Tips on cooking for one after a lifetime of cooking for four.

[RegFlagGreenFlag]

I am recently separated and live alone now after living with my ex and our DC. DC are now at uni so most of the time I am on my own. The trouble is I'm still cooking for a family of four! I'm wasting so much food and it's costing me a lot. I try so hard not to but I'm used to cooking a family meal each night so I still plan to cook each night but in reality i end up just having a snack or sandwich quite often because I can't be bothered to cook or I'm not really hungry. However, I do want to eat better because I am watching my weight.

Does anyone have any good tips for or recipe book recommendations for someone living alone, please?

Why don’t you just freeze the extra, it will be like batch cooking

bbc good food has meals for one
or freeze seems to be sensible and time saving

I follow Eleanor Wilkinson https://www.eleanorgwilkinson.com/ who had a cook book of really delicious meals for one. Her instagram is also full of ideas if you do that? Hope single life is treating you well in other ways. X

Meal plan ahead of going shopping, only buy what’s on the shopping list based on that meal plan. When you do buy too much, batch cook and freeze the excess. Over time you will get out of the family meal habit. Be kind to yourself!

im Struggling to understand the thoughts behind you cooking huge portions when you know that no one else will be there?!

surely it’s not hard to half the ingredients

When I was single I’d cook for four and have it two nights and freeze 2. I really like having the same food. Often only want a snack or sandwich sometimes I cannot be bothered with a full meal. I have to build it into my meal plan as DH wants a hot dinner each night and I just want a cake for tea. It’s normal! Might it be healthy though I terms of nutrition and vitamins

other on portion ideas:
omlette with coleslaw
feta egg on toast with salsa
nigella courgette pasta
jacket potatoes
salmon, new potatoes baby spinach and crème fraiche (do one portions of salmon, all baby pots and use pots for a salad or rosti)

Cook the same and freeze the rest into portions. Next week all your meals are prepped

Cooking for one is really hard. I find myself living on boiled eggs and beans on toast when I’m on my own.

Delia Smith did a cookery book called One is Fun. I’d bought one for my brother when he was living alone a few years ago. It may still be available.

I know some may not understand it, but living on my own I hardly bother cooking meals (as we know them) much anymore, unless I am having people over really. That's the honest truth.

However I eat well, and healthily as much as possible, but putting on the oven/hob, preparing veg/spuds, cooking stuff is just so boring and I can't be bothered most of the time. Especially in Summer.

So I eat a good breakfast, oat and wheat bran, protein powder and mixed fruit with a bit of Greek yogurt. That's so good and filling. Lunch is soup or another Greek yogurt this time with nuts and seeds. "Dinner" is often a sandwich plate with cheese, tuna, salmon and salad or an omelette with veg and stuff in it. Things like that. Easy, filling and healthy for the most part. OK my veg intake is low enough, but protein and fibre/fruit is good.

I enjoy my food, and just because I don't spend half an hour prep and the rest waiting on it doesn't mean I'm falling down in a heap of nutritional deficiency! I have good bloods for everything tested, and plenty of energy too, am within BMI guidelines for my height. I'm late 60s too, and active.

What about e.g. roasting a chicken or a joint of beef and then eating it across the week in different dishes. So as a roast, then as chicken Caesar salad, then in a rice bowl with veg, shredded in a curry alongside chickpeas and then in a noodle stir fry? Or Vietnamese summer rolls, or jacket potato with coronation chicken. So buy a range of veggies, maybe frozen chopped herbs and spices (I have boxes of garlic, ginger, chilli, coriander, parsley, I grow mint and buy dill) and some spice pastes and packets and then you can just boil one bundle of noodles or half a pack of pasta or 100g rice and just have that. I use coconut cream instead of coconut milk as it avoids emulsifiers - so just use as much as I need and then store again. Same with Thai curry paste. I tend to use dried indian spices to make a curry rather than a paste but either works and lasts ages.
I also boil a dozen eggs to last for a few breakfasts or snacks.
Frozen berries work well with yogurt as another breakfast or blend up with protein powder and milk as a lazy meal.
I don’t live alone but do have people eating at weird times and so need to generate healthy meals fast.

This book is great. A lot of single portion recipes or you could always half the 4 portion ones and eat the leftovers the next day or freeze.

Filling Meals: 100 simple hunger-busting recipes for sustainable weight loss - The Sunday Times Bestseller: Amazon.co.uk: Wilson, Lindsay: 9781529982282: Books

This is another good one:

Solo: The Joy of Cooking for One: Amazon.co.uk: Johansen, Signe: 9781509860593: Books

You could also batch cook things that freeze well, eg curry, chilli or soup. Or have things like a piece of fish and roast veg, or an omelette.

Or buy good ready meals eg from Cook, or the high protein/nutrient dense ones from M&S that are just real ingredients.

Force of habit, I would guess, but at least freeze the extra portions, surely that makes more sense than throwing good food away.

I took a good while to settle into a reasonable routine (I am posted overseas for a couple of years, and went solo as DH job couldn’t travel).

I learned how to do traybake meals - throwing halved baby potatoes on 1 tray and a piece of salmon or lamb chop or chicken joint (e.g. 2 thighs or 1 part-boned breast) on another a long with some veg, or adding the veg when the protein was half done. Some can be done in a single tray with potatoes or sweet potatoes and all. I experiment with different marinades on the chicken (feta cheese and thyme leaves under the skin, garlic/lemon/herbs marinade, piri piri marinade etc).

I have learned to use a measuring cup - 1/2 cup of rice is plenty for 1 (I sometimes buy the Uncle Ben’s boil in the bag for 1 bags for days I just want to turn things on and walk away). I make a batch of curry (what would previously have done the family 1 meal, not my previous batch size for the family) to eat that day and measure the rest in 1 cup portions into freezer bags, as that is a perfect size for me. I need 1.5 cups when I am doing the same at home for DH (when I go home for weekends).

I have a slow cooker and make 2-3 portions of a dinner in that and freeze 1, keep 1 for the following day.

I have learned to enjoy making a spag Bol with half a bottle of wine and a proper veg base (onion, carrot, celery) and doing a very slow cook on the hob. Or a couple of rich casseroles in winter the same. The leftovers, sometimes with some smash-type mashed potato with plenty of milk and butter, on an evening when it’s wet and miserable and I’m home late is much easier than pulling out the cheese and crackers.

I used to do stir fries a lot at home for the family - I rarely make those here. But I do a couple of different meals involving fresh pasta, bacon lardons and sauce make with eggs and sometimes wine (kind of Carbonara type), sometimes with mushrooms as well, or chicken instead of bacon, which are pretty quick.

I also like doing chicken and mushrooms (and onion/garlic) in a white wine/cream sauce, that can go with rice, pasta or mash, or over vol au vents, and freezes very well.

I freeze my sauces in Ikea ziploc bags (the smaller ones) laid flat, and then stack the on their sides. Because they are flat, they can defrost really quickly in the pot if need be.

And I’ve also learned to throw some extras into the oven when it’s on anyway for tomorrow - so Mediterranean veggies to go in a tomato sauce with meatballs tomorrow, butternut squash to make into soup, extra chicken breast to have in a cold salad, … And I’ve found I had time to experiment a little so now make my own pickled red onions occasionally to have in the fridge.

And I also use my freezer to put things away raw but marinading (Greek lemon chicken, buffalo wings, rosemary and garlic lamb chops, etc) and to do a bag of Mediterranean veggies that I can throw into a baking tray to cook from frozen (diced courgette, peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms etc, tossed with oregano/thyme/rosemary, salt, pepper, olive oil and a dash of balsamic vinegar).

The other thing is to try and have ingredients that make cooking easy - I don’t have a microwave so can’t do ready meals. But I normally have a ready-made lasagna (they are good here) and things like salad, hummus, olives, tomatoes, mushrooms, lardons, cheese, eggs etc always on hand in fridge, and oven chips, frozen peas, some med veg and a couple of my freezer meals in freezer. And onions, garlic, lemons and some form of potato/sweet potato in the cupboards. So some days it’s an omelette with tomatoes and cheese, or other days I feel like dicing etc and will do a full Spanish omelette with loads of veg/cheese.

Enjoy experimenting as well - are there flavours/techniques that you didn’t do because others weren’t keen but that you enjoy or wanted to try? Now is a great opportunity.

I'm not a lover of batch cooking to a huge extent as I never fancy what's in the freezer, however I do freeze portions of meat, so if I buy a pack of pork steaks etc I'll freeze some. I don't live alone but now only have ne and DH at home. If he goes away I usually have a salad of prawns and advocado, or jacket potatoes. I can recommend the chicken skewers from Iceland they come in different flavours and there are 4 in a bag. They take 10 mins in the are fryer and are nice with pitta bread or rice. The frozen Basa fillets are also good and easy to cook.

Downsize your cooking equipment. My DM lives on her own and now has smaller saucepans, frying pan, roasting run, casserole dish and lasagne dish.

I don't think you need to learn new recipes. I'd look at what you are cooking and see if they can be halved first. Then you freeze portions of your meals for 2 and 4. This means you don't need to cook every night. It's a mind set change.

How about something like Gousto?

It is portion controlled. I get 4 meals a week for me and my daughter and if it’s something she doesn’t want I have the second portion for my lunch the next day.

I think it's hard to cook certain sorts of foods in small amounts - eg some pasta sauces or something like a bolognaise or a risotto or something. So those things, perhaps you cook and freeze for another day. Then think about what is convenient in smaller amonts. if i was at home for a week or two alone, this is the kind of food I'd make (I like coking, I like eating well, and I like eating relatively healthily so I WOULD cook):

Grilled/Fried piece of fish or meat (steak, chop etc) with a couple of new potatoes and a side salad or a handful of steamed veg. Or sometimes I do something like this with bread and some sort of salsa style side.

Simple pasta eg a bit of onion, bacon and a couple of chopped mushrooms. I'd do it with cream for the family, but probably not alone because I'd waste so much cream. Or courgettes cooked slowly with lemon, garlic, chilli.

Chicken thighs cooked in the airfryer with a head of corn, some bread or salad.

A small fajita or taco made with chicken/steak/halloumi, peppers and onion.

A substantial salad - something like burrata, avocado, tomato with some ciabatta (I buy those half loaves you bake yourself - they work well in the air fryer).

Also certain foods are easy to eat in small portions and can be jazzed up a bit. eg buying small tins ofbaked beans can be easily improved with a bit of onion and some chorizo then served on rice, or a rice pouch turned into a quick fried rice.

I think it takes more planning, so you chain dishes to use up left overs. So if. You buy a packet of smoked salmon you have it one day with pasta, scrambled eggs and salmon for lunch and salad the next day. A can of kidney beans might be used in a chilli one day and used to make bean burgers the next day. It also really helps if you can shop in places that sell loose produce and have meat and fish counters, so you are only buying what you need.

Way to go with the empathy there.

It's not an easy adjustment to make.

First of all be a bit kind to yourself and start getting easy to cook/things that store well things in that are healthy. If you then fancy an apple, cheese and toast for tea - at least you have the apple in.

I'll fairly frequently cook a bit more so I can have leftovers for lunch or dinner again in the week - so it makes it feel worthwhile to have done the cooking and I've got an easy don't have to think meal in for another point.

I'll also roast a load of vegetables so I can have an easy salad or mix them with lentils or tomato sauce another time.

Having salmon in the freezer is good and a stir fry made for one is nicer I think than a big strifry.

Same with an omelette - a nice well made omelette for one is a thing of beauty.

Good luck - you'll get there.

This is so sad! Could you cook simple proteins and use them over 2-3 meals.

Chicken breasts or thighs. The latter are delicious cooked in an air fryer.
day 1, served with vegetables
day 2, added to a massive, multi-content salad
day 3/4, added to pasta with homemade pesto, or alternatively a curry

Salmon, oven baked or pan fried
next day added to pasta + pesto
or a massive, multi-content salad

Ingredients that can add a different dimension to many meals:
herbs - basil, parsley, fresh coriander, chives, dill
roasted vegetables - bell peppers with red onions and garlic, tomatoes etc
ginger, garlic, fresh turmeric, lemon (juice or rind)
crunch - cabbage, carrots, celery, fennel
cheeses - feta, Parmesan, Gruyère
nuts and seeds
things like tahini, miso, kimchi

Useful healthy additions: Greek yoghurt, cottage cheese, other cheeses (in moderation).
As well as healthy carbs, such as legumes, root vegetables, quinoa.

Basically, every meal should include lots of vegetables, some protein, plus a little fat and/or dairy. Plus some herbs and/or spices to give it some oomph.

Vary the seasonings and vegetables, add different herbs, experiment with different sauces….. never gets old.

I eat alone a couple of days a week now because of dp’s work shifts. I must admit that whilst it’s been so warm I’ve been pretty much living on salads or homemade tzatziki and pitta.

I also like omelettes (mushroom or spinach) or a bowl of cous cous with vege that I’ve roasted in the air fryer.

Tonight I’m going to make sweetcorn fritters with a smashed radish salad.

couscous is quite good,
roast veggies, cous cous,
have the rest for lunch as a sald

I found the Simply Cook spice paste kits v helpful. You can get them for 2 and you only have to buy the ingredients you need. You can usually get the first month free. The biggest problem I find is getting bored of eating the same thing all week, and fresh veg, especially salad going off. If you can buy individual vegetable, that cuts down on food waste, as most things are sold family size. So maybe a quiche and then chicken with salad for example? I do often freeze things as most recipes in books are for 4.

Soups, chilli, stews, curries all freeze well. In fact it's amazing the amount of things you can actually freeze! I've lived alone for years and have always cooked for myself, I like nice food and I've even cooked myself a Sunday roast just for me, as I like it, and why not? It must be a big life adjustment for you, but with a bit of planning, you can definitely make it work!😁