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, I’m a Sunday Times Best Selling author, award-winning recipe developer and food photographer, based in Devon, in the UK.
I started this website in 2014 after spending 14 years in the corporate world, and I managed to get my husband, Chris, to join me full-time 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 (multiple times!) before we publish them.
- Chris and I 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!
My Cookbooks
I published my first cookbook ‘Seriously Good Salads‘ back in 2019, with the aim of proving that salads don’t have to be boring. It’s not a diet book. This book continues to be sold today and has more than 350 positive reviews on Amazon.
In 2022 published my second cookbook ‘It’s All About Dinner‘ featuring a big selection of the most popular and favourited recipes on Kitchen Sanctuary. This achieved ‘Sunday Times Best Seller’ in its first week of publication and has over 700 positive reviews on Amazon.
My third cookbook ‘Quick & Easy‘ was published in 2024. I wrote this to help you cook fantastic dinner recipes in 30 minutes or less. It’s already received almost 250 positive reviews!
If you’ve bought one of my books and/or left an Amazon review on one of my books, then thank you! It’s helps so much!
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 WON’T find on Kitchen Sanctuary ❌
❌ Lots of sponsored posts. I very rarely write sponsored posts on my blog 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 the majority of most of my recipes are from scratch.
❌ 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.
My recipes have featured in:
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 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 and only broke the news to the kids when we got to the airport (they thought we were going on a work trip to Germany).
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 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)).
- I designed and built each of the kitchen studios you see in our videos (three so far!). My dad’s a builder, so he taught me.
- My mum taught me to cook. She was head chef at a country inn for many years, and I used to be her kitchen assistant and also worked front of house (mum’s now part of our social media team).
- I love football (soccer) and am coach for my son’s team.
- I’m a planner too and love a good process, especially if I can automate it 😉
Some of our personal favourite recipes:
- 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:
Social Media Channels
We’re also on social media. 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 share step-by-step recipe videos on YouTube with new videos going live weekly, 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, Facebook and Punchfork
Hi, just came across your website. Really like the look of some of your recipes, so ordered one of the cook books. What i like is you cover the “classics” as well as Indian/Chinese food etc.
As a single older guy i try to keep things simple but would love to experiment more.
Always difficult cooking for one so try to use recipes that can be frozen for another day or part used in another dish.
Thanks for ordering the book Colin 😊
I really hope you enjoy the recipes!
Hi
I just stumbled upon your website while looking for a proper English meat and potato pie, I am originally from Wales but now live in Australia.
I have signed up and can’t wait to see what else I can find to bring back some childhood memories
Thank you
Gillian 😊
Hi, came across your site by chance.
Your recipes look fantastic, only question I wanted to ask is do you include calories per portion?
I have a lot of weight to lose, but still want to eat food that I like just smaller portions etc., and loathe ready meals!
Thanks so much, mouth watering even looking at the recipies!
Hey Nicky and Chris from Australia 🇦🇺!
Your new cookbook has arrived and I’ve set myself a challenge; to cook our meals when we are travelling in our Caravan from your book! We start next weekend and I’m commencing with spicy chicken thighs! Love your YouTube videos Nicky! Xx
I Love to cook too. Here is my way of making sweet and sour sauce.
Same quantide of (4) ingredients.
SUGAR
VINEGAR
KETCHUP
PINEAPPLE JUICE
BRING TO A BOIL…ADD CORNSTACH TO THINCKING a bit.
I can not wait to try this recipe my mouth is salivating just reading it
I just know I’m going to love it
I love the look of many of your recipes. I am recently widowed so now cook only for one . I am allergic to spices so find many lovely looking recipes which I am unable to eat and leaving out the spices ruins the whole meal. I would love some help on adapting your recipes for one and how to replace the spices.
I would love to hear from you.
Many thanks Sheila Swanson.
Well, it is on the stove as I speak…I am 78 and find cooking it a challenge these days, but I have my 19 year old grandson with me and decided to have a go at this…the only thing I added was some diced potatoes and peas…
My wife and I love your recipes and the way you present them. My only niggle is that you do like most other cooks/chefs do and that is to mix up marinate and marinade. Marinate is a verb and it’s what you do to the meat. Marinade is a noun and refers to the liquid that you do the marinating in.
Other than that, all good.
Nicky, and Chris, My husband gave me your first book xmas 2022, and it has been truly amazing, we have had so many of those dishes now on numerous occasions, and still have lots to try for the first time. Based on that positive experience I recently bought your new book, and we have been equally impressed. Again so many easy to create meals, proper tasty meals, it’s just brilliant. And they are all so versatile. I got my friend a copy too, she also loves it and started with the egg curry, because I had mentioned how yummy it was. As I sit here typing we have just had the crispy fish burgers, and last night we were back on your Thai red curry. I have been meaning to message for sometime to thank you, we love your work, and wholesome approach. Please don’t stop, many, many thanks.
Thank you for buying the books Sam! I’m so happy to hear you and your husband are enjoying the recipes 🙂