Cooking for One - Don't Starve!

Today, I’m going to share with you some of my personal tips for cooking for one that will help you make more food while minimizing time spent cooking. Follow along, and you’ll have stockpiles of food waiting to be eaten in no time!

Tip 1 – Don’t cook for one

This is probably the most basic rule that anyone cooking for themselves should follow. When you decide to start cooking, don’t just think about satisfying your hunger now, think about how hungry you will be 6, 12, or 18 (at least) hours from now. What I mean is that when (and if) you decided to take time out of your day to actually do some cooking, you’d might as well put together four to five meals instead of just one. By doing this, I reduce the number of times I cook per week to three or four instead of doing it daily. Double up those portions and refrigerate the rest!

Tip 2 – If the oven’s hot, use it!

When you live with a roommate, you have two ways about managing food. The first involves sharing groceries, buying things together, and eating at the same time. The other involves simply buying your own stuff and fending for yourself. My roommate and I chose to do the latter. This, however, does not mean that our cooking is a completely separate affair! One of my favourite efficiency tricks is actually to cook my own stuff directly before or after he cooks his. Why? Because it saves me the time of waiting for the oven to preheat. If the heat is there, you’d might as well use it. Speaking of which…

Tip 3 – If you get home and you’re hungry, preheat the oven immediately

This one’s simple: You get home, and you’re hungry. Not only do you have to wait for the food to cook, but you also have to wait for the oven to preheat so that you can actually start doing it. As soon as you walk through the door, set the oven to preheat. I’m talking before even taking off your coat or shoes. By the time you’ve finished “getting home” and doing whatever subconscious routine you do whenever you get home, the oven will be ready to cook those 4 chicken breasts. Oh yeah, by the way…

Tip 4 – Buy too much of everything

Buy things in bulk. It’s usually cheaper, and it results in making fewer trips to the grocery store. This way, if you run out cooked food, at least you have raw food you can cook. Always check expiry dates though. There’s nothing more disheartening than being hungry and finding a grey-coloured steak in the back of the fridge that expired a day ago.

Tip 5 – Everything can be lunch

The first couple of weeks of my internship, I wasted a lot of money buying lunch. It quickly became apparent to me that I could make my previous lunches (Peanut butter sandwich, typical lunch food) less boring by simply modifying it by using leftovers from supper. For example, I turned a boring sandwich into an exciting sandwich by simply removing the peanut butter and adding a piece of steak.

Next level lunch!

Not that I don’t believe that each and every one of you is perfectly capable of somehow finding food with which to sustain yourselves; but using these small tips, you can make the task of finding said food much cheaper and less time-consuming.

Bon Appetit!