Tips for shopping/cooking for 1?

[AScaredyLion]

My little sister currently lives with us and is very helpful. She's moving out to live on her own but she was saying today that she was doing the weekly shop and she realised how much she was buying.

Can anyone recommend any cookbooks or have tips I can pass on? tia.

A freezer for freezing extra portions and storing frozen veg!

Frozen chopped onions/leeks/sweetcorn/prawns etc makes scaling down 'family' dishes much easier as you can literally just use as much as you need rather than chopping into a whole onion when you only need quarter of one.

You can batch cook recipes like chill, bolognese, for freezing in portions, and a tomato pasta sauce is a good base to cook for other meals.

Freeze sauces in bags and flattened, you can store more portions that way by stacking.

For things like curries, etc, I've found buying frozen chicken breasts to be economical. You're going to be chopping and cooking in a sauce anyway so fresh isn't necessary. Frozen fish is always useful, can be saved in single pieces.

Freeze bread products too so you only take out what you will use.
Buy from the meat, fish, deli counter for smaller amounts.
Look for dishes that can be served in different ways, so make a chilli, serve with rice one night, in wraps another and ina jacket another.

The author of Solo talked about this book on Woman's Hour.

It's a mix of recipes that are quickly and easily made for one, while being delicious and nutritious and batch cooking or things that can be converted to eat the leftovers in different ways.

It's on my watch list but I haven't bought it yet because I don't need it. I'm not single, but DP works away a lot, or likes different food, so I often find myself cooking just for me.

But I agree that buying for one can be a challenge with quantities. You find the salad you bought last for days and then you realise you've not even touched all that other veg you bought.

Careful use of freezer always helps if she has one. I like ready made fishcakes (Morrisons do some salmon ones with a cheese centre and no crumbs, so good if trying to avoid beige bready things). Two of those and a big pile of salad makes a nice meal for one.

Maybe if she plans and shops for 3 days at a time, that might help?

Saves having stuff that all needs using up at once because it's been in the fridge for a week.

I came on to say batch cooking too. In winter especially, I make curries etc for six people & freeze five portions. It's lovely to get in from work on a cold night & be able to heat up a home-cooked meal!

In summer I do a lot of bulgur wheat / quinoa salads with chopped up fresh veg. I've also got one of these - it says cucumbers but it works for celery too.

Any student cook book

But a slow cooker and use for casseroles in the winter, the easiest way is to either make a casserole for 4 and eat it for a day or two and then freeze two or three portions for the end of the month, do this each week and get a week at the end of the month with no expense and no cooking

I was forever buying fresh veggies ( still do but not as much in quantity ) and discovered the frozen packets of mixed peppers/chopped onions/mushrooms etc. All cost around £1 a bag from supermarkets and Iceland.

So much easier to open the bag and take out just enough and put back in the freezer, will last a lot longer, is cheaper and also saves on the prep time.

Freeze slices of bread in sandwich bags in groups of 2/3 for toast/sandwiches.
Costs almost the same to buy a smaller loaf so makes sense.

Meal plan minimum of 3 meals per week.
This allows room for eating out/take away and gives you a break from having to come home and wonder what to make.
Sometimes spontaneity is good but having a back up meal is always good.

I definitely think it's better to do a "big shop" as it's so easy to go to supermarket for 2 things and walk out £25 lighter.
Account for all condiments/salt/pepper etc with the first shop after moving in and then replace as needed.

Buy a decent selection of dried herbs and spices as these can be used to liven up pretty much anything. Mine cost 49p each in Lidl.

Aim to have a veggie meal every week.

Have a store cupboard staple, ours is pasta and sauce for exqmple and can be thrown together in 10 minutes.

I often do fridge roulette and take random things out, google them as a meal idea with the ingredients and try new things.

Buy lots of Tupperware style tubs, these can be bought very cheaply.

When cooking a big dish such as lasagne, make the biggest one you can and put the extra portions in containers, label and freeze.

I used to be so disorganised and have become much better now, i get stressed easy and identified what my triggers were.

One of the biggest stress triggers was meal times.
Life has been so much easier.

Lastly- I clean out the fridge and freezer before I go shopping as there are 2 benefits of this. One is that I come home and can put the food away quickly into a nice clean space and two it helps me to identify what I need as I write my list.

I never stick to it though