<p>My only child left for college this past weekend and my hubby’s work hours make it impossible to eat dinner together most nights. I’m looking for some suggestions for quick and easy dinners for one. I’m not much of a cook, so dinner tonight was a Lean Cuisine, which I depressingly ate alone in front of the TV.</p>
<p>Omelettes are pretty easy. Trader Joes has some good entrees. Caprese salad is easy, and you can just get enough for a couple of nights and have that two nights in a row.</p>
<p>I also make things and freeze them in bulk. I like enchiladas, so I have an enchilada recipe with brown rice, black beans, and chicken. I make and freeze the filling (breaking a big batch into small-ish batches in the freezer so I can just make a few of them). Last summer I got adventurous and make my own enchilada sauce with tomatillos from the farmer’s market, which was great. Again, froze in small batches. But you can also used canned enchilada sauce. Then I make quesadillas with the extra tortillas (poach some chicken breast or just buy turkey slices from the deli, black beans, and some low fat mozzeralla cheese – add an avocado if you like, too).</p>
<p>I also make empanadas and freeze them.</p>
<p>If you poach some chicken breast (or have cooked chicken for some other reason), it is easy to get a bagged ceasar salad mix and make half of it for dinner with some chicken added. Then eat the other half the next night.</p>
<p>I have also been known to just open a can of soup or eat frozen waffles with fresh strawberries. :)</p>
<p>Often I read while I eat if I am alone. Although I have also been working my way through some TV show series that I like on Netflix, too.</p>
<p>Cook the way you used to. Take the portion your “child” used to eat, and freeze it. Or eat it for lunch the next day.</p>
<p>You say you’re not much of a cook, but if you want to be, take this opportunity to try new recipes. You have more time on your hands, so watch a bunch of cooking shows and look for recipes online. If you “mess up”, there won’t be anyone home to notice, and you can just toss the burned mistake and open a can of soup. 
By the time your child comes home for their first break, you can surprise him/her with a great homemade meal.</p>
<p>My single by choice friend really likes her Hungry Girl cookbooks. Most of the recipes are quick and easy, according to her.</p>
<p>I almost always cook a couple of meals at a time. For example, if I grill or saute chicken breasts, I do enough for two meals. Usually chicken caesar salad one night and chicken fajitas a second night. </p>
<p>Or, I’ll grill two thick pork chops and stick one in the fridge for a quicky meal a day or two later. </p>
<p>Or, I’ll make a pot roast and carve it up into individual meals and freeze them.</p>
<p>When H was away with S on a trip, and D was off somewhere with her friends, I had a few nights on my own. One night, I had an avocado. Next night, bagel with salmon. I personally like eating pretty lightly at night. Cereal is fine. So is soup. Or carrots with hummus. Two ears of corn or roasted brussel sprouts would do it for me. I have cruised the freezer section of my grocery store and tried different items. If only they tasted as good as the photo on the box looked.</p>
<p>Brown a little ground beef. Cook spaghetti. Mix with bottled pasta sauce. Serve with salad.</p>
<p>Slice cooked chicken into thin strips and make a stir-fry with sliced onions, carrots, broccoli – whatever suits your fancy. Serve over rice with an Asian sauce.</p>
<p>You can grill or pan fry a small piece of fish and have it with some veggies or on a salad. My family doesn’t like fish so a night cooking for myself would be for something I enjoy but none of them do :-)</p>
<p>OP, what did you cook for your family that you don’t feel like you can do now??? Do you not want to take the time to cook since it’s just for one or do you feel like you are wasting food to make a whole or half recipe of something? Will H take leftovers to work with him??</p>
<p>In the summer you could pick one night of the week to grill - buy meat at a meat store where you can buy just one or two hamburgers/steaks/pork chops/whatever instead of a whole grocery store package. Grill them all at once. Then use them in different ways during the week. Eat the hamburger on a bun. Slice the steak thinly and serve over a bed of lettuce/veggies. Shred the chicken and make chicken nachos or a quesadilla. Only one night of grilling but then short prep other nights to get the meal you want.</p>
<p>Other than that there’s always the simple and easy array of sandwiches (hot or cold), salads (lettuce based, or chopped salad, veggie based, with/without meat on top) and soups.</p>
<p>One of the pop in the microwave dinners would never satisfy me! I need FOOD!!!</p>
<p>Depends upon your definition of “quick” and “easy”. Simmer canned tomatoes in olive oil, garlic, and onion for 30 minutes. Cook some noodles on the undercooked side, and finish cooking with the tomato sauce.</p>
<p>You can make a lot of sauce, and freeze in single serving bags.</p>
<p>[Easy</a> Spicy Marinara Sauce | Chef Fabio Viviani](<a href=“http://fabioviviani.com/general-recipes/easy-spicy-marinara-sauce/]Easy”>http://fabioviviani.com/general-recipes/easy-spicy-marinara-sauce/)</p>
<p>There is also a classic Spaghetti Cacio E Pepe (3 ingredient pasta)</p>
<p><a href=“Fabio's Three-Ingredient Spaghetti: Cacio E Pepe”>Fabio's Three-Ingredient Spaghetti: Cacio E Pepe;
<p>Have any of your friends just sent their kids back to college?</p>
<p>Could one day a week be a friends dinner? Dinner out, dinner at your house, cooking together to try a new recipe?</p>
<p>Operadad:</p>
<p>I have taken your basic recipe of canned tomatoes simmering with garlic, etc., and added some frozen Spinach and a few peppers and then added some Shrimp and Lemon juice…kinda like a Shrimp Scampi.</p>
<p>Cooking for one is easy peasy! What do you like to eat? You can make anything you make for two or three for one! Just freeze the others in single serving portions. Or have for leftovers the next evening in similar or different fashion.</p>
<p>Frozen dinners imo is yucch. Nothing like using real food & real herbs!</p>
<p>All the above ideas are wonderful. Sometimes I make hummus wraps with cheese & veggies. Soup with hearty bread and salad or grilled veggies.</p>
<p>Dinner Salads with any protein you want. Costco Rotisserie chickens made a million ways.</p>
<p>You can google just about any recipe, even ones that use just two or three ingredients! Have fun experimenting!</p>
<p>I try to cook several entrees in one session. I will make a turkey meatloaf, cook a turkey breast, brown turkey with red peppers, onions and sofrito sauce, bake boneless chicken thighs, brown chicken with peppers and onions for tortillas, brown boneless chicken breast.
You can also fry a thin pork chop, or fry a chicken cutlet. A 1lb. pork tenderloin is fast to bake. Can you grill or bake some fresh veggies? We prefer these to steamed. There are canned beans if you don’t want to soak fresh ones, mix with a little onion and sofrito and cheese and that and a salad is a nice meatless meal. Trader Joes has vacuumed packed salmon steaks that are individual and you can poach, grill, bake or broil them. There are prepacked single serving microwave rice packages. There are also prepackaged soup mixes with beans and pasta.</p>
<p>Before I was gluten free, I loved the “fresh” pasta (the kind that cooks in just a couple of minutes) tossed with olive oil, parmesan and sundried tomatoes - maybe mushrooms if I had them. It’s also fun to buy maybe three large prawns or a few crab legs…those “luxury” foods don’t cost much at all when you buy enough for one. And in the summer time, it can be great to have something like a fresh peach with a few crackers and some cheese.</p>
<p>Fresh fruit with a couple of nice cheeses, french bread and a glass of wine.</p>
<p>Trader Joe’s:</p>
<p>Broccoli Kale Salad</p>
<p>Trader Joe’s:</p>
<p>Pork Tenderloin roast. Throw in a crock pot, pour a can of root beer over it. Cook on low for about 6-7 hours. Drain. Pull it apart and mix with a jar of TJ’s BBQ sauce. Slap it on a toasted bun. Reheat any leftovers.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone, there are some wonderful options here!! I’m making my grocery shopping list based on these suggestions. Part of my problem is that my daughter usually decided what we should eat for dinner, and she even fixed dinner pretty often. I’m feeling a bit blue missing her right now, and I just don’t feel like I have the energy to make the dinner decision! I know this will pass soon, and maybe I’ll even discover that I enjoy cooking…</p>
<p>Look on the bright side. Clean-up after dinner is SO much faster when it’s just one person dirtying the dishes. I just end up washing the few things by hand. Mostly just fill up the dishwasher with empty tupperware containers and stuff – run it once in a blue moon when it’s full…</p>
<p>Here is my dinner for tonight.</p>
<p>Hormel Pork Tendeloin Apple Bourbon - haven’t decided if I am going to use Nonfat yogurt/horseradish dip or grey Poupon
String beans - roasted in the oven with garlic and black pepper (my cardiologist says no salt)
Sweet potato - with a land o lakes butter cut with canola oil and a touch of cinnamon and brown sugar.</p>
<p>And guess what I am having for lunch tomorrow!</p>
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<p>3 martinis?</p>