Why is Nadiya putting snacks in everything?

“I’m bringing the fun back into our food,” says cook Nadiya Hussain, who believes that home cooks are bored of making the same old staples. Nadiya calls her house “snack central”, and uses cupboards full of Bombay mix, pretzels, chocolate mini rolls, cheese puffs and crisps as inspiration for her latest recipes. “I use foods people think of as snacks as ingredients," she says. “Let’s throw the rule book out of the window and get cooking.”

Put your favourite flavours first

“You’ve never had burgers like these before,” says Nadiya. "These are always a big deal in my house."

These spicy, nutty, veggie burgers are made using popular crunchy snack, Bombay mix. “There were jars of this stuff [when we were] growing up in our house, and this would be our snack of choice,” says Nadiya. You can buy Bombay mix, or namkeen, in most large and some smaller supermarkets. It consists of sev, deep-fried chickpea flour noodles, and can also include fried lentils, peas, puffed rice and other ingredients.

Nadiya blends the Bombay mix and soaks it in boiling water to make a dough that is shaped into burgers, baked and topped with onions, cheese and lime pickle. It's not so different in principle to a veggie burger or falafel mix, or even a stuffing mix.

“My ultimate veggie burgers are stacked high with the flavours of India,” she says. “If there was ever a fast track to flavour, this is it.

“The first time my kids ate these burgers, […] my second son [who] absolutely loves Bombay mix, was like, ‘Did you make veggie burgers with Bombay mix?’ and I was like ‘Yeah, I did!’ He was so impressed that I got a massive squeeze and that’s a big deal from a teenager!”

Cheeky cheats

“I love a good cheat,” says Nadiya, and this chocolate mint Swiss roll is Nadiya’s “sneaky shortcut” to a magical treat. “If you’re not that into turning your oven on, this is definitely the cake for you,” says Nadiya.

A no-bake Swiss roll!? That’s right. Nadiya uses chocolate mini rolls in her “hack to end all hacks”. Popping all twenty mini rolls into a food processor, the rolls are blended until they form a dough. This is then pressed into a square cake tin, covered with minty whipped cream and rolled up into one big mint chocolate roll.

Before you faint dead away from shock, the blended cake technique has been used in cake pops for years. Shop-bought Swiss rolls have featured in many an easy trifle recipe, and blended biscuit crumbs are used without question as a tart base. This would be a good project for little kids to make without needing to worry about a hot oven.

This isn't the first time Nadiya has given shop-bought treats a new look. Her strawberry shortbread cupcakes have a custard cream biscuit hiding inside, with a revolutionary melted strawberry ice cream frosting. Shop-bought caramel chocolates are melted into in her chocolate soda bread recipe.

Surprising flavour combinations

Cheats for easy cooking aren't the only reason why Nadiya is leaning into snacks. “I think we don’t treat ourselves enough,” she says. It’s “about saying ‘I want what I want, and I want to treat myself because I am worth it,” she says.

If a creme brûlée wasn't treat enough, Nadiya makes it sociable and sliceable, while adding a surprising flavour note in this pretzel hazelnut brûlée tart.

Blended salted pretzels go into to her hazelnut pastry, which she says add “bursts” of salt crystals in the tart. The sweet-salty pretzel combination has popped up in her earlier peanut butter and jelly tiffin, a flavour combination that Americans have made their own, but is still a little "edgy" in the UK.

And you may remember her chocolate tart with salted crisps. It is “one of my family’s favourite recipes,” says Nadiya, “even though the kids said it would never work.”

It is “treats galore”.

Enjoy experimenting

Nadiya says she breaks every single one of the kitchen "rules" to make her ultimate version of mac and cheese but she promises that it is the "best mac and cheese you are ever going to try”.

“I’ve taken the feel-good factor, and super-sized it,” says Nadiya, and “it’s packed with instant flavour cheats.” Not only does she add evaporated milk, yeast extract (aka "nectar") and tangy Worcestershire sauce but also stirs in, and tops, the bake with the crushed cheese puffs. “Their salty, moreish crunch takes the comfort in this dish to the next level,” she says, encouraging us to have fun with cosy, comforting food. If anything, this last year and a half has taught us to enjoy the moment [and] to experiment,” she said.