These days, I can’t look at a recipe without thinking about how I’d scale it down. I say to myself, “I know it’s designed to use up that full can of chickpeas, but could I get away with using half? Do I have to make two dozen cookies? Do I want three quarts of soup?” On a recent night, it was this NYT ricotta and chickpea pasta. I cut the recipe in half, but it was still a bit heavy on the spaghetti, low on stir-ins, so I kept adjusting.
Scaling down a recipe is never quite as straightforward as doing the division you learned in elementary school. There will always be that one egg that needs to be divided into thirds, that grain-to-water ratio that works perfectly as a big batch but not in any smaller proportions. Scaled down recipes are more likely to fail because it’s not how they were developed, which means you’ll never know exactly why they didn’t work.
I feel this gnawing sense of not belonging as I read these recipes… This is food you make to feed your family, to impress your partner, to entertain your friends. It’s meant to be practical, using up that full package of ground beef or filling that 9×13-inch casserole dish. The solo cook just doesn’t fit into most notions of how recipes are designed and who they’re designed for. How can we, as single cooks, scan the shelves at the bookstore or scroll through our feeds or flip through a magazine and not feel like we don’t exist? Talk about funny math: Being the biggest yet most invisible audience in the food space is quite the head scratcher.
Granted, it’s changing. We’re slowly starting to see more cooking for one cookbooks and more acknowledgment (at least since the pandemic began) that the majority of home cooks are really only feeding themselves. My hope is that cooking for one doesn’t become another niche category, like gluten-free baking or vegan Indian cooking. There are as many types of solo cooks as there are, well, cooks! We don’t all want beginner recipes that are just scaled down versions of what we ate growing up (boring!). We don’t all want chef manifestos that call for lux ingredients (because hey, surely you can spend more if you’re serving less). We’re not all subscribing to a diet lifestyle or cooking just to lose weight. The category can be as wide ranging as we are.
A few tips for scaling down those recipes: – Add a splash more liquid than you think you need, especially when cooking grains. – Unless it’s easy to spit a baked good recipe in half, look for a small batch version (Dessert for Two is a genius at this). There are just too many variables that could affect the end result. – Cut down longer cook times by a few minutes or start checking for doneness a little earlier. – Not every ingredient needs to be divided by the same ratio in a recipe. You might find that a dressing needs more than exactly half the lemon juice, or you need 1/2 teaspoon of spice instead of 1/3 teaspoon. Taste and use your judgement here.
When I’m staring down a pantry ingredient at the store, the (imaginary) conversation between us goes something like this: Me: “If I bring you home, how will you earn your keep?” Ingredient: “You can make that one thing you’ve been craving!” Me: “Yeah, but like, after that.” Ingredient: “I don’t know. Wait a bit, then make it again? Let me fossilize on the top shelf until you forget I exist and buy another one?” Me: “Wrong answer. Next!”
I try to think of at least three ways to use an ingredient before bringing it home. I’m also always trying to figure out how to use what’s already in my pantry. More than being conscious of food waste or budget, this is really just what gets me excited to cook… I love finding new recipes or inventing my own in the name of using up that one thing. I’ll build dishes around the last dregs of a tahini jar, the last bundle of soba noodles. I’ll bake for no other reason than I must—must—use the entire carton of buttermilk some way, somehow.
A few weeks ago, that ingredient was cornmeal. I just had to have a batch of Dessert for Two’s corn muffins. After that, I snuck some more cornmeal into a lemon loaf cake. I tried to boil it like polenta. I made the corn muffins again. And, sigh, I still have about half a bag left.
And so the recipe for these savory cornmeal pancakes was born. It’s my cheat for a cornbread fix that doesn’t serve ten people or take an hour to make, with sharp Cheddar and scallions as optional stir-ins. The salsa here is Texas caviar–inspired, with a touch of sherry vinegar for extra oomph. A dollop of sour cream or Greek yogurt brings it all together. It’s light yet super satisfying, simple yet packed with flavor. I’ll happily chip away at that bag of cornmeal just to make it again.
Think of this dish as cornbread meets Texas caviar, cooking-for-one style. You will end up with enough pancakes for two, but this by design: The leftovers keep beautifully. Warm in the microwave and top with tomato-y braised greens or slather with butter and add to a hearty salad or grain bowl.
Prep Time 20minutes
Cook Time 10minutes
Total Time 30minutes
Servings 1person
Ingredients
Black Eyed Pea Salsa
¼canblack eyed peas, rinsed and drained(about ⅓ cup)
⅓cupcherry or grape tomatoes, halved or quartered
3tbspfinely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley(leaves and stems)
3tbspfinely chopped red onion
1small garlic clove, minced
1tspsherry vinegar
2tspolive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Cornmeal Pancakes
½cupfine cornmeal
½cupall-purpose flour
1tspbaking powder
¼tspkosher salt
¼tspfreshly ground black pepper
¼cupgrated sharp Cheddar
1scallion, finely chopped
½cupbuttermilk(or 3 tbsp plain yogurt + enough milk or non-dairy milk to equal 1/2 cup)
1egg
1tbspvegetable oil
1tbspbutter
2tbspsour cream or plain Greek yogurt
Instructions
In a small bowl, combine all the black eyed pea salsa ingredients. Do this first so the flavors have time to marinate and meld, and the red onion can lose some of its sharp bite.
In another bowl, whisk together cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt, and pepper. Stir in Cheddar and scallion. In a 2-cup glass measuring cup, whisk together buttermilk, egg, and oil. If you don't have buttermilk, add any milk to the yogurt and stir to combine first, then add the egg and oil.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to combine. (In one test, I beat a leftover egg white to soft peaks and folded it into the batter. Would be delicious with or without!)
Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add butter and swirl to melt and coat pan. Use a ¼-cup measuring cup to scoop batter into pan for 6 pancakes. Cook 2-3 minutes per side. I usually work in batches: 3-4 pancakes in the first, 2-3 in the second.
Top 3 pancakes with the sour cream and black eyed pea salsa. Save remaining pancakes for another meal, a snack, or a side.
“Is there enough of an idea there?” It’s something I’ve asked of so many recipes as a food editor over the years. If a dish felt too simple, too basic, did people really need a recipe for it? If they didn’t, was it worth giving it space on the page? Any simple recipe needed something to make it compelling, to make readers want to try it even if they never actually did.
Early on, this felt a bit hypocritical. It was nothing like how I cooked at home. I loved simply cooked veggies with a pat of butter, a squeeze of lemon. I lived for a plate of random ingredients in their simplest form. If I needed to develop recipes for work, I had to fight every instinct to take out ingredients, use fewer pots and pans, and strip a cooking method down to its most essential parts. To just let a tomato be a tomato.
Eating and cooking simply is actually kind of daring. In a social media sea of three-page recipes and twelve-ingredient grain bowls, it takes guts to say, “I had sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, and an egg for dinner.” For years I felt like it wasn’t really cooking, wasn’t really worth sharing, wasn’t a voice people needed to hear. There wasn’t enough of an idea there.
The thing is, as much as I’m inspired by the incredible food I see in my feed, I also need the visual reminder that it’s okay to keep it simple. And maybe other single cooks who think all cooking involves big batches, long ingredient lists, and lots of cleanup need this reminder too.
For me, cooking simply is about letting ingredients stand on their own rather than trying to transform them, of taking the quickest, un-fussiest route whenever possible. It’s often a “this plus that” assembling of components that you don’t think will make a complete meal until they meet each other on the plate. (A recent favorite: stir-fried broccoli, cold tofu, a soft-boiled egg, and rice noodles with TJ’s chili-onion crunch.) Cooking simply is skipping that fourth spice or third vegetable when you don’t have it or don’t want to bother. It’s not bland or boring, but minimal and thoughtful.
Once I owned this kind of simplicity as my personal cooking style, the ideas poured from me. I filled a notebook, created a hefty Google Drive, and started a blog. Keeping it simple isn’t just enough of an idea, it’s thewhole idea. And I’m just getting started.
One of my pre-theater rituals in New York was a plate of spicy cumin lamb noodles at the Xi’an Famous Foods on W. 43rd street. I’d fashion an oversized bib out of napkins to avoid dripping red chili oil on my clothes (I usually did anyway), crouch over my plate, and shovel the slippery noodles into my mouth with chopsticks. I could be in and out of the restaurant and in my theater seat in under an hour, bathroom stop included. That location of the restaurant is closed now, and Broadway is shuttered until at least next January.
My homemade attempt at Xi’an’s lamb noodles is nowhere near the real thing. I just wanted to taste some of those flavors and textures together, maybe in honor of a ritual I didn’t know I was about to lose. I got ground lamb and cooked it like a Thai larb, browning quickly with spices, then adding a splash of soy sauce and a pinch of sugar to get those crispy bits. I tossed with rice noodles and whatever veg would add a pop of color. Here, it’s a couple handfuls of baby spinach and curls of sweet, crisp carrot, though I’ve also loved this with broccoli, yellow squash, and thinly sliced radishes.
This dish is now one of my go-tos when I crave something quick and spicy, but I’m also glad it doesn’t really measure up to the original. It gives me an excuse to go back again soon.
Inspired by the classic at Xi'an Famous Foods, though by no means a substitute for the original. A little crushed red pepper goes a long way here, but feel free to adjust to your heat preference.
Prep Time 10minutes
Cook Time 10minutes
Total Time 20minutes
Servings 1person
Ingredients
2ozwide rice noodles
1tspcanola oil
⅓lbground lamb(you could also use ground beef or turkey)
1scallion, chopped
1garlic clove, minced
1tspground cumin
¼tspcrushed red pepper
Pinchkosher salt
2tsplow-sodium soy sauce, divided
2tspunseasoned rice vinegar, divided
1generous pinch granulated sugar
1medium carrot
1½cupsbaby spinach, torn
Instructions
Bring about 4 cups water to a boil in a large saucepan. Add rice noodles and cook 4-5 minutes or until tender, then drain. If you want to use a heartier veggie, add it to the boiling water in the last couple minutes of cooking.
Meanwhile, heat an 8-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add the oil and swirl to coat the pan. Add the lamb, scallion, garlic, cumin, crushed red pepper, and salt. Use a spatula to break up the meat and work in the spices. Cook 3-5 minutes until the meat is browned. Stir in 1 teaspoon soy sauce, 1 teaspoon rice vinegar, and a pinch of sugar. Cook another 3 minutes (you should see some crispy bits in the pan). Remove the pan from the heat.
Peel the carrot and then keep peeling into wide ribbons, working on one side of the carrot at a time. Add the carrots in a single layer over the lamb in the skillet, then the spinach. Drizzle over the remaining teaspoon each of soy sauce and rice vinegar. Add the hot noodles, cover with a lid, and let sit off the heat a couple minutes until the spinach is slightly wilted, then stir everything together.
I crave in color. More than a specific dish, more than something wildly decadent, I just want a compilation of colors. If I don’t see them I don’t feel satisfied. In college, I’d circle the hot and cold bars endlessly trying to compose a rainbow on my plate (I still do this at every buffet and potluck). These days I throw spinach or parsley into almost everything I cook… I just need to see it there. No one forced me to eat veggies as a kid, and I don’t follow any particular diet. It’s just what I want.
What we crave is both physical and emotional (this is my highly unscientific opinion). The physical: Our bodies crave what’s been missing from our meals or our hormones make seemingly odd combos irresistible. The emotional: When we feel the need for comfort or pleasure, we want the foods we ate as kids or what we’ve learned to love since then. I’m not sure where my color thing came from, but it’s just my version of every person’s inexplainable, wonderfully weird food preferences. There’s no rhyme or reason and no consistency either. What I want changes as often as my mood (so, pretty much constantly).
As single cooks, our craving is the loudest and often only voice in the kitchen. It’s obnoxiously loud, to the point where it’s hard to be satisfied with eating anything else. Answering that craving is giving your body what it needs, whether that’s a big salad or a big burger. It’s not giving into a lifetime of junk food because our bodies crave variety and moderation in all things. Something super rich and heavy gets just as boring as something super light after awhile.
I think we also crave what’s within reach: What’s in our fridge right now, what we know how to cook right now, what we can get delivered thirty minutes from now. The more we cook, the broader the foods we crave because we know we can achieve them at home. There’s less settling for what we don’t really want (old leftovers, a frozen entree) because we know how to give ourselves exactly what we do.
Knowing exactly what I’m craving and acting on it is so satisfying and empowering to me… it’s what drives me into the kitchen as a solo cook and makes me feel I belong there. It’s one of the best things about cooking for one.
The weight of the world is crushing. You’ve been living in isolation for months, cooking every meal and washing up afterward. It’s too hot to turn on the stove. You’re out of inspiration, having shopped nowhere but your neighborhood store, having dined nowhere but your own home. Even if you love it, cooking for one can lose its appeal… especially now.
What I’ve realized is that cooking for myself is not an all or nothing proposition. It’s not about committing to a certain number of home-cooked meals over a certain number of days. It’s not about creating a gram-worthy plate every night. Cooking for one is about showing kindness to yourself in whatever way you need on any given evening, whether that’s preparing a thoughtful meal or not cooking at all.
The most important thing is that you get to choose. You shouldn’t be stuck with random snacks when you really want an exciting, satisfying meal. You shouldn’t be locked into a meal plan when you don’t feel like making that day’s scheduled dish. You shouldn’t have to eat the same leftovers three nights in a row when you really want something new. No lack of cooking skills, fear of food waste, or feeling that you don’t deserve more should stand between you and what you really want to eat.
And when you just can’t bear to cook, order takeout. Pile the random foods from your fridge onto a plate. Pop some popcorn. Just take the guilt out of the equation for tonight. Depending on your mood, you can choose something totally different tomorrow.
Some of my favorite can’t-bear-to-cook dinners: – A soft-boiled egg, tomatoes, cucumber, Greek yogurt topped with olive oil, and a little smoked salmon – Frozen veggie dumplings steamed with veggies over microwaveable brown rice. – A mile-high cheese sandwich
– A couple slices of prosciutto, walnuts, sliced cheese, apples wedges, and celery sticks
