Table for One: Easy Dinner Ideas for “Just You”
These dinner-for-one ideas will make you want to ditch take-out food for good.
Cooking dinner for one can become monotonous, wasteful and expensive. But it doesn’t have to be a challenge to find recipes for one that you truly enjoy making. We’re here to help!
Keep scrolling for some solo-dinner ideas that you’ll actually get excited about eating alone.
Easy Dinner Ideas for One
These days, eating out looks much different. It’s a lot more pleasant to just eat at home – from the comfort of your own kitchen – without the hassle of dining out during a pandemic.
If you’re looking to treat yourself to an easy, but delicious, dinner for “just you,” you have come to the right place! Here are some of the best dinners for one:
Broccoli Cheddar Soup
To make this delicious keto cheddar broccoli soup, you’ll only need a handful of ingredients, a saucepan, and less than 20 minutes. Try out this delicious recipe and feel great about what you’re eating for dinner tonight!
Grilled Cheese + Tomato Soup
“Nothing goes together better than grilled cheese and tomato soup… you guys know I love Power Provisions because they are quick and easy, taste amazing, and pack in 18-20g of protein per cup.”
We agree with @sweatysweetpotato.
Nothing (well, hardly anything) goes better with a grilled cheese than a bowl of tomato soup – but when it’s in a single-serving cup that’s easy to prepare… we love it even more. Talk about a great dinner idea for one!
Paleo Meatballs
These appetizing paleo meatballs paired with a cup of Chicken Vegetable Bone Broth Soup is the perfect meal for just one. You can also throw the meatballs on a salad, a bowl of rice, or eat them plain. They’re versatile and yummy, and did we mention they’re keto and gluten-free, too?
Cooking for One; Tips & Tricks
When you live alone – or you eat differently from everyone you live with – it can be challenging to make enough food for you, and you alone.
Sometimes it might seem easier to just order takeout and call it a day.
But the good news is: there are so many ways to make cooking for one much, much easier and way more fun. Below are some tips and tricks to help you navigate the world of cooking a solo dinner.
Stock up on Favorite Staples
If you’re going to be cooking a lot of dinners for one, it’s a good idea to stock up on your favorite staple ingredients so that you don’t have to run to the store every time you’re about to cook dinner for yourself. If you find something you like, buy it in bulk, or at least buy a few of them to keep in your pantry for days when you want an easy dinner- ahem, Power Provisions soups, ahem.
Memorize Your Favorite Recipes
Quesadillas, grilled cheeses and soups - recipes like the ones we mentioned above - are all super easy to make for one person, without having to recalculate ingredients and mess with dividing complicated recipes.
Memorize all of your favorite recipes. When you’ve mastered those, you can improve upon them and make different versions of your favorite meals for one. When you know a handful of simple recipes that are already meant for one person, you can make a fun, delicious meal in no time.
Make 2-Person Dinners
Making a normal recipe usually makes enough food to feed a family - which means that if you’re the only one eating, you’ll be dining on the leftovers for a whole week. That can get monotonous. And, frankly, who wants to eat the same thing all week? Not us. And you don’t have to either.
Instead, look for recipes designed for two people. That way you can have one helping today, and one tomorrow – rather than eating the same food for several days in a row.
Freeze Extras & Leftovers
There’s nothing worse than having to throw out food. If you accidentally bought too many vegetables at the grocery store, or ended up with too many perishables, put them in freezer-safe bags and store your extras in the freezer instead!
Buy Lots of Frozen Veggies
It’s also a good idea to keep a stock of frozen vegetables in the freezer, as these offer great solutions to the “what do I make for just one person?” question.
Fruits and veggies freeze really well, and are great to have on hand especially for adding to soups and smoothies. On the days where you’re too tired to cook a whole meal, or you’re on-the-go and don’t have the time, grab some of your frozen veggies and throw them into a bone broth soup for a delicious and hearty meal on-the-go.
“Frozen fruits and vegetables are great options. You can use what you need and put the rest back in the freezer without any worry of waste,” Elaine Magee, M.P.H., R.D., tells SELF magazine.
Last (But Not Least) Enjoy Yourself!
Finding dinners for one doesn’t have to be a pain. You can really have a good time cooking a dinner for yourself if you know how to go about it. When it’s “just you,” you have the full flexibility to make whatever you want, however you want! That’s pretty cool! You can get creative and try to recreate a recipe you had at a restaurant, something you tried at a party, or an updated version of something you use to eat as a kid.
Hopefully we’ve made your search for easy dinners for one a little more fun. Because – at the end of the day – Power Provisions exists to help make your life a bit easier and a lot more tasty!
Do you have a favorite dinner-for-one that you love making when it’s just you? We’d really love to hear about it. Share it with us below, or tag us on Instagram so that we can amp up our own solo recipes arsenal.
If you’re interested in more recipes, we love these 10 keto soup recipes. Or, these keto recipes for soup.