Cooking for One

If you consume all meats, you can find packs of meat in your grocery that are sliced thin. You can buy canned or frozen vegetables and easily take whatever portion you want, while storing the rest in the freezer or refrigerator. Glad has a new Press N Seal sheet which actually works to seal air out of opened cans in the fridge.

If you like cooking big batches of stuff, keep doing that. Freeze leftovers in meal-sized containers and you'll be fine.

i cook for the week. not for one. though it's just me.
then i take what i want out of the fridge and reheat. and i only have to cook once and the dishes are minimized.

lots of salad, microwave steam veggie bags, michelina's type frozen entrees, veggie hot dogs (you can microwave them), progresso soups, baked bean cans, lots of choices. cooking for one is easy and if you feel like actually cooking you can freeze leftovers or invite a friend over for dinner/lunch.

Before I moved in with my husband, I cooked probably the same amount as I do now, it would just last me 4x as long. You'd have to be ok eating the same thing for several days though (I am).
Or there are some meals that are easy to cook for one. Like maybe just cook up a chicken breast, a baked potato and some vegetables. Or breakfast for dinner - scrambled eggs, a couple pieces of bacon, whatever you like.
There's also a lot of stupidly easy meals I used to eat when I didn't live with my husband. Like "english muffin pizza" lol.

I agree with the others, cook batches of freezable dishes. I like the one pot recipes on this site, my husband doesn't like them very much, so I make them for lunches and freeze to use over a few weeks.
https://www.familyfoodonthetable.com/category/maindishes/

It might be helpful downloading a free shopping list app, most of them have a Pantry option where you can list everything you have, especially in the fridge and freezer, so you don't forget about some fruit and veg you bought previously, or get stuck deciding what to have for dinner because you forgot that thing at the back of the freezer. It helps me finish off all the fresh fruit and veg and stops me from buying more that I don't need. In the cookbooks you already have, most of the recipes are for four people, so if a recipe calls for 100g of something for example, you divide it by four to get the weight of an individual portion. I think the Recipes/Meals features on MFP can adjust portion sizes as well.

Do realize that you can just half recipes. Bread and such is a bit harder, but most non-baking recipes can easily be halved, quartered, cut in third, etc. I do it all the time. Given that my norm is cooking for one (and it always has been) I will typically cook four servings of something and eat the rest for leftovers.

The other major exception I can think of is things that are cooked in pressure cookers in which case you need to make sure that you have enough liquid in the pot. Even then it's not that complicated.

I have gotten in the habit of creating reruns that are unique each time. For example I'll fry a package of ground beef then season portions differently for different meals. One portion might be made into taco meat which can be used in tacos and maybe another day as a taco salad. Another portion would be seasoned for spaghetti. Another might be used with shredded cabbage, onions and mushrooms with soy sauce for an oriental flavor over rice. This way I don't have to cook daily and nothing goes to waste. You can do the same with sauted chicken. Chop some for lettuce wraps, eat one or two for a meal with starch and a veg, use some in a stir fry. You get the idea.

When I was at uni I didn't do the typical student thing of eating takeaways all the time (seriously, I eat more takeaways now than I did then). I cooked myself proper meals every night. Anything I didn't eat went into a tub and I ate for lunch the next day, normally with a salad. Then the next dinner was something new every night. Some tips:
- Learn to freeze things in single portions. Even since living with my partner we still freeze things like meat in single portions because I still often cook just for myself (he's a shift worker).
- That goes for cooked meals too. I have single portions of bolognese, chili, curry (tai and indian style), stew currently sitting in my freezer at home. We use those plastic takeaway tubs for single portions as they're generally well sized and they're reuseable. Just chucking on some rice or pasta is an easy way of having something nice and homemade, but without all the effort.
- Don't buy big packets of things (like veg), it'll just go to waste or you'll get so very bored of eating that veg

I can tell you, when it's just you it can be really difficult to motivate yourself to cook something "proper" when you're just cooking for yourself. I always make sure I have something in the freezer that I can make easily when I can't be bothered. A frozen pizza, those tortellini packets, something I've cooked. It doesn't matter what it is. Just something that's better than and egg and bacon sarnie (because that's my go to)

hippysprout wrote: »

I would advise cooking like normal. You can freeze and reheat most meals just fine. Basically, you will cut your cooking in half and not have to do much work at all to adjust.

This, absolutely this!

I do most of my cooking on the weekends and often make a double batch of each dish- it's usually just as easy since everything is already out. We eat one meal from what I make that day, then freeze the rest. Lasagna, meatloaf, casseroles and especially soups do really well when frozen. If I have time and want to cook during the week I can quickly make salads, stir frys or eggs. But most of the time I just pull something from the freezer the night before and then just warm it up at dinner time.