Cooking for one doesn’t mean dinner has to be complicated, boring, or leave you eating the same leftovers for the next four nights.
These easy dinner ideas for one are recipes I developed for smaller households and solo cooks. You’ll find quick skillet dinners for busy evenings, cozy casseroles when you’re craving comfort food, small slow cooker meals that practically cook themselves, and a few meatless options for nights when you want something a little lighter.
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Most importantly, these are real dinners made with familiar ingredients and scaled-down portions. Because cooking for yourself should be just as enjoyable as cooking for a table full of people.
If you’re wondering what to make for dinner tonight, start here. Also, bookmark this page for later.
Quick and Easy Dinner Ideas for One
These are the recipes to reach for when you want a homemade dinner without turning it into an evening-long project.
Cozy Comfort Food Dinners for One
Sometimes you don't want a quick salad or something light. You want meatloaf. Or lasagna. Or a bubbling little casserole straight from the oven.
These are some of my favorite comfort food dinners scaled down for one.
Small Slow Cooker Dinner Ideas for One
A 2- or 3-quart slow cooker is one of my favorite tools for cooking for one. You get all the advantages of slow cooking without making enough food for a family of six.
These dinners are especially nice when you want dinner waiting for you instead of having to start cooking at the end of the day.
Meatless Dinner Ideas for One
Not every dinner needs meat. These easy recipes are especially handy when you want something satisfying without cooking chicken or beef
How I Choose Easy Meals for One
Cooking for one gets much easier when I stop thinking about shrinking family-size recipes and instead start with ingredients and cookware that make sense for one person.
A small skillet, a 5-by-7-inch baking dish, a quarter sheet pan, a 2- or 3-quart slow cooker, and a small dutch oven, handle most of the dinners I make.
I also look for ingredients that can easily be used again. Half an onion can go into tomorrows breakfast eggs. Extra cooked chicken can become a sandwich. Leftover tomato sauce can be frozen in small portions. A package of ground beef can be divided before it ever goes into the freezer.
Small habits like these make cooking for one less wasteful and much less frustrating.
What Can I Make for Dinner for One Person?
Start with what sounds good rather than what you think you should cook.
For something fast, try fried rice, garlic noodles, salmon pasta, or a chicken stir fry.
If you’re craving comfort food, make a mini lasagna, cottage pie, chicken pot pie, or meatloaf.
And when you don’t want to cook at the end of the day, put Swiss steak, chili, pot roast, or chicken enchiladas in a small slow cooker earlier in the day.
There really isn’t a special category of food you can’t make simply because you’re cooking for yourself. You just need recipes and cookware that fit the way you actually eat.
Do Single-Serving Recipes Save Money?
They certainly can.
Cooking the amount you actually need means less forgotten food in the refrigerator and fewer ingredients being thrown away. It also makes it easier to spend a little more on an ingredient you really enjoy because you aren’t buying enough to feed four or six people.
What Size Cookware Is Best for Cooking for One?
You don’t need an entire kitchen full of miniature cookware. A few useful pieces will cover most recipes.
An 8-inch skillet is excellent for skillet dinners, a small baking dish works for casseroles, and a 2- to 3-quart slow cooker is ideal for small slow cooker meals. A quarter sheet pan is also useful for roasting a complete chicken-and-vegetable dinner without heating an oversized pan.
More Dinner Recipes for One
These 30 recipes are only a starting point. Browse my complete Dinner Recipes for One collection for even more single-serving casseroles, skillet dinners, soups, pasta recipes, slow cooker meals, and comfort food favorites.
Cooking for yourself deserves more than eating something over the sink or settling for cereal.
Make yourself a real dinner. You’re worth setting a place for.