Cooking While Single

Cooking for One: The Lonely Art of Leftovers, Food Storage, and Meal Prep Woes

Ah, cooking for one. The romantic notion of making a fresh, perfectly portioned meal for yourself can be appealing... until you realize that you're cooking enough food to feed an army—and you're the only one there to eat it. It’s the age-old struggle of wanting variety without getting buried under a mountain of leftovers that will haunt you for the next five days. Let's dive into the whimsical world of cooking for one, where portion sizes are a myth and Tupperware becomes your new best friend.

The Curse of Cooking Too Much Food

You’re hungry, you’ve got a craving, and you decide to cook. Everything seems fine at first—you're following the recipe, measuring out ingredients like a seasoned chef... and then you hit the "Serves 4" part. Now, you're looking at a pot of pasta that could feed the entire neighborhood, and it's just you. Your eyes widen in horror as you realize you’ll be eating this meal for the foreseeable future.

Sure, you can try to "just eat a little bit today and save the rest." But by the time you're halfway through the meal, you're wondering if you’ve somehow become a contestant on a cooking show where the challenge is: "How much food can you eat before it starts to feel like a cruel punishment?"

The Tupperware Struggle: A Never-Ending Battle

Here comes the next challenge: storage. It’s not just about putting food away; it’s about finding enough containers that don’t mysteriously disappear after one use (where do they go?!) and not ending up with a mismatched pile of lids that defy all logic. You end up with half-empty containers of chili, pasta, and stir-fry jammed in the fridge like some kind of sad culinary Jenga.

Every time you open the fridge, it feels like you're playing a game of "What Am I Eating This Week?" You dig through the remnants of last week’s meal prep and wonder why you thought cooking for one was a good idea in the first place. Does anyone actually need three servings of lasagna in one sitting?

Meal Prep Variety... Or Lack Thereof

Let’s talk about meal prep. Oh, how you long for variety. You want to mix it up—you’re tired of the same old thing every day. But when you're cooking for one, you can’t help but fall into the trap of batch cooking. By the time you’ve made enough food for a small army, you start to wonder if you’ve inadvertently become a creature of habit. "Hmm, I guess I’ll have leftover stir-fry again... for the third day in a row."

Now, if you’re the type of person who buys fresh ingredients for variety—only to watch them wilt in the fridge because you didn’t have the energy to cook something different—you’re not alone. Meal prep should be a dream, but in reality, it’s often just a cycle of reheated leftovers, hoping tomorrow will be the day you’ll actually create a new culinary masterpiece. Spoiler alert: it’s not.

Finding the Balance

At the end of the day, cooking for one is all about finding balance. You’ll never get the portions quite right, and you'll probably have more leftovers than you can reasonably handle. But embrace the chaos. Befriend your Tupperware. And remember, tomorrow’s lunch is already taken care of. Plus, you’re probably going to get really good at reheating food in a way that could rival any restaurant's kitchen. There’s a silver lining in there somewhere.

So, to my fellow solo chefs: keep cooking, keep storing, and keep trying to mix things up. After all, it’s not about perfect meals—it’s about surviving the kitchen and keeping your stomach happy. And when in doubt, there’s always pizza.