Dinner for One

Options
jmsass83
jmsass83 Posts: 8 Member
in Food and Nutrition
This is for the single folks out there (or anyone who's dieting alone)....What do you fix for dinner? I find that when I come home in the evening, I don't feel like cooking (even if I've planned something already) and I end up eating something like cottage cheese and fruit or an omelet. While these aren't bad choices, I'm getting pretty tired of them! Any suggestions for quick and easy meals for one?
«1

Replies

  • amtyrell
    amtyrell Posts: 1,449 Member
    Options
    Quick cook protein plus salad or frozen veggies
    Ie
    Shrimp
    Fish
    Scallops
    Eggs
    Tofu
    Beans
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,521 Member
    Options
    Bamboo steamer. Cook everything, including meat/fish, in one shot. (I don't live alone, but often cook a meal for one.)
  • Old_Cat_Lady
    Old_Cat_Lady Posts: 1,193 Member
    Options
    Some soups can be healthy. I add some instant brown rice. Sometimes an extra can of beans. Look for low sodium ones.
    You could make grilled chicken on Sundays. They stay in the fridge for days.
  • H_Ock12
    H_Ock12 Posts: 1,152 Member
    Options
    I like to cook a selection of chicken breasts on Saturday or Sunday and pair them with different veggies/salad/sauces. Then I pack them in Pyrex for heat and eat meals during the week.
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    Options
    Meat/fish+starch+veg. Examples: Pork chop, chicken thigh, chicken wings, salmon, cod, mackerel, trout, rice, barley, boiled potatoes, rice, mashed sweet potatoes, noodles, frozen peas, green beans, grated carrots, sliced cucumbers. Every combination will be an acceptable dinner but what's tasty will be individual. I use the oven a lot for meat and fish, but a frying pan would probably be just as easy.
  • Old_Cat_Lady
    Old_Cat_Lady Posts: 1,193 Member
    edited July 2017
    Options
    Great idea about the veggies. And the stores now sell frozen Steamer Bags if you don't have time. Super easy.
  • geebusuk
    geebusuk Posts: 3,348 Member
    Options
    Often either a 'take away style' curry ready meal (325 - 475 calories) that's designed to be had with rice, but I have with a mixture of steamed spiralised butternut squash, carrots, onions and sometimes peppers... or a western ready meal which I'll mix into a good bit of salad.

    I have the veg mix and salad mix prepared - the salad comes out to not much over no calories and the veg is a bit worse, but none of the components are more than 45 calories/100g, so 300g will probably add no more than 120 calories, offering decent bulk for low 'cost'.

    Batch cooking my own stuff doesn't work so well, as a lot of the batch ends up getting eaten out of the pan, never mind before getting to the freezer :).
  • Old_Cat_Lady
    Old_Cat_Lady Posts: 1,193 Member
    Options
    Are you too hungry to cook when you get home? Try eating counted almonds and a large cup of water on your way home.
  • JustRobby1
    JustRobby1 Posts: 674 Member
    edited July 2017
    Options
    Yup, I am a single guy in my 20's and I can't cook to save my life. And even if I could, what would be the fun in cooking for one person?

    As such, if you were to look in my freezer right now (or look at my diary), you would see that I am stocked to the hilt with a wide variety of frozen dinners. The type and nutritional content is all over the map with these nowadays, and I have been experimenting long enough that I have found several I really like. Some brands I like that are of the healthy variety are as follows: EVOL, Stouffer's Fit Kitchen, Amy's, and Saffron Road, just to name a few.

    While I love the fact that counting calories becomes about as simple as could be using these, many varieties do not have high enough calorie counts to put me where I need to be as a stand alone meal unless I were to eat 2 of them. This is especially true with Smart Ones, Healthy Choice, etc. They are really low most of the time. I have done the 2 in one night routine before, one when I get home from work and then another later on.

    However, since I could not care less about Marcos I figured why not just buy some "normal" frozen dinners and experience more variety by allowing for higher calorie counts? This has proven to be an awesome decision and has added to my arsenal significantly. I now also have some regular Stouffer's, Hungry Man, PF Chang's, or my personal favorites of any I have tried so far which are made by Boston Market (these straight up rock my socks! Try them!).

    I also eat out a great deal. I pretty much have a go to list of restaurants that I visit and entrees at each that are on my radar. The only bad thing about this is I tend to stick with the corporate chains mostly because they are about the only ones who are meticulous about posting their nutritional info online for ease of logging. Yes, I realize it's possible to guesstimate at independent restaurants, but this is too much of a pain for me to want to bother with most of the time unless it's a special occasion.
  • JustRobby1
    JustRobby1 Posts: 674 Member
    Options
    kommodevaran wrote: »
    "What's the fun in cooking for one person?" I've heard that all my life and took it to mean cooking for one was a drag and pointless. It isn't. Cooking for one is quick, there's nobody to argue about "what's for dinner" with, nobody to finish something you had plans for, and you can eat in your underwear. I'm saving so much money now, having so much fun, and eating like a spoilt little queen. In my underwear. If I want to.

    If that is your jam, then by all means enjoy it :) Just not how I choose to go about things.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,410 Member
    edited July 2017
    Options
    I have a pile of simple, quick recipes full of mostly fresh ingredients. Or I make stews, curries, or spaghetti bolognese sauce and but the leftovers in the freezer. I also often look at those food box websites, take recipes from them and buy the ingredients myself. If I don't feel like cooking I put some breaded fish, a pile of veggies and something starchy in an oven dish, let it cook there, and it eat with either feta cheese, hummus or self-made tsatsiki. Pasta for two days? No problem. Works.

    I don't think I spend more than 30 minutes in the kitchen each day, including doing the dishes (which, quite honestly I only do every 3 days or so)
  • kwtilbury
    kwtilbury Posts: 1,234 Member
    Options
    My entire family is on separate eating schedules, so I'm effectively meal prepping as a single person. In addition to the suggestions already provided, I use mason jars to prepare a weeks' worth of salad stuff - tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, apples, berries, etc. Each night I put a bed of spinach in a bowl and then dump the mason jar on top. Easy peasy.
  • lporter229
    lporter229 Posts: 4,907 Member
    Options
    When my husband is out of town, I generally make omelets filled with whatever meats/ veggies/ cheese I have in the fridge. Spinach, tomato, mushroom and feta is probably my favorite.
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
    Options
    I'm single - typically, i'll make something like a casserole and then freeze the leftovers, so that I have ready to go meals down the road for one night when I don't want to cook

    I also just do a lot of simple meals - chicken/shrimp; sweet potatos, pasta
  • b3achy
    b3achy Posts: 2,015 Member
    Options
    I used to do a lot of batch cooking, but have gotten out of the habit and mostly have been doing frozen dinners (like Evol and Amy's) for the past few months or like you - grabbing 'snacky' foods like jerky, yogurt, snap peas and dip, cheese sticks, carrot sticks and dip, almonds, etc. Honestly, I really need to get back to the batch cooking, as I love cooking, but frankly am not a fan of cooking for one either. Just have been a bit busy on the weekends which is when it is easiest for me to cook.

    This is one of my favorite Single serving meals (I have a two tier Steamer):
    Lemon Garlic Mahi (using a flash frozen mahi fillet) on the bottom, and a choice of mixed frozen veggies or corn on the cob on the top. Steam for 15-20 minutes. Total yum.

    Some of my "batch" meals:
    Healthy Chili (being sure to drain the ground beef before adding all the other goodness)
    White Chicken Chili (sometimes made on the stove top, other time made in the crock pot)
    Home made Spaghetti sauce, then I make a fresh batch of zoodles/squoodles (zucchini noodles - or summer squash noodles) which can be nuked with the spaghetti sauce on it.
    Batches of grilled chicken breasts or baked bbq chicken breasts or baked chicken breasts with a zesty italian dressing topping. Combine with a batch of Saffron or Jasmine rice, and/or either mixed vegetables or a salad. You can also just put the chicken breast on top of a salad for an even easier meal.
    Pulled pork made in the crock pot. Team it with homemade Eastern Carolina BBQ and either potatoes or veggies of choice. Or make it as a pulled roast pork and team it with saffron rice and black beans.
    Pot roast and veggies made in the crock pot
    Meatloaf (made with oatmeal in lieu of bread crumbs, and adding in onions and jalapenos) - I sometimes make the meatloaf in muffin pans and then use two of the meatloaf 'muffins' as a single serving. Cooks in a fraction of the time as a full loaf, but the muffin pan is kind of a pain to clean.
    Burritos - top with the healthy chili and some cheese and nuke to reheat it.
    Beef and Macaroni Casserole
    Chicken Enchilada Casserole
    Tuna Casserole
    Pork chops and Spanish rice
    Soup/stew made in the crock pot
    Deep dish pizza

    You can make pretty much any "normal" meal, and then split it into the single servings. Most of the batches I just put in the fridge as most things keep for a few days (and some up to a week), and just nuke them for lunch or dinner during the week. When it looks like I'm not eating something right away, I will freeze it, but I've been bad about grabbing it from the freezer. For me, the key is making 2-3 batch meals, so I'm not eating the same thing every single day (as I find that boring) and can mix it up a bit, and then I eat them for lunch and dinner the whole week as grab and go meals.
  • sgt1372
    sgt1372 Posts: 3,979 Member
    edited July 2017
    Options
    I live alone; GF only visits on weekends.

    Sometimes I just have a quick fix type meal but cooking is one of my hobbies and I if I need to prepare a meal for 6, so be it. I just freeze or eat the left overs myself until they're gone.

    Just prepared 3# of braised oxtails the other day that I'm still working that could easily have served 6. Yum!

    Wouldn' t have been the same if I made it only for 4. Same goes for the 4# plate of beef ribs that I smoked on my BBQ last week. There were 4 huge beef ribs in the plate. GF could only eat 1/2 of 1 rib, I ate the rest. :smile:
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    Options
    We are a household for two. I cook for four and save the spares (typically lunch the next day). Or on the weekends, cook for a tribe and give away/batch and freeze the spare.

    Meat in bulk saves a whole lot of money, like cooking a roast of any kind. After dinner, I slice up the meat and prepare packages to feed two. Then on weekdays, especially in the summer when I am NOT in the mood to cook, I can pull out a pre-cooked pack and we have dinner. Hubby had roast beef with macaroni salad and peas last night.
  • scarlett_k
    scarlett_k Posts: 812 Member
    Options
    If I want to make something quick then some kind of meat/fish with roasted vegetables and rice or potatoes, plus whatever green veg I might have in. Still have to chop it and put it in the oven but I don't really count heating stuff up as real cooking!

Categories