How Do We Cook Just Enough for One?

Finding a balance between not enough and too much

The other night, I made an itty-bitty soufflé in an itty-bitty casserole dish, using a recipe designed for just one person. It used wee amounts of carrots, sugar, flour, vanilla, etc. and required both the blender and the hand mixer. I ended up with pureed carrot all over my counters, a ton of dishes to wash, and nothing left over. It was all an experiment in cooking just enough for one hungry human.

So begins a post I wrote in 2021 for my now-dormant Unleashed in Oregon blog. It seems like an appropriate follow-up to my last post here about pigging out on pizza because I live alone and there’s no one to stop me.

I have been cooking for one for a long time. I tend to err on the side of making too much and then feeling the need to eat it ALL. Comments for both the blog and Tuesday’s Substack post include some good suggestions, along with sympathy from readers who also struggle with eating too much.

Suggestions include: Make a lot and freeze it in small containers so you always have something to heat and eat. Use smaller plates. Cook small amounts in tiny pots and pans. Sign up for a food delivery plan. Give the excess to the neighbors (my neighbors are all on special diets).

One commenter mentioned onedishkitchen.com, so I went there and found a wonderland of recipes designed for one person, cooked in doll-size dishes. I didn’t think I had anything that small until I took another look in the cupboard. Two 5 x 5 Pyrex baking dishes and a 5 x 7 casserole came with the "cornflower" set Fred brought when we moved in together. I’ll be darned. You can cook in those?

Intrigued, I got on the One Dish Kitchen mailing list. The first recipe that arrived was this carrot soufflé. I’m not a big fan of cooked carrots, but I was enchanted by the idea of making something so small, about the size of the tiny cakes I made with my Betty Crocker Junior Baking Set in the 1950s. The kit came with tiny boxes of cake and frosting mix, tiny cake pans, cookie sheets, cookie cutters, a rolling pin and a flour sifter. It was all small, but it was the real deal. With my mother’s supervision, I baked tiny edible cakes and cookies. An important step in my domestic goddess training.

Cooking for one is a challenge, especially when all the food at the store seems to be packaged for couples or families of four. When I make minestrone soup, I use a can of beans, a can of tomatoes and half a cabbage . . . if I split up the canned ingredients, what would I do with the rest? As it is, I never know what to do with the other half of the cabbage.

The soufflé baked for 50 minutes. The edges came out burnt, I’m not sure why, but the inside was fluffy and big enough for me to have two modest servings. One Dish Kitchen has recipes for entrees, desserts, salads, all kinds of things. But I’m kind of sad I don’t have any leftovers after all that work.

When my father was widowed and alone, he had a phobia of leftovers. He would use tiny portions of the cheese powder and noodles in the mac and cheese box, for example, to make just a little bit. That led to lots of little unlabeled packages of ingredients secured with rubber bands. I would have just cooked the whole box and saved the leftovers for later.

For me, the real problem isn’t cooking too much. I like having leftovers, especially on days when I’m out in the world and come home tired and hungry. The challenge is having enough self-control to eat a reasonable amount and save the rest for later.

There has to be a middle ground between too much and not enough. When I first got married back in the early 1970s, I received two Betty Crocker Dinner for Two cookbooks. They’re designed for newlyweds, with sections on subjects like how to set a pleasing table, but they’re also full of recipes cut down to just enough for two. I still have them on the bookshelf. If I blow off the dust, I can make enough for myself and a little to spare. I might have to adapt some of the recipes. Back in those days, nobody worried about carbs, cholesterol, or fat. Oh, Betty Crocker, how times have changed.

I just ordered Cooking for One by America’s Test Kitchen. It has a lot of good advice, including what to do with that other half of the cabbage and what to keep in your pantry for those times when you can’t make it to the store. I’ll tell you more about that book after it arrives.

I’m also thinking I might want to buy Betty Crocker's Right-Size Recipes. It’s nice that there are cookbooks for one these days. I can remember when they were hard to find, but the world is waking up to a huge market for those of us who live alone.

I’m still figuring out the cooking-for-one puzzle. Meanwhile, I cooked my first soufflé. Not bad. And now I know how to spell soufflé. Dinner tonight? A big juicy burrito with green salad on the side.

How about you? Are you a make-just-enough or a make-a-lot-and-have-leftovers-for-days kind of person? If you’re alone, how do you handle the tendency to cook too much, not enough, or not cook at all?

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How did I end up alone? My first marriage ended in divorce. My second husband died of Alzheimer’s after we had moved to the Oregon coast, far from family. I never had any kids, only dogs. Now I live by myself in a big house in the woods. You can read our story in my new memoir, No Way Out of This: Loving a Partner with Alzheimer’s, available now at your favorite bookseller. Visit https://www.suelick.com for information on all of my books.