella recipe yet, but it’s on my list!
Hi Guys,
Ive only just discovered this page of yousr with all the lush recipies. My daughter is obsessed with the Korean Pop group BTS and they talk about Korean chicken all the time so was just flicking through the internet to find a recipie for Korean Chicken.
I’m deffinitally going to be trying some of the lush Recipies .
I am Namrata from India and the southern state Kerala. I made roasted vegetable soup .. which i found on your page .. and it was yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmy. Thanks so much .. please share more veg recipes .
Just discovered you through my son-in-law ….really like your approach …delicious recipes simplified for family sharing
Hi I have been making your Brioche burger buns for a while now – they are a little hit and miss – at first I think it was due to me putting the dough/rolled buns in the airing cupboard but on occasion, if it was warmer than usual they would go quite flat and not rise properly. I have tried now doing it on the kitchen worktop, and in a warming drawer or oven (which I turned on very briefly, then turned off, just so it wasn’t cold), but after the first rise, then shaping, they don’t seem to rise properly again and spread out too much – therefore only rising slightly in the oven – still edible but I would like it to be more consistent. The dough is very very soft which I know it needs to be but wondering what else I could be doing wrong. Any help would be great as when they had turned out great they are really the best and I don’t seem to be doing anything different.
Hi Julie,
I’d try 3 things if you’re having issues with the buns being flat:
1: Ensure you roll out the individual buns with enough flour so the buns hold their shape without immediately flattening on the baking tray.
2: Ensure the dough at the top of the bun is taut. So take the dough for one bun and fold the dough in on itself so it’s gathered together (the underside that’s on the surface will be taut), then turn the bun over so the taut side is on top and the gathered parts are underneath. Place buns on the tray and give them a bit of a squeeze on the sides, tucking the edges underneath a little more, to add a bit of height. This tension will help stop outward spread.
3: For proofing, go by eye, rather than timing. So keep an eye out for when the dough is just doubled (or even a little under double-size) before shaping it. This means the dough shouldn’t overproof (which would weaken the gluten structure).
Hope that helps 🙂
Discovered you on YouTube last night. Great recipes without all the way too fancy ingredients. Printing recipes right now. Keep up the great work.
Love your recipes Nicky, your brill I’m writing down all I’m wanting to make and there are lots, your recipes are so easy to understand .would love to see these fabulous recipes in a cook book, but as long as I can find you on here then I’m more than happy ,thankyou Jan
Where in the UK do you live?
I am lucky enough to live in south Wales and know the north Gower marshes, Hugh Philips’ shops and Oxwich Bay very well.
Lamb is my favourite meat, by far, though I also love a good Rib Eye. I fully agree with you about the quality of Welsh Lamb, second to none though I read that Cumbrian Herdwicks are also very good.
A few years ago, while on holiday in Cornwall, we had some Cornish Lamb and Cornish Beef, both in high quality establishments who were clearly proud to promote their local meats. However, both were very disappointing, the lamb no better than New Zealand and the beef reminded us of school dinners. We were very surprised that the restaurants thought they were providing quality meats!
We will stick to Welsh bred and raised Lamb, Beef, Pork & Poultry which, as you say, is even available in many supermarkets. In Wales all Aldi’s fresh lamb is from Welsh farms. though it is a privilege to buy from local, independent Butchers, albeit at a little greater cost. We can live with that.
We are new to your sites and look forward to trying some more of your recipes.
Thanks Chris, we had a lovely time in South Wales – most definitely the best lamb we’ve ever tasted!
Dear Nicky,
I have just downloaded your Orange Chicken recipe and wish to point out a possible mistake.
Our daughter is a coeliac and used to have an online shop selling gluten free food. In your note “Can I make it gluten free’ you only mention substituting Tamari for the soy sauce BUT one of the ingredients for the chicken coating is Plain flour and this contains Gluten.
We used to sell Doves Farm Gluten Free Plain & Self Raising Flour which did not contain Wheat. Using normal Plain flour could make a Coeliac very sick.
My wife and I are looking forward to trying this recipe, as, like you we have had it many times while staying with our other daughter who lives in California
Sincerely
Richard Skelton
Thank you so much Richard, I must have missed that – I’ve updated it now.