Meal Prep for One Person
Cooking for one is not cooking for four with smaller numbers. The recipes assume a household, the packs are sized for a household, and the maths does not divide - which is why the single biggest cost of eating alone is not the food you buy but the food you throw away.
Every plan on the site states its own calories, protein and cost - browse them in the plan library, or use the quiz to get matched to one.
The Packs Are the Problem, Not the Cooking
A pack of chicken thighs is four portions. A bag of spinach wilts in five days. A loaf is twelve slices and you eat four. Nothing in a standard supermarket is sized for one person, and the result is a recurring choice between eating more than you meant to and putting food in the bin.
Three things genuinely help. Buy loose produce where the store offers it, which is the single most useful habit and why Morrisons and market stalls suit solo cooking better than their pricing suggests. Use frozen vegetables as the default rather than the backup, because they cannot spoil while you decide. And treat the smaller pack sizes at M&S or the Co-op as a legitimate purchase rather than a rip-off when the alternative is throwing a third of a larger pack away.
The Freezer Is the Whole Strategy
For a household, the freezer is storage. For one person it is the mechanism that makes batch cooking possible at all, because cooking a single portion is inefficient and cooking four and eating them across four consecutive days is grim and, after two days, no longer within food safety guidance for most leftovers.
So cook three or four portions, eat one, refrigerate one, and freeze the rest flat in single portions. Flat matters: it freezes faster, stacks in a small freezer and thaws in a fraction of the time. Label with the date and what it is, because a solo freezer accumulates unidentifiable blocks faster than a family one - nobody else is going to ask what they are.
Repetition Hits Harder When You Eat Alone
In a household, the same meal gets a reaction and a conversation. Alone, the fourth identical container is just the fourth identical container, and the boredom arrives sooner than the calendar suggests it should.
The fix is a rotating freezer rather than a bigger cook. Once you have four or five different meals frozen in single portions, a week can be genuinely varied without cooking more than once - you are eating from a back catalogue rather than from Sunday. That takes a few weeks to build and then it stays built, which is the closest thing to a reliable system this site can recommend for cooking alone.
What Not to Bother With
Halving recipes. It rarely works cleanly, it wastes the part of the pack you did not use, and it removes the only real advantage you have, which is that cooking four portions takes barely longer than cooking one.
And do not aim to prep every meal. Breakfast for one is usually assembly rather than cooking, and forcing it into the batch system adds effort for no benefit. Prep the meals that would otherwise be bought or skipped - which for most people living alone is lunch, and dinner on the days that run late.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I meal prep for one without wasting food?
Cook three or four portions and freeze what you will not eat within two days, rather than halving recipes. Buy loose produce and use frozen vegetables as the default so nothing spoils while you decide.
Is it cheaper to cook for one or buy ready meals?
Cooking is cheaper per portion, but only if the food gets eaten. Once waste is counted, a solo cook who bins a third of every pack can end up level - which is why the freezer matters more than the shopping list here.
How many days of meals should I prep living alone?
Two or three in the fridge and the rest frozen. Most cooked leftovers are only good for about two days refrigerated, so a five-day fridge plan is not a safe one.
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