How to eat well when living alone?

[Sonjing]

Hi all, I have been living on my own for 6 months and I love it! However, I really struggle to eat properly given that I am on my own and it feels like a "waste" to cook for one person only. I am basically too lazy to cook I guess

I often end up skipping meals and buying crappy lunches around the office. I have already lost too much weight and I really don' want to lose anymore.

If you live alone and you have a good diet, how do you do it? Any quick recipes that does not involve too much cooking you can share? Any tips?

Thank you!

If you have access to a freezer i would suggest batch cooking. Only need to cook once and get several meals out of it! Things like stir fry and fish with some veg wrapped in foil and cooked together are really quick. The lean in 15 books are good too.

If you cool a meal and make 4 portions, freeze 3 then that’s 3 healthy meals you’ve got ready to go. Buy frozen veg so you’re minimise waste and plan meals so if you buy fresh salad you can make 2/3 meals in a row with the ingredient to use them up.

Watching with interest! I have this problem too..

I don't live alone now but I did for many years. I like cooking, but like you couldn't really be bothered to cook whole "proper meals" for one. I used to have a lot of soups, which I would cook a batch of and then freeze some and have a portion for dinner and maybe take another to work for packed lunch the next day.

Also, at weekends I'd make something like a cottage pie or chicken pie and instead of making it as one pie, would make it in individual pie dishes and freeze some. Then I could just take one out of the freezer on a morning and have it after work.

Also lots of quick and easy things involving eggs. Huevos rancheros, shakshuka, etc.

For a treat at the weekends sometimes I would get myself an individual steak from the butcher.

It is easy to slip into not eating well when you're on your own, but you deserve to eat well, so treat yourself as you would if you were cooking for 2 or more.

My quick easy meal is cook up some pasta,add a jar of pesto and a handful of spinach...throw in pine nuts and maybe grated cheese or even a tin of salmon and sweetcorn. Lush. I always keep bags of spinach in the freezer and add handfuls to any dish i'm doing

My top tip, like others,is to batch cook and freeze the other ones, natch. My other VERY TOP TIP which works for me, is to cook with r.4 on! I listen to T/A (I know..) so naturally gravitate towards the kitchen at 6.45, start cooking and I'm sitting down eating at 7.05 when it starts. Perfect!But yes, synchronise your cooking/eating time with a tv or radio programme?

I eat quite a lot of fish, as it's easy to buy one portion, and simple and quick to cook. Salmon, trout and sea bass are favourites. I also do pasta dishes like pasta primavera or pasta carbonara where it's simple to do one portion. If I've done something like duck confit I'll eat it one day with potatoes and vegetables and the next with lentils or cous-cous to have a bit of variety. I use leftovers in things like chicken noodle soup or risotto. (Sorry for the lack of paragraphs, there must be a glitch somewhere!)

I was given an ancient Delia Smith book called One is Fun (rubbish title) - that has lots of recipes in where you use half of something one day, and the other half another for something entirely different. I found I needed to focus on keeping healthy (I was gaining weight rather than losing, but same thing of not being bothered to cook proper meals). Also Nigel Slater Real Fast Food has lots of quick recipes for one person

I'd say the most important thing is to plan ahead. When you are on your own, it's easy to get home after a long day, pour a glass of something, and before you know it, the time is 8:30, it's late to start cooking, you don't know what to make.... so you have a bag of crisps or at best a cheese sandwich. But if you've got a meal plan, with ingredients ready at hand, it's so much easier to start cooking.

Agree with all the 'one pot meals' (Bolognaise, chilli, curry, casserole) it makes sense to cook up a batch and then stick one in the fridge for a couple of days later, and two (3?, 4?) in the freezer for another time.Label them well, and you've got days and days when you don't have to cook. I agree with fish portions too - don't take long to cook, come in handy 'one person' size portions and easy to do with whatever veg is in season.Jacket potato is another one - I like them done in the microwave but if you like a 'crusty' jacket, then part cook it in the microwave and put in the oven for the last 20mins or so - can then do with beans, cheese, one of your left over chilli portions, or tinned tuna (with mayo or sweetcorn if you like.Then pasta is quick and easy to do for one - with pesto or a jar of tomato sauce - easy to rustle up whatever veg you like for one - cougette, peppers, muchrooms, celery. What I do with peppers, celery, onions, etc., is chop up what I'm not going to use, then freeze it and you've got it ready for use for the next (several) meals. The secret is to freeze them spread out on a baking tray, and then put them in a freezer bag or tub. If you freeze them straight into the bag, they tend to freeze in a clump and are difficult to use / get a few out when you need them. If you freeze them flat then once you've put them in the bag, you can just shake a few out without them sticking together.

There are a couple of good FB groups which are about eating well for one. Also I attach a search I did on google to give you some sites. Good luck

I do a monthly batch cook - big serves of curry, chilli, soup, Bolognese, roast dinner, then portion into takeaway containers and freeze. Then I basically don't cook for a month and just grab portions out of the freezer depending on what I feel like.

I don't always manage this... But batch cooking, and also easy meals that are not so much "cooked" but assembled - especially in the summer I sometimes have carrot batons, cherry toms, cucumber slices and some nice bread with hummus; or steam two kinds of veg to have with shop-bought falafels etc.

I have a large wok type frying pan that I make lots of my meals in. Chicken or pork with lots of vegetables and Beans or peas. I either do a baked potato in the microwave or some rice. I add different things like cream cheese or chorizo for variety and flavour. Then I stuff my face with chocolate and crisps. I haven't lost any weight

This roasting tin cookbook is v good for making dinners that seem exciting/interesting but with low effort. I generally do them for 2 and then eat the rest another day, but today I adjusted one of the meals to make just one portion and it worked out fine.

I lived alone for a long time. I either batch cooked or ate a decent lunch and had a sandwich or cheese and crackers for tea.

Thank you all for your great suggestions!