Easy Meals when cooking for One!

Hi Guys!

I am moving today into an off-campus house w/ 3 of my friends for our senior year of college. However, for almost every meal (breakfast, lunch, AND dinner), we'll each probably be doing our own thing. I also do not have the school's meal plan anymore since I'm off campus (and to save $$$), so going to the caf is not an option.

I am overwhelmed by the thought of grocery shopping and cooking my own dinners, and it's frustrating cooking for only myself because there's always leftovers and stuff!

So, my question is, does anyone have any good lunch/dinner ideas that are quick, easy, and healthy? I like making wraps and salads and stuff, but I'm not sure what else would be good options. And, as always, I want to make sure I'm eating adequate amounts, as I am still looking to gain 10-15 more pounds in recovery from my ED!

So, help would be appreciated. I'm not a vegetarian or anything. The only dietary issue I have is lactose-intolerance, so I drink Lactaid milk and take Lactaid if I know I'll be having something with dairy.

So, any recipes or suggestions???

hey coco I can think of loads of easy simple things ill just share a few things i lkie although you might not like them . Im glad you are thinking ahead

for lunch things lke beans on toast , tuna , chicken sandwitches , cheese on toast , you could make pasta prior i like it cold with tuna my fave veges and chicken with this it can be ready so when you come to lunch you dont have to do anything.another favourite of mine is fish finger sandwitches , or soup and bread

for dinneryou can do alot of things with potatoes quick and easy, jackets with your favourite toppings , mash with fish or meat . if you are sharing how about a healthy pizza sorry im not much help this is the kind of things we eat in britain  goodluck keep fighting you can do it h x

Hey Coco, I am kind of in a similar situation, where I need quick meals for one or two. I live with my boyfriend, but he works full time(all day he's gone) and I go to school full time and work 30+ hours a week! We rarely eat together, so we need to have stuff prepared, or things that are quick(or we'll end up just eating donuts for every meal..not like we've ever done that or anything /cough)

Anyway, I usually make a big kettle of brown rice. You can have this for breakfast(add almond/soy/cow's milk, cinnamon, sweetener, and mashed bananas, sounds weird but DELISH) or make a quick stirfry, a curry, or use it in burritos with canned refried beans. You could also add it to canned soups to bulk them up. 

Also, you could make a bunch of pizza dough ahead, bake into individual sized pies, and freeze the crusts. Then all you need to do is thaw, top, and oven/toaster oven it!

I cook for one, at times it can be difficult because I see a recipe that sounds nice but its really hard to work out how to scale it down and stuff.

However for lunch I usually have sandwiches/wraps,mainly because they are handy for work, so thats easy enough to make for one person. For my sandwich fillings I usually would buy a bag of chicken breasts raw (shops do some good offers if you keep your eye out) and then cook these myself and chop them up into portions and freeze them, then I can just pull out one for my sandwich if I want it. Works out cheaper than buying cooked chicken as well.

For dinner sometimes just think simple like get a nice piece of salmon add some rice/pasta and vegetables and there you go you have a meal! Sometimes I would buy a box of minced beef and portion it up as well and freeze the bits, then use a portion with a small tin of tomatoes to make up a bolognese and have it with pasta.

Tinned tomatoes are great, you can get the smaller cans which do one person and make up a nice sauce which you can experiment with as well.

I have lived alone for quite a while now and have been doing meals for one for a long time. I find it easier to cook a family size meal, say vege lasange or something, devide it up into single size portions and then freeze them in individual containers. When i want one of them, i grab it out and heat and eat. 

Could you try something like that?

I'm married but my hubby has a totally different eating schedule and dietary likes/dislikes than me so I often end up cooking for myself.  I am vegetarian, but some of these foods could easily be made non-veg. Here are some of my favorites:

oatmeal (the biggest staple of my diet)

veggie omelet (w/ oatmeal, toast, etc)

wraps - my favorite one right now is scrambled eggs and veggies wrapped in corn tortillas.  Another favorite is almond butter and strawberry jam in a tortilla/wrap

make rice ahead of time add stir fry

pita bread filled with lentil salad

veggie burgers and oven fries

and I'm sure if you googled "meals for one" you would get a lot of other ideas

cook things ahead of time and freeze them (if you have enough freezer space)

Hi! I have a roommate but he eats way different stuff than I do and we eat at different times.

Breakfasts: Easy...cereal and Lactaid...eggs on toast...pancakes or waffles.

Lunches: Also easy...I usually made sandwiches.  I buy lunch meats and cheese from the supermarket deli and have a few slices on two pieces of bread.  The one thing my roomie and I have in common is PBJ (tho with different J).  I had PBJ sometimes, BLT's sometimes (you can cook up all the bacon ahead of time and store the rest in a baggy in the fridge) and tuna salad sometimes.  You can also have an egg sandwich if time allows.  I liked to hard boil some eggs and keep them in the fridge for easy access.

Dinners: You do not necessarily have to cook for one.  You can cook for 2-4 and save the rest.  Frozen fish fillets with rice and [frozen] veggies is a nice dinner for 1.  Pasta me and my roomie shared.  I made the whole box and we served ourselves, saved the rest, and put on our own sauces (he liked his with meat).  You can get a small pack of ground beef and cook it all into hamburger patties, have what you want and save the rest in the fridge.

Leftovers are a college kids best friend :)

Thanks everyone for the creative ideas! Went grocery shopping today and got lots of good stuff for quick, easy, healthy, and delicious meals, so hopefully it will all work out. Thanks again :-)