Quick & easy meals for one and batch cooking help please

[StrangerOnline]

Since living alone I find I’m eating the same things. My go-to easy meals are stir-fry and salad, jacket potatoes and omelettes.

I also batch cook chilli, shepherds pie, curries and casseroles and freeze in one-portion sizes. Same with lasagne.
All of these I then just stick in microwave straight from the freezer.

It had never occurred to me that other kinds of pasta besides lasagne could also be frozen!
I feel rather stupid for not thinking of it before and I haven’t actually tried it yet.

Eg/ I’ve always just cooked fresh pasta (spaghetti/ tagliatelle) to eat with previously frozen mince/bolognaise sauce. But could I just mix it in and freeze together?

Another easy one is pasta with pesto (and I add tomato’s, peppers, courgettes & other random veg) - is this suitable for batch cooking and freezing? I’m looking for things that don’t need to be taken out of the freezer the day before.

So now I wonder what other obvious and basic tricks I’m missing (due to lack of imagination/common sense) ?
Would really welcome other quick and easy - and cheap- meals for one please
Many thanks

I also do big batches of homemade soup

During the spell I lived alone, I found that I would repurpose leftovers and not bother freezing either.

I would find it dull to reheat the same roast several times in a row, so had some bubble and squeak, cold meat with pickles and I used root veg with cheese on pastry.

I've never been happy with frozen & re-heated pasta, especially as it's so quick to cook.
Apart from the batch cooking, I also make time-consuming sauces in large quantities & freeze in portions.

Tomato sauce is great, just add suitable herbs when re-heating.
Bechamel & cheese sauces are also good; they separate in the freezer, but are fine if reheated gently.
Onion gravy is useful.
I also do a batch of caramelised onions. They take ages to cook properly, so are great if needed as a base for a dish.

I do a lot of batch cooking and find that once its reheated I change it up by adding a dollop of something strong and spicy thats different each time. I dont really eat carbs in the traditional sense so a lot of my batch cooking is chiili, dahl, mince and onions,, spicy mince/lamb mince, curries etc

So I just have those on their own but put a massive dollop of pickle, mint sauce, mayo, chutneys etc and it sort of changes the flavour each time.

I am also a big fan of cheese unfortunately (bit of a problem cheese eater) so that goes on too

Thanks for your replies

@MissEstherDaniel I originally tried cooking larger portions intending to eat leftovers the next day… turns out I can be quite greedy, and I often went back for more! So the next day had to be bulked out with extra veg etc, defeated the purpose of speed

@Georgyporky great idea with the onions. I currently freeze fresh ones - after a big chopping session to save prep time but never thought of caramelising first.

why don’t you like reheated pasta?
I know its very quick (which is why I never thought to try it before) but when I’m completely exhausted or poorly (I have health issues) I really can’t be standing even long enough to cook an omelette or wait for beans on toast so the batch-cooked microwaves take about 3/4 mins max and I don’t need to wait and watch them.
I was thinking about mixing it in with the ragu/ bolognaise sauce rather than freezing separately plain.

@bellac11 thanks for reminding me about Dahl good one to add to my repertoire… and yes, I add lots of cheese too!

I freeze cooked penne and rice in portions. Sauce can be added in usual way when heating. They can also be used for salads etc

I've frozen pasta bakes, lasagns, curries meat and beans, rice, pasta, lentils, bolognese sauce, tuna sauce for tuna pasta, shepherd pie, casseroles and chilli con carne. I google how long you can freeze and it is usually around 3 months.

Lasagne obviously freezers well but personally I prefer fresh pasta/rice with bil, chilli etc.
Curry freezers fine , hairy bikers have a lovely cauliflower coconut curry that's easy to make.

Mustard mac and cheese
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/one-pot-chicken-pilaf Chicken pilaf

Mushroom risotto (with freezing and reheating instructions because freezing and reheating rice makes some people nervous! I also freeze this chicken and leek risotto
Beef biryani
Paella

Thank you all - especially @Fivemoreminutes1 for the links. I’ve never thought of freezing rice either because I always keep a few packets of the 2minute micro-rice in the cupboard for the rushed/poorly days. But I do love risotto etc so thanks.

The pilaf link is broken, but it was easy to google.
and I love the simplicity of the mustard Mac & cheese

We are two adults, so I tend to do recipes for four and freeze half or do two days. A couple of easy ones:

pack of cherry tomatoes, a couple of chopped peppers, two copped garlic cloves and a can of drained chickpeas. Toss in olive oil, add Moroccan spices (I have a pre packed tub of this but I think it is cumin and paprika mainly) and roast in the oven for 20 minutes. Add pre-made meatballs, put back in for 25. Serve with cous cous and a bit of feta on top. You can stick in any other veg you have knocking around - I made this earlier today and put in a butternut squash that needed using. Onions are in the original recipe but I tend to leave those out.

Cook off chopped chicken breast in a pan. Cut up a couple of peppers and an onion while that browns. Chop a couple of garlic cloves too. Add veg to pan. Once that’s softened add Thai red curry paste - I make this quite mild because my DP isn’t good with very spicy things, and tend to use the jars from Sainsbury’s. Two desert spoons of crunchy peanut butter, a tin of coconut milk. I add chopped coriander at the end but I know a lot of people hate it. We use the micro rice pouches and usually naan too. The coconut milk can split when reheated from frozen but tastes absolutely fine.

Eg/ I’ve always just cooked fresh pasta (spaghetti/ tagliatelle) to eat with previously frozen mince/bolognaise sauce. But could I just mix it in and freeze together?

You could, but IME the texture of the pasta is not as nice. Doesn't matter as much with lasagne, as the pasta is cooked in the sauce. Cooked rice freezes better IMO.

To speed up defrosting, freeze soup in ice-cube trays. Meat sauces, such as bolognaise, can be frozen in ziplock bags lying on their sides. The sauce freezes in a thinnish layer, rather than a large block, so will defrost faster. Once frozen, the bags can stand on their edge like books. You can also press a skewer or ruler into the bag of sauce just before freezing it, to create a grid pattern of thin places. Then you can break up the frozen block more easily and speed up defrosting. You can do the same with cooked rice.

I do basic mince and onion fried together so I can use that to make a meal rather just shepherd pie/chilli Etc.

I also buy a slightly bigger joint/chicken and freeze slices with gravy to heat for quick roast dinners.