Favourite Single Person Meals

Cafe Society
21

Buy the larger package, use what you want, and freeze the rest. It’s better to repackage the meat you’re going to freeze, and I keep my paws off the meat if I’m going to freeze it - it’s easy to do; just use a utensil to put the meat you want to freeze in the freezer bag. Squeeze all the air out of the bag, seal it, and then you can use the meat later.

If you’re going to have two meals within two or three days, then you can leave the second portion in the fridge in wrapping but if you won’t use until later, freeze it.

22

For starters, I’ll just say that those 3-5 pound bags of boneless skinless chicken breasts are great for a single guy. I can use them in so many ways.
This one requires a bit of effort and a few dishes, but is well worth it.

Chicken & Scrambled Egg “Breakfast” Burritos

Cook a frozen, skinless chicken breast in a covered microwave dish. You’ll only need about half of it, so you can save the rest for something else or the next time you make these.

Scramble two large eggs. Chop 'em up a bit in the pan.

I generally use the large Resers flour tortillas, but I’ve also made them with small corn tortillas.

Tear up some of the chicken by hand (although I suppose you could chop them up too if you want, but I like the torn texture better) into the tortilla. Spread about half of the eggs over that.

Microwave just that, the tortilla, the chicken and scrambled eggs, for 45 seconds on high.

Pour on some salsa (your favorite, I prefer smooth medium taco sauce type stuff), some cheese (I use the Mexican four cheese mix) and sour cream.

Yes, the cheese is cold and the chicken and eggs are hot. That’s the way I like it.

Two of them (using half or slightly more of the chicken breast and two eggs) makes a pretty good sized meal.
I have also made Black Bean Burritos a regular affair by browning a pound of ground beef and adding either two cans of refriend black beans, or one can of the refried plus one can of whole black beans, then freezing what I don’t use for the first meal. Those small, inexpensive semi-disposable tuperware things are a godsend for this kind of thing. Use the same tortillas, cheese, salsa and sour cream as the breakfast burritos.
Chicken Alfredo is really easy. Cook a chicken breast. Make a box of Pastaroni Fettucini Alfredo. Chop up the chicken and throw it in. Viola!

23

Get some of those disposable plastic containers. Cook for two or three, as you usually do, but put the extras in the containers and freeze. Now you have your very own TV dinners. This is particularly good for roast beef and gravy. Just boil up some rice, heat the beef and gravy, put the rice on a plate or bowl and top with beef and gravy. Same thing can be done for chicken and gravy. If rice isn’t your thing, you can make noodles, pasta, or mashed potatoes for the base. Canned veggies are probably not worth the trouble, go with fresh or frozen veggies, which are tastier and better for you anyway. Most frozen veggies taste wonderful when steamed with an herb or two.

Chef’s salads are great. Go ahead and get yourself the GOOD olives. I like to use a red wine salad dressing on these. I usually cut up fresh veggies for the whole family, and store them in separate zipshut bags, so it’s easy to pull out a couple of bell pepper strips, celery sticks, and so forth.

Every week, boil up half a dozen or so eggs. You can have them sliced on a salad, chopped up in egg salad, deviled, or just eaten out of hand for a snack.

If you have problems with bread going moldy, keep most of it in the freezer, and just keep a few slices out at a time.

24

how do you cook a chicken breast (or strips). I only know how to grill them or follow a recipe, and I don’t have a grill right now.

25

Ramen - proper Ramen with a bonito/soy stock, nice veggies, and a seared teriyaki salmon cut on top.

26

Buy pre-formed hamburgers. My grocery store sells packs of two. Each hamburger can be thawed in the microwave, broken up and browned. Yeah, you could buy the bigger packs and repackage them, but I find this easier.

27

I like to make a whole bunch of pasta and soup on my days off. Freeze individual portions and cook as needed.

Peg Bracken’s Appendix to the I Hate to Cook Book states that single people live on one of five different things:

The English Muffin With Something on it
The Egg with Something Under it
The Soup with Something Beside it
The Milk Shake with Something in it
The Baked Potato with Something over it

28

Since we do a lot of “every man for themselves” meals at our house lately (don’t ask) I can tell you what we’ve made at casa2U over the last few weeks.

Fried hot dogs (you fry them in butter then put them in a hot dog bun and eat them.)

Cheese hot dogs (split them almost in half, stuff with a piece of cheese, fry till melty, eat.)

Egg sandwiches (put some sandwich beef - like Buddig - use maybe 2 or 3 pieces - in a skillet, fry in butter. Meanwhile, make some toast. When the toast is done, put a piece of cheese on it. Put the beef on top of the cheese. Cover that with two fried eggs however you like your eggs fried - me I prefer sunny side up.)

Pizza bread (buy some Pastorelli pizza sauce in a can, spread it on white bread, put mozzarella cheese on it, bake it, eat it)

Wilted lettuce salad (cook 7 or 8 slices of chopped up bacon till crisp in a pan with two sliced up green onions. Tear one head red leaf lettuce into a bowl, cover the leaves with the bacon and onions. In the pan with the bacon fat, add a few Tablespoons of vinegar and a little sugar to make a dressing and then pour it over the lettuce leaves and the bacon. I don’t have measurements - I do it to taste - if you want measurements, google Wilted Lettuce Salad. That’s the basic premise. YES I can eat the whole thing myself.)

Shrimp is always good too - you can buy those precooked frozen shrimp, thaw only what you can eat, and then just sit with some garlic butter (or teriyaki butter, or vinegar, or cocktail sauce - you get the drift - and munch on those. If you get them when they’re on sale, it’s a pretty good deal.)

The Kid had nachos the other night (tortilla chips topped with leftover taco meat, covered with cheddar cheese, baked, and then drizzled with taco sauce. He liked that. I did something similar but used salsa instead of taco sauce, added tomatoes, green onions, olives, and sour cream after I baked it.)

There’s always soup and a sandwich too.

Fish would work well too - when I get tilapia, I get it in separate portions - so I can take just one out of the freezer if I want it. Wrap it in some foil, add some butter, onion slices, lemon, garlic, seal it all up and bake that sucker. That’s some good eats. And it only takes like 15 minutes.

29

Or you can buy a 1lb (or slightly larger) package of ground beef, brown all of it at once, drain it, and put it in the freezer in a ziploc bag. A couple of whacks against the edge of the counter loosens it up just fine, to pour however much you need into the pan/bowl/whatever, for the dish you’re making. I do this with taco meat, and even add the taco seasoning before freezing it. I just mark the bag “taco beef”, so I know it’s pre-seasoned.

For making individual pot pies, you can also use a nice big refrigerator biscuit on top instead of an actual pie crust.

30

Lean Cuisine pizzas. Or those new Lean Cuisine paninis.

I’m not a great cook.

Sometimes I make cereal.

31

Chicken breast, I usually just toss in the frying pan. Cook for several minutes on each side (uhm, not sure how long actually, I just go with until they looked cooked, and if I take it off and cut into it and it’s not done I just toss it back in for another minute or two).

One easy recipe is chicken caeser salad. Marinate your chicken breast(s) in whatever sauce you like (I usually use terriyaki, if I’m by myself I use a spicier marinade). Toss the chicken in the frying pan. While it is cooking, mix up some lettuce, bacon bits, croutons, parmesan and caeser dressing (I just use Kraft). Once the chicken is cooked, slice it up and put it on the salad.

Parmesan chicken is almost stupidly easy. You just need a chicken breast, butter, grated parmesan and bread crumbs. Mix up enough bread crumbs and parmesan for the number of chicken breasts you plan to cook (ratio of crumbs to parmesan is about 3 to 1). Melt the butter, dunk in the chicken, then roll the chicken in the crumb mix. Bake for about 30 minutes at 350 (again, use judgement as to doneness). This can be adapted for any amount of people. We usually just leave it at that, but if you want it more like you’d find in a restaurant pour some tomato pasta sauce (from the canned aisle) over them and add a slice of mozzarella for the last few minutes.

Another lazy day or by myself recipe I use is to get some fresh sole. Get the sole damp and dredge in a mix of flour and seasoning salt. Melt some butter in a frying pan and add the sole, cook until lightly golden on both sides or is falling apart (doesn’t take long at all to cook). As a side, cook some frozen veggies and rice or hash browns, or if you have leftover mashed potatoes fry them up in some butter (do it first, they stay warmer longer than the fish does).

And a freezer, even a small apartment size one, can be a major boon to the single person meals. Portion meals out into those ziploc/glad/tupperware containers and you can reheat as needed. Chili, spaghetti, lasagna, porcupines, soup broth all do well in the freezer. I do it regularly and save for days where I either don’t feel like cooking or it’s too hot to cook (no grill/bbq) and just adjust the portion size for my family.

32

My version of bachelor chow:
16oz pasta (typically macaroni)
2 6oz cans tuna
2 ~10oz cans condensed creamy soup (e.g.: cream of mushroom, cream of shrimp, creamy chicken mushroom, or–for something really different–New England clam chowder)
Balsamic vinegar

Cook pasta, drain, dump in a large bowl, then stir in tuna & soup, and splash in some vinegar for flavor. This stuff would last me about three days.

33

Heat a non-stick pan over medium-high heat, with some kind of fat in it (butter is my preference, but I LURVE butter). When you throw the chicken in, turn the heat back to medium. Then five minutes on each side should do the trick.

34

Thanks. I usually add butter myself. Mostly I just do it without thinking and eyeball it, without paying attention to the time.

35

Steak. Good steak. Comes handily ready in single portions from the butcher to place on cast iron skillet or grill. If I am feeling very lazy I will serve with potato salad or some good quality bread and butter, and some mixed greens.

Little clean up to do, great taste, and because you are just buying one, buy a really good one, and smile to yourself that you are no longer buying two lesser quality steaks and serving one to a person who wouldn’t know good steak if it jumped up and bit them.

36

Covered Microwavable dish. Microwave on High for 6 minutes or so, depending on the power of your microwave. Let sit in the dish for another 3-4 minutes.

A big one, I might cook for several minutes, then cut into pieces and cook for several more, just to be sure it cooks all the way through.

37

Is microwaving chicken breast any quicker or easier than cooking traditionally? I would either slice the breast up into strips and stir fry it with any one of a thousand sauces, or oven roast it, or put the flat of my hand on top of the breast and cut through it parallel to the cutting board with a sharp knife, making a much thinner breast piece, and then just pan frying it. Microwave chicken always dries out when I have had it.

38

Roast Cornish Game hens are perfect for one if you’re hankering for roast chicken but don’t want to be eating it all week. Just crank up your oven as hot as it will go and cook it like you would cook a roast chicken, it’s done on the inside when the skin is golden brown.

39

Grilled cheese and Campbell’s Tomato Soup

Burgers, Bar-B-Q pork patties, hot dogs and brats on the grill. You can cook them in batches and refrigerate what you don’t immediately eat for later consumption.

40

Salmon filet. Microwave or pan-saute. Add butter, lemon and garlic/garlic salt to taste. Delicious and it don’t get no simpler.