When you live alone, cooking for yourself can become complicated. Although the food industry is increasingly adapting to individual servings, with smaller packages and containers, it is still difficult to find certain products and organize with certain foods.
According to provisional data from the National Institute of Statistics until January 1, 2024, nearly five and a half million people live alone in Spain, which represents 28% of all households. A context that, according to a projection of homes in the years 2024-2039would continue to increase with some 7.7 million single-person households, 33.5% of the total.
Given this scenario, and although living alone can mean more freedom to choose not only what to eat but also when, it can pose certain challenges, such as overcoming laziness to cook for yourself, repeating the same meal for several days or finding small formats that Don’t force us to throw away more food than we should.
And when we have to cook for just one person, it is tempting to settle for anything; and if we cook large portions of food, we will be faced with eating the same thing day after day, unless we have a good freezer that we can use to store the portions we have prepared extra.
How to make a purchase for yourself
The first tip, although it is nothing new, is perhaps one of the most important. And it will also be recurring when planning the menu. We are talking about planning the purchase, which is the typical shopping list, in which we will write down everything we need. This way, not only will we not forget anything, but we will also not buy anything that we don’t need – we must be cautious with the typical 2×1 ads, as it can cause us to end up buying things that we don’t really need.
We must keep in mind that a good list is not good if it is not complete. This forces us to take a good look at the pantry, refrigerator or freezer. If, when making the list, we order the products by category – cleaning products first, non-perishable products second, and fresh and frozen products last – this will allow us to be more efficient.
In this sense, it will help us a lot to plan meals in which we use the same ingredients in different ways, such as a bag of spinach, which we can use for many recipes: in an omelet, in a salad or with pasta for dinner.
By planning the menu, it is also easier to organize the shopping list: we eliminate all temptations to buy what we do not need and we stock up only on the portions we need. In this sense, if we live alone, we can use these tips so that eating does not seem boring and monotonous and we can have a healthy diet without having to throw away a lot of food.
Prepare a unique dish
Preparing a first course and a second when we live alone increases the complexity. It is easier to opt for a single dish that is balanced. As the model of single dish from the Spanish Society of Dietetics and Food Sciences (SEDCA), which proposes options such as having a third of the plate based on vegetables – the more colors, the better; a third in the form of protein foods, both of plant origin such as legumes and animal origin, such as eggs, fish or seafood. Another third of the plate should be in the form of foods rich in carbohydrates, such as cereals, preferably whole grains.
Cook more than one meal at once
This advice, like the one called batch cookingor ‘batch cooking’, no matter how much we repeat it, it is no less important. In fact, it is perhaps one of the ones that will help us the most because preparing three or four more servings of any dish allows us to freeze them and have them for future meals. Here we can include both a preparation as a companion, such as a stir-fry, as well as three or four servings of a good broth that we can prepare throughout the week.
If we package this in individual portions and put the preparation date on it, we can have a nice dinner just by opening the freezer door. In this sense, for example, since preparing a lasagna for one person can be a lot of work, we can divide it and freeze it to have it for future meals.
Buy in bulk
We can buy fresh fruits such as bananas or apples in bulk, individually, and some supermarkets even prepare packages of various fruits. This is perhaps the hardest part of living alone because it is not advisable to stock the entire fruit bowl to the top; If we only eat one or two fruits a day, it is better to buy enough quantity that we are going to consume. This will also guarantee that the products are as fresh as possible.
Have a well-stocked pantry
This part is key to have certain basic products at home, such as oil, salt, legumes, rice or cereals, flour, spices or preserves. Frozen vegetables have the same benefits as fresh ones, without the need for prior preparation or waste because we can use only the necessary amount. We can also serve them as a garnish or add them to soups, stews or sauces.
Cook a variety of recipes using similar ingredients
If we have planned the purchase and the menus well, this point will be very easy for us to accomplish. This will avoid us having to always repeat the same dishes. For example, if we buy chicken, we can eat it in a thousand and one ways: grilled with spices, with curry, in a salad with tomato, among many other options.
Divide the amount of recipe ingredients
If we are a little observant, we will see that most of the recipes are designed for at least four people. To avoid having an absurd amount of leftovers if we are going to make one of them, there is a simple solution: divide the recipes in half, or even by three if they are designed for six. This will allow us to prepare only the number of servings we need.
Divide the contents of large containers
It can also be frustrating to have to buy some foods in large quantities, like a loaf of bread because it can take a long time to finish them. Therefore, it is very important to store them correctly so that they last longer. If we divide them, we will have won the battle. We can store bread, for example, in the freezer but not before cutting it into slices so that we can only take out the amount we need.
It can also be difficult to buy meat in individual portions. In this case, we can divide it into individual portions and then freeze them. This way we will also avoid having to defrost half a kilo of minced meat all at once.
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