Cooking for yourself as a single person

Dear CD community,

First.

I am wondering how you guys that are single manage to buy groceries and cook for yourself. It's a bit of a pain in the ass since you're the only one consuming most everything you buy, so it's easy to fall into the trap of either eating the same thing over and over again, which wouldn't make for a very balanced and healthy diet, or having to throw food away since you just can't consume it quickly enough before it goes bad.

Also, what are your thoughts on having a balanced diet as a person who buys and prepares food only for yourself?

Sincerely,

sycld

EDIT: OH SHI-

Honestly, it's difficult.

What I do is buy the ingredients to make something, then use what's left over and see what I can add to the left over ingredients to make something different with. Simple example-If I eat chicken and rice, the next day I'll have leftover rice, and put it in a burrito or something.

You also end up eating a lot of unique food combinations this way.

Start buying TV dinners.

I don't live by myself but I practically cook for myself. Ever since my mom got re-married she stopped cooking nightly and stopped tending to the rest of her family. This leaves me fending for myself.

A few things that are easy and rather cheap to make are, various types of pasta, grilled chicken, burgers, and pizzas.

Pasta; really this is pretty simple. All it takes is any type of noodle you want, some homemade sauce (if you know how to make it) or canned sauce. Noodles are ridiculously cheap and last virtually forever. An easy way to change it up every week is to buy different types of noodles because eating the different types of pasta makes it feel like a whole other meal.

Frozen chicken breasts; this gives you some great possibilities too. If you have a foreman grill you're all set. Just slap one of those breasts onto the grill and let it cook. I often saturate mine with different sauces to make a more flavorful and different tasting dishes. All it really takes is your favorite sauce whether it be italian dressing, ranch, BBQ, buffalo, or honey mustard. As the chicken cooks poke some holes in it and layer it with your desired sauce. The flavor will cook right into the chicken and sometimes caramelize on the top for a nice flavorful grilled crunchy taste. Chicken salads with fries is another option with chicken.

Burgers; I don't think I need to explain this one.

Pizza; I really like making flat bread pizzas. All it takes is sauce, some flat bread, some oregano and what ever kind of cheese you like, all put together and baked until the cheese is cooked to your liking.

Frozen veggies make for an easy side dish as well. They are relativity cheap and last forever in the freezer. Just toss them in a cooking disk, add some water, throw it on the stove and steam for about 10 minutes.

Baked potatoes with cheese, sour cream, and bacon bits fill you up and cost very little as well.

You can usually buy the sames things in bulk but make different variations of it for one week, do the same the next but with a different type of food and again the next week. This helps to counteract the feeling that your eating repeatability and saves money because your buying in bulk and not wasting.

I hope some of my ideas help.

It's not a great diet, but I used to cook a lot of pasta. It's really tasty and cheap and you can make those nasty sauces taste really good with simple things like ground pork, chopped up ham, corn, poblanos, olives, etc.

You could go out to eat a few nights a week, but going alone is kinda creepy so bring some friends.

I eat pretty well as do my roommates. I spend usually $50 per week and a half if not less on food. It is usually something like this:

A couple pieces of fruit (Fruit every day is delicious but expensive, so I go 2-3 times a week with a good banana/pineapple or something)
A head or two of red-leaf lettuce
1-2 Pounds of Chicken
1-2 Pounds of Beef (Ground or not)
2 packs of pasta
2 bottles of pasta sauce
Eggs
Potatoes
Rice
1/2 - 3/4 pound of sliced turkey
Bread

I cut out most sweets and snacks out of my day and that saves a lot.

Jasmine rice is super easy to cook and is a great source for carbohydrates. It's also relatively cheap, about $15 for 20 pounds. You might include rice in most meals and focus your attention on the meat and vegetables.

What's great about rice is that sorta stale leftovers can be salvaged. Reuse 2-day-old rice by making fried rice or rice soup (both relatively easy).

Also birds love rice. Just saying.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KT_

Jasmine rice is super easy to cook and is a great source for carbohydrates. It's also relatively cheap, about $15 for 20 pounds. You might include rice in most meals and focus your attention on the meat and vegetables.

What's great about rice is that sorta stale leftovers can be salvaged. Reuse 2-day-old rice by making fried rice or rice soup (both relatively easy).

Also birds love rice. Just saying.

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I forgot about rice. Sushi is also really cheap to make.

Start learning to cook things which use up leftovers from other meals.....like....fried rice for instance (you can use pretty much anything).

I cook for myself.

I also worked as a cook at a hibachi/stir-fry place for about 2 years so I know my way around the grill, stove, whatever. When I buy food I can typically eat for 1-2weeks on 20 to 60 dollars. Mixing foods works, When you buy meat, and don't think you'll be able to eat it fast enough, portion it out and toss what you think will need to be saved to the freezer.

Also Stirfry and rice are awesome.

Buy basic ingredients and keep topping up your supply of them. Meat and chicken (keep frozen till you are going to cook it), lettuce and salad ingredients, vegetables you like to eat. Buy a lot, and if you find some goes bad, buy less next time. You'll just work out the ideal amount after a short time. As well as those, you've got things like rice and pasta which take a long, long time to go bad provided you store it correctly.

Basically, you just have to figure out some equilibrium between buying too much and having stuff go bad and buying so little that you have to go shopping every two days. Only you can do that.

As for keeping meals interesting: vary your combinations. You can have chicken four nights in a row without it feeling like you're eating the same thing just by changing flavours (teriyaki, napoli, garlic) or bases (pasta, rice) and whatever you have with it (salad, vegetables). I'm not suggesting you actually have chicken four nights in a row, I'm just saying it doesn't have to be boring.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sir Bifford

I forgot about rice. Sushi is also really cheap to make.

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Icky @ sushi.. When it comes to cooking for 1 I use to only buy for one as not to waste a lot of food. You can also try making bigger meals and freezing the leftovers in seperate 1 meal containers. This will also reduce your time in the kitchen.

The two best things in the kitchen is a rice cooker with a built in veggie steamer and a crock pot/slow cooker.
With the slow cooker you can make a roast or a huge pot of soup or stew and freeze the leftovers and have an easy microwave dinner.