From a young age, Yorkshire born Arooj Jamil has been cooking up a feast. Better known as Rooji the Foodie, she has for a decade been sharing delectable recipes to her community of followers online. Her approach is to make the process of cooking fun, simple and straight-forward.

In this Q&A with MWN Hub, Arooj shares how her love for food and mission to enthuse confidence in the kitchen led to her leaving a successful career in sales to becoming a solopreneur.

How did your love for food begin?

Well I’m from a Punjabi household, we’re born with the love of food and it’s the centre of everything.

When I was around 11 years old, my mum started getting very ill. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. With mum’s poor health, I had to step in. I also grew up with the notion that you needed to know how to cook and clean cause that is what a dutiful South Asian daughter does. Naturally, I just grew up gravitating towards the kitchen.

I got to a stage where I enjoyed eating certain foods and wanting to know how to cook or bake them. I started to invest in my own skill set, back then we didn’t have social media or YouTube, so I subscribed to a baking magazine. Every week, I would be excited to recreate recipes.

I’d say my passion for cooking really took off in my early twenties when my late uncle taught me how to make a curry. He would say, ‘Putthar this is the base for any curry’. I learned from him how to cook a really good curry.

Does your cultural background influence the recipes you make?

I think for cooking, yes it absolutely does. My cooking is heavily inspired by Pakistani food.

Being born to immigrant parents, recipe fusions just happened. Before it became a trend on TikTok or Instagram, I would make desi lasagnes, masala fish and chips. We would have something called chip curry at home – my mum would make this. I always felt that it was a fusion between the most British thing that I knew, which was chips and the most Pakistani dish, which was gosht. It would be a lamb curry that mum would add chips to instead of aloo. I loved it – it was a proper fusion of chips and curry!

Let’s talk about what inspired you to become a food influencer and how did Rooji The Foodie come about?

Back in the days of Facebook, I would get a lot of messages asking for me to share my recipes. I was constantly sending people recipes. I thought wouldn’t it be really nice if I could centralise it all. At the time, Instagram was a very new platform – it was only a picture-based platform then. That’s where it started – as I thought it would be a good platform to share on.

My actual name is Arooj, but everyone one calls me Rooji. Seeing as, Rooji the Foodie, rolls off the tongue really well decided to go with that name. Nobody was a foodie then. I’m actually celebrating my 10-year anniversary this year. I started it on 26th May 2016, and the first thing I posted was a recipe of an omelette.

Being a food content creator, how do you keep up with food trends while maintaining authenticity to self?

I don’t really follow food trends, there’s too much pressure as they constantly change. My recipes come from what I enjoy eating. It’s food that I would make for myself and my family.

My content will vary from me hosting people to posting a very detailed recipe video to sharing story-time. Because there isn’t consistency, I believe my growth has not been as fast as other creators. I try not to put pressure on myself. I want to produce content that feels true to me not because an algorithm will work on x,y and z. Trying to fight the algorithm is the hardest thing!

You mentioned that before Rooji The Foodie you had a career in sales.  In what ways did your sales career shape your business journey and was the move a smooth one?

For 13 years, I have worked in different sale roles. I was really good at it and moved quickly into senior management. You see I’ve the gift of the gab – well that’s my gift from Allah. And it sure has gotten me far in life, Alhamdulilah.

One of the things my career in sales allowed me to do was to expand understanding of how a business works and profitability – sales really helped me with that. I was keen on growing my business, but being careful of the bottom line.

As the business grew, I started diversifying - selling digital products like recipe books and recipe cards. This then expanded to events, posting food-based events. I got to the point where I decided that I could do this full-time. I also was getting bored of sales to the point where I felt it took me away from my purpose in the dunya. There would be times when in a sales pitch, I couldn’t get out in time to pray and when I did, I was so tired that I didn’t want to pray. Yes, the money was good and yes it was comfortable, but surely there’s got to be more than this.

One morning after praying Istikhara, I decided to without a plan of action quit my corporate job. I’ve not looked back. SubhanAllah, one door after another started opening.

It can be a huge risk leaving a job with stable income to pursuing your own business. How has your faith shaped the way you think of risks and taking chances?

I am living the dua I had made. Having Tawakkul, putting trust in Allah as he is our Razzaq; that is what has kept me going. In my first year of being self-employed, the profit I had made was higher than what I’d made in my corporate job.

How has your business expanded?

I did collaborations with others and events. I have launched a one-to-one kitchen confidence masterclass for women.

I have always been one of those people that doesn’t believe in keeping things a secret whether it is my recipes or bakes that I am selling to the tips that I have learned from others. I feel like knowledge is for us to share.

Ultimately, the goal with my business is to share any beneficial knowledge gained with other people, so that they can learn a life skill and be confident in the kitchen.

Have you experienced any challenges?

One of the biggest challenges, especially in the beginning was trying to not come across too Muslim. For years, I didn’t show my face on social media, it was a faceless account. It was 4 years into my journey with 35k followers did I then show my face. Once I did show my face I realised I’m always going to be too Muslim, because I’m hijabi and brown. I decided to lean into that part of my identity and stopped being afraid of incorporating my faith into my content and into my business. Even in my new course that is coming out, there is a module on intention.  

I feel the shadow banning as result of me being vocal about my beliefs and supporting people that are less fortunate around the world has played a massive part in my reach. But I’d rather be true to myself.

What’s next for you?

Wherever Allah takes me. Sometimes it can be stressful running a business not knowing where your next pay check is coming from as no month is the same. I truly believe Allah has got me regardless. So, I don’t know what next is for me. Honestly life changes in a flash, you just don’t know.

Follow Rooji the Foodie on Instagram @roojithefoodie. For purchasing recipe e-books and information on how you can sign-up to her 1-2-1 Kitchen Confidence Masterclass visit the website Roojithefoodie.