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.
I’ve been trying to get back to the sourdough scone recipe but cannot find baking in the menu to search under. Could this be added in the future maybe? Also would be great to see some vegetarian and vegan recipes please? Can’t wait to get started on the scones and have one with a brew later on!!
Hi Christine, there’s a search box at the top right hand corner of the blog. You just need to click on the magnifying glass and it will let you type – so you can search for anything.
Here’s the recipe for my sourdough scones: https://www.kitchensanctuary.com/sourdough-scones-rhubarb-compote/
and here are my vegetarian recipes https://www.kitchensanctuary.com/category/vegetarian/
Hi Nicky and Chris,
I’m a northerner who now resides in Arizona, USA and at 41 years of age have decided to start learning to cook properly. Last week I was on You Tube and did a search for ‘sweet & sour chicken’ and chose your recipe among the mountain of other S&SC videos on there. It was such a pleasant surprise to see that Nicky was British (possibly a fellow northerner?) and what a fantastically simple recipe to follow! My wife who is Chinese totally approved of the meal I prepared and I thought it tasted delicious. I’ve since done your salmon dish with the honey glaze and am excited to try many more of your amazing recipes!
I am so pleased that I have found your You Tube channel – keep up the great work and I wish you lots of success.
Ben
Thanks Ben, I’m so happy you and your wife enjoyed the sweet and sour chicken 🙂
Yes, I’m from the North West – originally from Southport.
Hello Nicky & Chris.
I’ve just tried the Korean Fried Chicken: we loved it. Thank you for a terrific recipe: I’ve already shared it with my son who is a newly inspired cook. I don’t have a deep fat frier so shallow fried the chicken which worked well (will now invest in an air-fryer, on the strength of this one dish). As you say: eat it all immediately- it still tastes good a day later, but loses the crunch.
Many thanks to you both.
What’s the salad recipe in the Chicken Satay picture.
Hi Cory, I used a bag of baby salad leaves, some mange tout, fresh coriander, sliced red onion and cucumber. I drizzled it with a little olive oil mixed with lemon juice and sprinkled on some sesame seeds and chilli flakes.
Made the sticky sweet crispy chicken. Absolutely Delicious cant wait to have it again. mmmmmm
Hi I’m an avid cook
Trying g to view your site is impossible for pop ups and videos popping up making it impossible to scroll maybe bcos on mobile BUT so annoying that I found impossible to read the recipe that caught my eye
Sorry but so
Many sites and instant gratification is what you wand when
Browsing
I took the time to delete add move the cursor to try and scroll past so
Much just to see the recipe – it’s slow glitchy and jumps around noo e has the time – shame
Keep it simple
Hi Susie,
I’m so glad that one of our recipes caught your eye and sorry you had a bad experience with adverts.
We work incredibly hard to ensure that the recipes are tried and tested (in some cases multiple times) and that all of our posts are as helpful as possible and FREE to access. Unfortunately, the ads are the only way we earn anything from the recipes and website at the moment.
There is a button right at the top of any recipe post that allows you to jump to the recipe. Or if you click on the print recipe button just the recipe will appear in a new window.
Kind Regards
Chris
I had a sudden desire for sweet and sour chicken. I was sat in my car outside Sainsbury’s and googled it. Yours was the first recipe I saw so I ran inside the store grabbed the ingredients and went home and made it. OMG it was just like the local take away, I loved it. The only problem was I had to starve for a week after as when I saw the amount of sugar in it I nearly died, but it was irresistibly good. Followed your recipe to a tee and me and my husband ate the whole lot. Not sure how many it is supposed to feed but certainly more than 2.
Thank you I am going to do the pad Thai next.
Ha ha I know, some of my recipes are a little on the indulgent side. So happy you and your husband enjoyed it though 🙂
Hi Both
Really enjoying your recipes, photography and presentation.
I think I’ve found my internet cookery home!
I noticed your neat oven during the artisan bread video.
Please could you tell me the make (I’m guessing Neff?) and is it a double or two singles?
All best regards,
Nick.
Hi Nick, Thank you so much 🙂
Yes, it’s a Neff slide n’ hide oven, underneath is the Neff microwave combi oven and under that is the Neff warming drawer. We also have another slide n’ hide on the opposite side, underneath the hob/burner.
We’ve worked with Neff, so we swap out the ovens sometimes, but for most videos, the ovens we use are the variosteam ones.
After finding your YouTube channel I made Lamb gravy and drank half of it before it got to the table! Just about to make the summer casserole and wanted to check if the temperatures given are for fan ovens? Thanks
Hi Paul,
Yes the temps are for a fan oven. So glad you’re enjoying the recipes.
Thanks
Chris & Nicky
Thanks Chris. I found your channel searching for an orange chicken recipe, people from all over the world publish them but I picked someone from Congleton and I live not that far away south of Warrington!
I’ve made a few of your recipes now and they have been really good, easy to make and delicious. Thank you for sharing them with us.
Thanks Anita,
So glad that you’re enjoying the recipes 🙂
Thanks
Chris & Nicky
Hi guys I love cooking too and adore your sticky sesame chicken I’m always looking for recipes authentic and budget conscious I spend most of my time in the kitchen apart from work it’s like a drug to me