Sick of Lean Cuisine :-( Food suggestions for one person?

I cook for two of us, but i can appreciate your dilemma. Lots of good suggestions already posted, particularly if you can make a cook ahead meals and freeze them for the week. I do this now. Also check out www.allrecipes.com. You can adjust the recipes for as many servings as you need. I use freezer wrap or BPH free plastic containers for storage. I don't know if there is a Trader Joe's near you, but they carry their line of organic and non organic food, including frozen dinners, which are often 1 serving, 2 at most.

I make ground turkey and cook it by serving then bag it. Then I have 4 meals out of it and mix it with different things. Sometimes I make it with pasta, which I have several times a week but spice it up with different sauces. Or I mix it with green beans and soup to make a green bean casserole type dish (beans are low enough that sometimes I use 2 servings of turkey) or stuff like that....

I also buy the sara lee 45&delightful bread (90 cal for 2 slices) and make everything from turkey burgers, chicken burgers or egg sandwiches.

Or I use the ground turkey and/or chicken breast to make salads...

Those are the 3 main things I have for dinner...with some variations

I found a really good,healthy, low calorie cookbook and made three recipes that sounded good, portioned them out into individual containers and put them in the freezer. I made them all on the same day. It took about two hours. Then I had reheatable, healthy meals for several days.

Great Idea! It's just in my blood to cook for an army. Guess thats why its hard for me to see the obvious things such as oatmeal and salad lol

I'm not usually one for leftovers myself, but I've found some foods I don't mind having two or three days in a row.

Today was a good case in point. It's cold and windy outside, so I made a big pot of chili and put the leftovers in canning jars in the fridge. I figure it'll keep at least a few days.

the "Eating Right" dinners form safeway are really good or pretty much anything form morning star

Last week, I had many pounds of chicken breast that was getting close to the use-by date, and cooked up the whole bunch of it in the oven. Just sprinkled on a little black pepper and baked it. Then all week, all I had to do was chop up a breast, and do... whatever with it. Sometimes in a whole wheat tortilla with some cheese, salsa and lettuce, microwaved just long enough to melt the cheese. Sometimes with brown minute rice, oriental blend veggies (from a frozen bag) stir-fried with a little teriyaki sauce. With some Italian blend veggies, lemon garlic marinade, some pasta and feta cheese. Etc.

Chicken, veggies, marinade or sauce to go with it, and rice or pasta. That's pretty much my formula for every meal, but sooooo easy with the chicken pre-cooked.

And by the way, for a really yummy and high protein creamy sauce, plain greek yogurt mixed with lemon-garlic marinade or buffalo sauce is AWESOME!!!!

Make large pots of soup or chili and freeze in individual containers, then have that with a salad or sandwich. I also like to make meat in large amounts, like ground turkey or chicken. Grill it up then add rice, pasta, etc..

I've been cooking for myself for 17 years. :happy: I try to find recipes that make 2-4 servings, that take less than 1/2 hour to prepare, then I can bring the leftovers for lunches, or heat them up the next night for dinner. As for it not being "worth it" to cook for one person, I disagree: I think you are TOTALLY worth a delicious, fresh cooked meal! :bigsmile:

Just tonight, I cooked a vegetarian Thai curry for myself, and portioned the leftovers into single serving containers that I will bring to work this week for lunches. Yum!

Another advantage of cooking for yourself: you can use it as an opportunity to cook something that your significant other/ roommate/ eating partner doesn't like. Score!

Boil a batch of hard-boiled eggs and store them in the fridge in their shells. Chop one or two eggs up with mustard. Eat with crackers.

Fried rice -- brown rice, chicken, ground turkey or an egg, veggies, soya sauce.

Alright, I do and have done a ton of cooking for one person (sometimes without access to a refrigerator or freezer... o.O), but I don't mind repeat things. Here are some of the things I've done:

Lentils: They cook fast so you can make these every day (unlike beans which take longer and I'd be more inclined to cook a batch for multiple days), and there is a variety of ways you can season them.

Burritos: The simplest is to just take a can of refried beans, some tortillas (I use La Tortilla Factory Smart and Delicious ones), and optionally some cheese and hot sauce, but there are a lot of recipes out there for some good tortillas you can cook (in particular there are these black bean and butternut squash burritos which are just great). They're portable, so they're good for lunch or dinner.

Pureeing 1/4 cup of squash with various vegetables (I started this with frozen spinach) and a little parmesean cheese, which can go in or on anything, including proteins or more vegetables (I started this on roasted broccoli).

One of the first things I would do for dinner would be to have two pieces of toast with sliced hardboiled eggs on top, covered in salsa (I found a morroccan one which was amazing.). Added a side of fruit.

Mixed drained frozen spinach, yogurt (a thin plain one), and garlic salt.

Make a base of a can of tomato (drained or not) and garlic and onions sauteed in olive oil, add anything. Chicken, boiled eggs, beans, mushrooms, tofu, eggplant. Add various spice combinations while sauteeing the garlic and onions (cumin and cayenne pepper, perhaps some oregano; cumin, coriander and cinnamon; cumin and coriander; parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, and potentially a little cumin.).

Some things are versatile, easy to portion and always good: Tuna, eggs, cottage cheese, yogurt, oatmeal, cereal, frozen vegetables (especially spinach).

Prep a ton of food and just heat up single servings when your hungry.

2 hand fulls for veggies
1 hand full for meats
1/2 hand full of nuts/dried fruit
1 thumb of oil/butter

I like to make large amounts and stock up my fridge for easy eats. Its just me and my BF and we dont always get to eat together so its convenient.

I like to prep pasta, chicken, roasted veggies, and egg cups (you can msg me for the recipe). Also boiled eggs are really convenient to have on hand.

Instant oat meal and cereal is great for a snack or a meal.

Protein powder is great. A protein packed smoothie is a simple 1 person meal.

I make a salad with lots of fresh veggies and keep it in one of those "stay fresh" containers. It actually lasts all week and keeps really good. Tonight I made spagetti sauce. I am going to have spagetti on whole wheat pasta and salad for supper. Spagetti sauce is hard to make in small batches so I will freeze 4 or 5 individual servings. In my freezer right now you will find homemade veg/beef soup, chili, tatertot hotdish, beef stew, taco meat, individual mini lasagna, swedish meatballs (starting to wonder why I made that sauce tonight?) . I had to learn to freeze things cuz I like to cook and I like healthy fresh homemade food. Best investment I ever made... food saver. Food will last a long time in food saver bags.

And I like a good protein shake with fruit at times :-)