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,
I love looking at your recipes, but am currently looking for family meals (4 adults) that come in at under 600 calories per person, while we all try to lose some of the extra covid-fat roll ! – but I still want to cook tasty meals.
Would it be possible to have a section on healthier/lower calorie meals, all in one place ? That would be really helpful, as at the moment I drive myself insane looking through amazing looking meals to get down to where the nutritional information is, to realise they are a little calorie heavy at the moment !
Many thanks
Catherine
Sure Carol – I have a section for recipes with lower calories – https://www.kitchensanctuary.com/category/skinny-eats/
The calorie count often doesn’t include the serving suggestions – if I suggest serving it with rice or potatoes for example, but some of them do. The recipe card will state whether it includes the serving suggestion or not. Hope that helps 🙂
What an interesting life you have both had, in the past and now going on to this wonderful adventure that you obviously both love. I truly love receiving your recipes every week and always look forward to trying them. They are all so uncomplicated. I down loaded your new E recipe book yesterday and look forward to having fun with it.
I am an old lady now 84 years of age but still enjoy trying out new recipes. So you see you appeal to all ages. Maybe I am one of your oldest admirers. Thank you so much.
Thank you Carol – so happy you’re enjoying the recipes, and happy to hear you like trying new and different ones too 🙂
Really love receiving your different culinary ideas every week! Have tried many of your amazing recipes and they are always a big hit with my family!! Really appreciate your passion and interest for food – it has really inspired me too!!
Thank you Larissa, that makes me so happy 🙂
Came across this page a few weeks ago. The food looked beautiful so I thought I’d give it a go with the sweet n sour chicken. The family thought I’d nipped out to the local Chinese restaurant and was passing it off as homemade. Thank goodness I left all the washing up as proof.
I was going to try the orange chicken this weekend but have been overruled by the family with their desire for sweet n sour chicken again.
Food has never been so interesting.
Thanks Sean – so glad you and your family enjoyed the sweet and sour chicken 🙂
We purchased Seriously Good Salads. It’s is with out a doubt the best Salad book hands down; this is coming from a serous carnivore. We are making the Sticky Pork Belly with Crunchy Salad. Last night we made the Thai-Style Slaw with Peanut Dressing. The dressing is the bomb. Keep up the outstanding work.
Thanks Tom, Really appreciate the comment. So happy that you are enjoying the book 🙂
Thanks again,
Chris & Nicky
Thank you so much for some for some fabulous recipes, you’ve made me fall back in love with the kitchen
Hi Nicky and Chris,
Never done this before, as in made a comment on line but I have been cooking for ages and always cook for the family at the weekends, normally searching through many websites to pick what I am going to try and recreate, I am always drawn to your website and have done loads that you have published.. it is a great website.
Thanks
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment Andy. That’s made our day, so glad you are enjoying the recipes.
Have a great weekend
Thanks
Chris & Nicky
I absolutely love Italian food and the Creamy Tuscan Chicken recipe is packed full of taste and texture and reminds me of holidays to Tuscany! It tastes authentic and I found it easy to make. It will definitely be my new ‘go to’ recipe to impress at a dinner party (whenever that might be), but it’s simple enough to have everyday too.
I have just tried the lamb Jalfreze and am interested why there is no use of a curry powder in the recipe. Most other Jalfrezi seem to use some.
I am working through your curry recipes while in Corona self isolation. Very goo so far
Hi John,
No, you don’t need any extra curry powder in our Jalfrezi. Curry powder tends to be just a blend of the spices we are already using for the Jalfrezi so it’s not needed for this recipe.
Glad you’re enjoying the recipes. Hope you enjoy the jalfrezi.
Thanks
Chris
Im a professional cook and follow you on Twitter. All of your recipes are great and I appreciate you
Thanks Adam 🙂
Chris & Nicky
THAI RED CURRY
Just like to say that my husband made this last night and it blew my mind. It was as good as any Thai restaurant I have been to. It was fantastic.
Always love your recipes which are clear and concise
Thank you
Thank you so much Denise, I’m so glad you and your husband enjoyed the recipe 🙂