If you live alone, do you bother to cook/eat properly?

[Saxalt]

And if so, can I ask what sort of meals you cook?

For the first time in 30 years I've started living on my own this year. I'm struggling to bother cooking properly - even easy stuff. I'd quite happily live off sandwiches or cereal or whatever my current obsession is (at the minute, pistachios and frozen Greek yogurt). But there comes a time (sadly) when you have to be sensible ...

Also, and I don't know how to explain this properly, but I don't feel like I live in the house or use it in the same way as I did when I had family living with me. Things like I won't bother lighting a candle because it's "only me", or putting the tv on because it's "only me". One of my dc came to stay recently and it struck me how he used the house as a home much more than I ever do.

I know I haven't explained that very well or articulated what I mean, but I don't know how to express it!

Yes, always lived alone and always cooked for myself

My main diet is

Batch cooking - on a Sunday I make something like lasagne, cottage pie etc and freeze into Pyrex containers in 6 portions usually. Served with extra veg or salad. Like having a freezer full of ready meals!

Easy stuff - omelette, soup, salads, jacket potato, quesadillas

Beige freezer food - self explanatory!

I really CBA - Greek yoghurt and fruit or cereal

I used to love cooking when I lived alone years ago. I'd spend lazy Sundays making stews or stirring pots of ragu, maybe sipping a glass of wine. It meant after work dinners were easy as I could pull something from the freezer and still eat well.

Years of cooking on demand for my ex husband, and to a lesser extent ds now, have mostly killed the hobby for me. I don't even much care to eat let alone cook when ds is with his dad. It does still help to have batch cooked tasty healthy things that I can just microwave. Pulled pork I can chuck in a roll, individual cottage pies/lentil versions, curries etc. I also buy lasagne from the Italian deli, or do nice salads. It's good to be able to eat what I want when I want without rules, so maybe no breakfast, homemade beans on toast (BBC good food do a great recipe that freezes well) on sourdough from the baker at 2pm then nothing till 9pm when I might have cubes of cheese, olives, pickles, salami and bread, or in the other hand I might eat rolls and sausages at 10am and call for a curry to be delivered at 4.30pm. I'd love to get back to the way I used to be and will follow this thread with interest but I also think we've earned the right to give ourselves a break and do what we want.

I have this problem but have found that using gousto has helped. I order two meals for two each week, cook one day and save a portion for the next day to reheat. It is great not to have to think of shopping or what ingredients are in the recipe. I am now learning how to add things in ( beans/pulses/frozen veg) so that a 2 person meal will last over 3 days. It isn't cheap but it is helping me to eat much more healthily!

I think I can send new gousto subscribers a code where they and I get money off so feel free to PM me with your email and name if you would like to try!

I use Gusto meal boxes which now do one person version. It isn't cheap but there is not waste and it makes me cook. i get 4 meals a week leaving me 3 meals of biscuits & cheese etc to cover.

I think this pretty much sums me up. It is about pleasing, but for many that probably means pleasing others not themselves. To keep cooking well for yourself long term you have to accept you are cooking to please yourself, and if you don't get pleasure from that, you are always going to find it hard to maintain it as you'll always prefer to spend the time (even if just 20-30 minutes) doing something else that you get more from.

Love the sort of oriental orange and ginger - sounds like my cooking - have a bit of an idea and just fiddle around with it until it tastes ok. My now near legendary barbeque pizza sauce started out like that - just half an idea that I fiddled with and added to until it was something a bit special (well in my own somewhat biased opinion that is).

My last child leaves for Uni in a few weeks and I will be alone. My shopping list will consist of cereal, bread, milk, cat food (not for me) and jacket spuds. I hate cooking and after 21 years of making meals every night I am looking forward to food freeeedom!

When I lived on my own I did an awful lot of stir fries. Cooked a whole chicken at the weekend, had a roast on Sat or Sun then stir fried the remaining meat with veg every evening that I was in for as long as it lasted! Sometimes did a pasta dish, or did a large bolognese sauce at the weekend but everything that I did was very quick during the week - the bulk of the preparation was a weekend job

I really really really admire those of you who cook properly for yourselves, who meal plan, who batch cook and freeze. I feel like you're proper grown ups, and even at my advanced age, I'm not!

I do get that some meals are relatively simple, but even those I generally can't be bothered with. Tonight I had pasta and pesto, This, for me, is the equivalent of a huge effort. Honestly, it is - 9 times out of 10 I couldn't be bothered.

I think I need to just start thinking differently - eg, if I had a friend coming round, what would I feel acceptable to give them. It doesn't help I suppose that I'm just not that interested in food. (So it seems especially unfair that, despite this, I'm still a couple of stone overweight!)

Please keep the meal suggestions coming, I'm really enjoying hearing how others who live alone do things.

No, not since DH died. I like cooking but I find cooking for just me soul destroying, I can't be faffed to cook once my fostered one is in bed. I am hoping that once the colder months come I will get more enthusiasm for cooking again as I can bung stuff in the slow cooker.

I have always enjoyed cooking and trying new recipes. I mainly use my air fryer and instapot and will think nothing of roasting a chicken or making a big pot of stew or soup just for me. I'm a widow too, but with a chest freezer I don't have to eat the same things every day. I don't buy ready meals.

If I fancy roast leg of lamb, I do the works and invite friends/family over to share it. I've actually been known to swop spare meals with a friend so we can have something different. I eat low-carb and have a large mixed salad with lots of protein as one of my daily meals. I'm going to make my own turkey burgers for the freezer, tomorrow

Where do you live - I want to swap you my packet of pistachios for your turkey burgers!

I don't bother. My diet is crap and I wonder why I'm a size 20.

Ready meals, prepared salads, crisps instead of a meal, ice cream for breakfast...

My easy go-tos are pasta with pesto & veg, or veg stir fried with pulses or tofu, but I bought a recipe book a couple of months ago & I’m batch cooking a recipe from it each weekend if I’m home.

As well as improving mealtimes for me, it means I’m growing my store cupboard, trying out new techniques & have a wider repertoire when I host.

This is me but without the ready meals and salads.

If I thought any of my dc ate like me I'd be horrified. I don't think they do though.

No I don't cook or eat properly when alone. When my ex used to go away I'd cook for the kids something they like but not bother with myself. When he left I had one adult kid at home that sorted herself out so I spent months on a liquid diet for dinners really. Lost 25kg.
I don't bother cooking when it's just me I can have a small snack or buy something for lunch that is enough for the whole day.

In this case, @Dontfuckingsaycheese, I second the recommendations for Gousto. They're easy and quick, but you do cook them yourself! I sometimes get one and save the recipes.

Not cheap on a lasting basis but the introductory offers are unmissable!

Sometimes it's all fresh chicken salads and super healthy stuff albeit that's quick to do and sometimes it's Prosecco and sandwiches like today.

For me it's because I know after work I can't be bothered
But I quite like making food and with a podcast on it relaxes me. So on a Sunday I'll take an hour (sometimes less if it's a slow cooker or quick meal) to just batch cook, portion, freeze
Also sometimes I think "I just fancy lasagne"
Great, all I have to do is open the freezer

Bored of lunch and don't go bacon my heart on Instagram are two I use a lot for recipes

One I do a fair bit is a pasta bake batch cook as a using up everything in the fridge - so bits of sausage/meat, left over veg, tomato purée, cheeses...

Oven food/ Airfyer and veg. Will occasionally make a batch of spaghetti Bol and freeze it.

I think you're right about thinking about making it for a friend - that is kind of how I often think when I make something new, how I'd love to serve it to a guest (even if I never do).

Even one of my absolute favourite mains, a classic British toad in the hole, can be easily given the singleton treatment.

5 mins to make a batter (1 egg makes enough for two big toads - happy days) which can be done hours before and left in the fridge. Heat oven and oil in two separate dishes while browning 4 sausages. Soss into dishes, batter into dishes, dishes into oven. Chop a few veg (depending on time of year that's probably some combo of carrots, peas, kale, leek, squash, french beans) for steaming. I don't bother with any potatoes or anything as there's enough carbs with the batter.

Kick back for 30-35 mins, whack veg on, give it another 5 mins and serve. Put one toad to cool, chuck in the fridge, and have it tomorrow (reheat for 20 mins in the oven).

So for about 15-20 mins of prep time I have two days of main meals (have to do some veg on day 2, but that's all).

Other meals like a chilli or curry for example I make a big 4 portion batch. One today, one tomorrow, two for the freezer.

Good job I'm happy to eat more or less the same meal two days in a row...

I used to bake, and take them to work. But can't be bothered any more. And I'd eat to much of the cake. As no one at home to share it with.

I can totally relate. I don’t live alone but DH often works very very late. DC is young so I feed him early and if DH is working late and I’m home alone then I never cook anything for myself. At a push, I might put some salmon in the air fryer. When DH is home for dinner I probably spend at least 45 minutes to an hour making a dinner for the both of us.

I don’t live alone but I’ve all have different meals so I’m only cooking my meals for myself. I’m doing to Glucose Goddess thing at the moment to stabilise my blood sugar.

yesterday I had two cod fillets which I just wrap in foil and put in the air fryer. I used a paper liner so no washing up. I had microwave brown rice and chilli sauce with it. For my other meal I’ve been having three very good quality boiled eggs and gluten free toast….very nutritious and quick. I also do Thai red curry a lot which just involves frying a bit of paste, sticking in a tin of coconut milk and then adding veg and simmering. I add ready cooked prawns at the end. It’s very easy or I wouldn’t bother because I’m lazy.

I live with 16 year old DD but am totally cooked out. Since splitting up from her dad I just cannot be bothered. Love a roast and I've done some amazing ones and used to be into trying loads of different cuisines. I'm actually a decent cook.

We eat lots of ready meals, which I know is bad. Used to be so into cooking, planning and eating healthily but it's pointless now really. Sandwiches quite often too.

Need to try and eat better but with no-one to appreciate it (DD as with most teens likes plain food) it seems too much hassle.

Argh, cake 😂 I'm no baker - but I love this microwave cake recipe - don't know what size mugs they're using! I do it in a one-litre Pyrex casserole. If it comes out a bit dry, nobody's saying you can't have it with ice-cream and/or tinned or frozen fruit 😋

I sometimes force myself to save half, but then I just eat it for breakfast.