I need help with making meals for just me. I’m now quite by myself, so meals for two don’t seem economical, and I can’t afford to eat out every night, or most nights, or at all, really. I don’t have a clue what to cook, though, and the thought of slaving over a hot stove is enough to send me to Subway. I need ideas for meals for me, either single-serving or lasting a couple of days. I won’t restrict much, except to say I don’t like spicy food and certain vegetables, such as asparagus or green beans. I like salads. Anyway, I just know the culinary experts of the SDMB want to help a college student eat healthy and learn how to cook at the same time. I have a nice new refrigerator and stove just waiting for good food, so please, give me your best recipies of simplicity and tastiness!
Well, there is always macaroni and cheese out of the box, if you can stand it. Certainly cheap and easy to make. I ate quite a bit of it when I was first out of college. You can cook two or more boxes worth at one time so it will last for several meals, and mix in vegetables (peas, maybe, or broccoli) so it is more healthy for you. When I was single I almost always cooked up large amounts of food at one time so it would last me for several days.
Regular pasta in general is cheap, tasty and easy to cook. You can cook up hamburger separately, add some tomato sauce and spread it on the pasta.
Canned vegetables, while inferior in taste to fresh or frozen, do have the advantage of having an essentially infinite shelf life BTW.
Stir frying is a quick and easy technique for cooking just about anything. Meat, vegetables, maybe some teriyaki sauce, served over rice…mmmm, I’m getting hungry.
Thanks, those are some good ideas. Stir-fry sounds appealing, though tonight I’m going back to the apartment, cleaning out the fridge and making a sandwich…
Note to Mods: I thought I posted this in Café Society. I’m not sure if it belongs here or there; if it needs to move, please accept my apologies. I’m still a little thrown off by the new look.
Spaghetti (or other pasta of choice). Fresh in-season vegetables or frozen ones - whichever you prefer, and only the vegetables you like. Parmesan cheese, sauce if you want.
Cook spaghetti, cook vegetables (don’t overcook them, just thawed and warmed - adjust how much you cook them to your liking). Heat sauce if you’re using.
Drain spaghetti, add a little butter/olive oil if desired to keep it from sticking together, mix in vegetables, add cheese/sauce. Consume.
It really doesn’t take any time, and I usually use frozen vegetables at this time of year - they’re pre-cut and simple. I toss them in the microwave to heat while I’m cooking the spaghetti. Total time is probably 10-15 minutes. I don’t use any sauce (can’t stand red sauces normally - I’ll use it once in a blue moon). This is a quick and easy “it’s 9:00 Wednesday night, I just got home from campus and desperately need something to eat before I stay up 'til three writing this paper” meal.
Chili: if you like it, make enough that you can freeze some (for me, this is usually most of the pot. I can manage it 2 days in a row, but if I leave it in the fridge any longer than that I’ll end up throwing it out).
Learn to roast a chicken - it’s simple and you will get several meals out of it, including sandwiches for lunch. If you don’t think you’ll eat all of it, freeze some.
Really, learn to love your freezer. I use the disposable storage containers because I take my lunch to campus with me and if I’ve taken something that’s kind of smelly after it’s heated up, I don’t want to haul the container around with me the rest of the day.
Most of all, have fun. Don’t be afraid to experiment in the kitchen, and if you find you’ve made too much, invite a friend (or friends) over to share. Have them bring dessert/beer/whatever.
Get yourself a slow-cooker/crockpot and one of those “10 Million Recipes For The Slow Cooker” books. You do maybe 10 minutes of preperation and have food for days. For example, you buy a beef roast. Chuck it in the slow cooker in the morning, add some vegetables/herbs and spices, takes ten minutes. When you get home eight hours later, you have a tasty beef roast that makes a nice meal and can serve as sammiches for days.
It is cheaper to buy meat in bulk, you can take advantage of sales. When you bring the meat home, divide it right away into single-portion sizes. Keep what you will use up in a few days and freeze the rest. I use the microwave to defrost meat.
I buy a few fresh vegetables this time of year, such as carrots, celery, onions; stuff that keeps well, and buy the rest frozen. I still have to throw out some that get yucky, but not too much. Stir frys are great, just defrost enough meat and use enough veggies for one. I throw frozen broccoli and cauliflower into stir frys, it cooks fine from frozen.
Remember that stuff like lasagna and casseroles usually freeze well, make a bunch and divide into single size portions and freeze some of it.
I agree with the stir fry, get yourself a Wok and you can put together a nice meal fast. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts are great, you can wrap them up into individaul portions and freeze them for later use.
You can scale down just about any recipe you find, although it will save you a lot of time and energy to make the full recipe and freeze the leftovers in individual portions. Soups and sauces work especially well like that.
One of my favorite meals for one is a pork chop, lightly dusted with brown sugar and grilled with apple wedges, a sweet potato with cinnamon butter, and a small salad.
Chicken pot pies are cheap and easy, too. Boil up the chicken, add some veggies and cook them a while, pour broth into crust, top with more crust, and bake till golden brown. You can make them as big or as small as you want. Also, you can save some of the chicken and vegetable broth, put noodles in, and have soup.
You can splash your pasta up a little by making peanut sauce for it–mix one part Worcestershire sauce with 2 parts peanut butter, add crushed red pepper to taste, toss in a little splash of hot water to make it smooth, and toss it with your pasta. Top with grated carrot and sliced green onion, maybe add some chicken breast, and you’ve got a fast, easy, cheap, tasty meal.
Oh, and I’ve found that the more stuff you keep on hand, the faster and easier it is to whip stuff together.
This is the list of kitchen basics I put together for a mailing group I belong to.
The Most Basic Staples (you already knew these)
Flour
Milk
Sugar
Salt
Black Pepper
Potatoes
Onions–I like the red ones, myself
The Less Obvious Staples (these may vary by individual preference)
Chicken breasts–we buy the individually frozen bags, and stock up when there’s a sale
Lemon juice–useful in lots of fast recipes, and lemonade’s cheaper and better for you than soda
Garlic–we get fresh whole garlic, but we’re garlic fiends. A small jar of the pre-minced may be better for you.
Italian dressing–great for sauces and marinades, as well as salad
Worcestershire sauce–good for dipping sauce, marinades, and keeps practically forever
Regular popcorn (not the microwave stuff)–yummy and healthy snack for the whole house
Salad–we always keep a huge bowl of cut up salad greens in the fridge. Need a fast side dish? Pull out your bowl and the dressings, and there you go. Need a fast meal? Throw some left-over meat on top of a big bowl of salad, add cheese or whatever floats your boat, and there you go. Or grill up some chicken or steak, or whatever you have on hand for your salad. The salad bowl is my friend.
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Soup is also very good, particularly in winter. You can make a HUGE pot of it, then either freeze individual portions or just let it sit on the stove and reheat when needed. When the salad starts to wilt, toss it in the soup pot. You can add anything to the soup, and put stuff like cheese and little bread squares on top. With some kind of bread or crackers, plus dessert that’s a meal.
Damnit! I wrote out a whole long list of stuff yesterday then my comp. crashed so heres the abridged version. Good things to cook if you are on a budget and alone is stuff like: Stir fries, bolognaise sauce (you can make a load then turn it into chilli con carne, lasagne etc.), risotto (easy to make a nice meal with with just a few ingredients), casseroles and pasta. The added bonus of all of the above is that they only use one pot! You should be able to find good recipes for all of the above on the net (I recommend www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes) but in the meantime i’ll give you one of the easiest, cheapest and nicest recipes that I know, I hope you like lemons and broccolli!
You will need:
1 head of broccolli cut into florets (or equivalent amount frozen)
about 100-150g dried pasta shells (you could use penne or similar)
1 lemon - zest and juice
1 vegetable/chicken stock cube made into 400ml of stock (or fresh if possible)
1 piece of butter about the size of a walnut (or margarine)
1 tablespoon of flour
salt and pepper
To make it:
In one medium sized saucepan melt the butter over a medium heat until foaming and then add the flour stirring constantley until it forms a paste then slowly add the hot stock until it becomes a slightly thickend sauce, keep this simmering over a low heat. Meanwhile bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and add the pasta. Take note of the cooking time (usually 10-12 mins) and 5-7 mins. before the end of cooking time add the broccolli (5 mins for fresh 7 for frozen). When you are about 1 min from having cooked pasta and broccolli add the lemon juice and zest to the sauce adding salt and pepper to taste. Finally drain the pasta/broccolli then return it to the pan and pour over the lemony sauce and gently stir it through.
This recipe can be adjusted easily, you could use asparagus instead of broccolli or maybe zucchini or possibley a mix of vegetables. It would also be nice if you served it with a grilled chicken fillet or maybe a salmon fillet. I hope this is of use to you.
Any food item made out of grains would be a cheap, simple food to make. Most are very inexpensive too if you buy generics and/or sale items.
Spaghetti, cereal, peanut butter sandwiches, oatmeal, macaroni & cheese, potato chips, pancake mix. Also look into store brand soda or Hi-C for some of your beverages. They are cheap sources of calories.
I’ve also found that brownie mix and cake mix are a very cheap form of food too. Mix goes on sale for 99 cents over here sometimes and if you buy it (along with about 15 cents in eggs and oil or applesauce) you can get about 2800 calories of food for $1.25. not necessarily nutritious or something you’d want to eat everyday but its still a good source of cheap calories. If you dont want to use oil you can use applesauce instead and it tastes pretty much the same with less fat.
This is, by the way, an excellent suggestion. I tried this at home last night and made a mind-blowingly good chicken stir fry. I owe you my first born for that tip, CCL. 
That’s okay, you keep it. No. Really. I’m glad you liked the sauce, though.
Wow, you guys are more ambitious (or less lazy) than I am. I rely pretty heavily on frozen foods (dinners, pizzas, hot pockets) that I can just stick in the microwave or regular oven for a few minutes. I go for the ones that are cheap and/or on sale—certainly cheaper than eating out and probably a lot cheaper than if I had to buy all the ingredients separately. And canned soup, chilli, etc.
Pasta, yes. When I’m feeling particularly lazy, I’ll pour some spaghetti sauce from a jar onto some Ramen noodles—they cook fast and are about the right size for a single serving.
I like some of those pasta or rice dishes that come in a box or bag, and you dump 'em in a big bowl with some water and butter. I usually add a few frozen vegetables or something like that and make a meal out of them.
Eh, you can cook a decent meal in the same amount of time it takes to heat the oven and cook a frozen pizza. You can make that peanut sauce, grate the carrots, and slice the green onions while the pasta’s cooking. (Or your ramen noodles, if seven minutes to boil pasta is too long for you. 
) Broiling a chicken breast or pork chop takes less than ten minutes, and there are endless variations of seasonings for them. Eat them alone, top with sauce, make a sandwich, slice up for salad, anything you want. You can bake potatoes in the microwave in a little over five minutes (or do a bunch in the oven and freeze them, then nuke as needed.)
It requires a little planning, but once you’ve done that, it really doesn’t take any more time or effort to cook than to use convenience foods, and it tends to be cheaper and healthier.
What CCL said. Once you get the tools (slow cooker, decent cookware, whatever), it takes the same amount of time to prepare frozen food versus something decent. I can use my slow cooker for just about everything and when cooking meat, it’s usually a matter of 1. Unwrap meat 2. Put it in slow cooker 3. Add spices, water, veggies, whatever 4. Turn it on. 5. Leave 6. Come back eight hours later to a tasty meal. We used to rely on boxed/frozen kinda things a lot more, but as we add to our kitchen equipment, it’s less and less. We used to live on Rice-a-Roni and pasta, now we do all kinds of things. And once you’ve eaten decent food, going back to frozen stuff is hard. For me, at least.
Millions of recipes…trick is to cook large portions of whatever you make and then buy lots of those cheap, individual size, imitation tupperware containers and put the leftovers in them (be sure to label what it is). Then just pull them out from the freezer and zap them in the microwave when you are not in the mood to cook.
I mean, why worry about finding a sad little recipe for one? Make a double portion or larger and you will have frozen dinners for months down the line!
I’ll third what CCL said. I spend much less on groceries now than I did when I was out buying boxed meals and frozen pizza things, and I don’t spend much more time cooking, unless I decide I want to.
Mexican food is pretty fast and easy. Quesadillas - put cheese and veggies onto a tortilla. Put another tortilla on top. Put it in the oven and wait for the cheese to melt. Or you can saute some garlic and onion for a few minutes, add sliced chicken breast and red and green pepper, cook until the chicken is done, wrap it in a tortilla, and call it a fajita. Not at all expensive, and healthy to boot.
I’d suggest you invest in a good knife and a decent wok. Most of my meal come out of a wok. And definitely get lots of tupperware to freeze portions in. It’s much easier to make a lot and freeze what you can’t eat right away than to do the division necessary to make a recipe for one.
I just rememberd this one, as I was cooking dinner. I love my little George Forman grill. I have a little $17.99 model form Target, and it is perfect for making a small steak, a chicken breast, or a hamburger. Clean it while it’s still warm for the easiest cleaning. I put a damp paper towel in between the grills after I take the food off, and after I eat I come back, wipe all the stuff off with the same paper towel, then haul it over to the sink for a scrub with hot water and dishsoap.