Cheap and Easy Meals for 1

[Jilly50]

Any suggestions on some frugal healthy meals for one that dont require a lot of preparation? I'm tired of the old soup and sandwich and canned chili meals LOL. thanks!!!!

[pip]

How about buying a package of chcken thighs or legs and freezing them individually. Then, you could take out a piece to bake in the oven along with a potato. You could then cook up a portion of frozen vegetable in the microwave to go with. I love baked chicken and baked potatoes!

[Buc-O-Mama]

My sister lives alone, here are some meals that she makes:

Every week she makes a small batch of some type soup/chili/stew. Enough to make 3 or 4 meals, then she freezes them in individual containers and rotates them during the week just for her lunches. I know she does red beans and rice, white chicken chili, and a Spanish bean soup.

She will make a small square pan of lasagna, she makes spinach and cheese often and freezes leftovers

Grill/broil/bake a couple of pieces of chicken to have with salad or other veggie. She'll do the meat on the weekend in one batch so she doesn't have to cook one at a time.

Baked potatoes can be baked a couple at a time, then she tops them with chopped broccoli, cheese and sour cream.

Bake a full sized meatloaf, freezing individual servings. You can also make meatloaf muffins.

Once in a while, she buys seafood at the meat counter, scallops, shrimp or salmon, just enough for her for some variety.

[jacqueline]

I live by myself and definitely understand - sometimes it's hard cooking for just one and not wasting. Here are a couple of ideas:

Ramen noodles w/veg: Put noodle pkg in a bowl or lg cup with whatever frozen vegetable you like, put water in to cover. Microwave 1-3 min depending on micro's power. Add ramen powder after microwaved.

Soft tortilla spread with refried beans. Micro to warm. Then layer with whatever you like: tomatoes, onions, lettuce, cheese, sour crm, etc. and roll up to eat.

Fry up a pan of potatoes, cabbage, onions, carrots. Pretty filling. In the summer I add squash.

An omelet with whatever you like: ham, cheese, onion, bacon, etc.

Fried egg sandwich, BLT, pancakes/wafflesk, a bowl of cereal. Sometimes breakfast for dinner is just the thing. It's quick and a change of pace.

Pasta/Noodles with what you have on hand. Great for singles cos you can control how much. Throw in vegetables and sauce/tuna or other meat.

Just some notions HTH

[Gardengal18]

When I lived by myself I bought a 5 cu freezer and a couple of crock pots. Every other Sunday I would fire up the crock pots and the oven and make such things as Beef Stew, Meatloaf, Chicken Parm, Turkey, Pasta and Meatballs etc and put them into Rubbermaid dishes and freeze them. Made life a heck of a lot easier as all I had to do was pull them out of the freezer and then put them on a plate and into the micro at work/home. The freezer also helped as I was able to buy in Bulk which was also a cost saving.

[TinyDancer]

I have the same problem. Thanks everyone for great ideas!

[zakity]

Chili cheese dip and tortillas chips

baked potato with spaghetti sauce and either mozzarella on top or parmesan cheese or baked potato with taco fixing on top or baked potato with chili and cheese on top (these are a good way to use up dabs of stuff)

tortillas and cheese and some refried beans for quesadillas, dip them in salsa, sour cream, or guacamole


One person I knew of invested in tons of rubbermaid containers. She would make regular batches of food and package them up into meal sized portions. She would label them (I use painters tape, I can't remember how she did it) and date them. She would also record them on a piece of paper taped to the inside of her cupboard to keep track of what she had in the freezer. She would pull out whatever suited her fancy for the next few days. She would take them as is for lunch. For dinner, she would add in a roll or two and some veggies maybe. If her portion wasn't enough because she was hungrier that night, she ate more veggies or an extra roll to fill her up. I thought it was a brilliant plan.

[Grainlady]

Although there's two of us, some of the same things apply to small-batch, freezer-friendly, cooking.

-I make 3 small loaves of bread from a 2-pound (one loaf) recipe, rather than one large loaf, and freeze the extra. We normally use one small loaf of bread a week.

-From one recipe of bread dough I can make a 1# loaf of bread, 6 pecan rolls and an 8-inch pan of dinner rolls. Other options are 6 hamburger buns, 6 hot dog buns.

-Keep a box of pop-up foil sheets (Sam's Club) in the cabinet and wrap breads in one- or two-serving amounts, destined for freezer storage (I make all our breads and freeze them this way). When you make a meal in the toaster oven, just pop in a foil-wrapped bread to heat while the chicken and veggies are cooking. Great for corn bread, dinner rolls, sandwich rolls/hamburger buns, hot dog buns, oat farls, scones, biscuits, muffins, etc...

-Pre-portion or pre-cook and portion meats before freezing. I quick freeze soup/chili/stew/spaghetti sauce/cooked hamburger in 1-cup plastic containers. When frozen, pop them out, stack in a FoodSaver Bag and vacuum shut. Now all your plastic containers aren't in the freezer. Take out the number of servings you need and reseal the bag. Chili is a great multi-tasking food. I keep it in 1/2-cup and 1-cup portions. Use 1/2 c. as a topping for a baked potato or in a Taco Salad.

-I purchase potatoes when they are buy one (5# bag) - get one free. We don't use potatoes quick enough to buy in this quantity, so I make them into Freezer Mashed Potatoes. Freeze them in dollops (using an ice cream scoop as a portion) and vacuum-seal them in Foodsaver Bags. Great if you need a serving of mashed potatoes, or a topping for a small Shepherd's Pie.

-I have a variety of small tart pans, small (1/2-size) pie dishes, and small pasta and casserole dishes. I use my homemade wholegrain baking mix in Bisquick (Impossible "whatever") recipes and make 1/2 or 1/4 of recipes that are made in regular-sized pie tins.

-A new (to me) product I love to use is Pure Tomato Powder (The Spice House - www.thespicehouse.com). I use it instead of canned tomato products. I use it to make a quick pizza sauce, or anywhere I need tomato paste or tomato sauce WITHOUT having leftovers. I also avoid high fructose corn syrup, so this is a way to control ingredients in things like pizza sauce. Speaking of pizzas, I make a recipe of homemade pizza dough and make it into small pizzas. Pre-bake them, cool, wrap in plastic wrap and then stick them in a Zip-Lock bag. They make for quick eats.

-Remember Hobo Meals made in a foil pouch? There are a lot of Foil Pouch meals that are great for cooking for 1 or 2 and work great in a toaster oven.

-The salad bar at the grocery store is your friend! That's where I get cooking ingredients when I only need a small amount. Need 2 T. of red bell pepper for a recipe, or 1/4 c. celery, a few sliced mushrooms? Get it at the salad bar rather than purchasing a whole pepper (especially off season when they cost a lot), package of celery, or a package of mushrooms. Great for pizza toppings, too. Better than a crisper drawer full of produce you forget to use.

-I also dehydrate lots of things that often get tossed from neglect in the crisper drawer. When sweet potatoes were 33-cents a pound, I bought enough to make dehydrated mashed sweet potatoes for a year. I dehydrate them on the fruit roll-up sheets spread in a very thin layer. When crispy dry, I run it through the blender to make sweet potato powder. It rehydrates with hot water. So when I want mashed sweet potatos for one or two, or add some to sweet potato biscuits, I use dehydrated sweet potato powder. Dehydrated apple slices are great as snack food, or make into cobblers or applesauce.

-Bake smaller amounts - instead of 12-muffins, cut the recipe in half and bake 6-muffins in the toaster oven. You'll still have enough to stick in the freezer. I often use powdered whole eggs in baked goods - great for when you need half an egg.

-I make my own pudding mixes and portion them in 2-serving portions, but it would also be simple to make single-servings.

[rowdy35]

i guess think of it this way, anything that you can buy in a prepackaged TV dinner, you can make on your own and freeze in individual servings. I reuse the Marie Callendar meals pans to make my own tv dinners (there are only two of us) and husband doesn't like leftovers. I suppose you can make egg rolls, burritos, pot pies, pot roast, quiche etc. and make your own freezer meals. Buying in bulk and stocking up on loss leader sales will also save you some $.

[tervsforme]

I have to second the foil meal packets. I love those. Usually I just add a slice of onion, a hamburger patty or maybe a piece of sausage, a sliced potatoe and some carrots, bake for about 45 minutes or an hour and it's done. I usually make 2 to have one for the next day.

Another thing I like is pork chops and mushroom soup gravy. Just brown a couple of pork chops, slice up a couple of potatoes and put them in with the pork chops, dump in a can of cream of mushroom soup and simmer for about 45 minutes til everything is done. Again, I usually do 2 pork chops and 2 potatoes to have enough for another day.

[sunshine]

http://www.razzledazzlerecipes.com/c...ipes/index.htm

http://homecooking.about.com/library...e/blmisc73.htm

http://www.montana.edu/nep/forms/cookingforone.pdf

[SandNOceanGirl]

I am in the same boat. For over half the month it is just me here and eating all the sandwiches and single freezer meals is getting old. Thank you everyone for the great ideas!

[lmbaker520]

Thanks to everyone for the great ideas! I live alone and am always looking for new things to try. I also get tired of doing chili and soups all of the time.

A lot of times I crave something grilled but I don't want to heat up the grill for one piece of chicken, a couple of hot dogs, or a hamburger. I will grill up a bunch at once a lot of times and then freeze the leftovers. Then I can just pull one out when I have a craving.

[dcompton]

I agree with what everyone else has said. Your freezer is your best friend. Of course, if you don't mind the leftover at once, some keep well enough just refrigerated.

The biggest timesaver for me is to cook lots of chicken (bone in breast, usually in the crockpot) and hamburger, freezing them in the portions you would use in a casserole or skillet meal. If the meat is ready, cooking the rest takes little time.

Actually, though there is just me, I don't "cook for one." I cook or four or six or eight, and then feed myself four or six or eight times.

[mnmarty03]

I too live alone - several of these I already do... several more I don't do and look forward to trying!

Thanks for the tips everyone!