Cooking for one: smaller portions, less waste

Cooking for one is its own skill. Recipes assume four servings, packets come in family sizes, and half a fridge ends up in the bin. The fix isn’t discipline — it’s buying and cooking a little differently so nothing’s wasted in the first place.

Buy flexible, not specific

Shop for ingredients that go into many dishes rather than one. Eggs, rice, noodles, onions, garlic, a couple of vegetables, and a tin or two of protein will cover a week of different dinners. A single bottle of soy or oyster sauce stretches across all of them.

Avoid buying anything you’ll only use a tablespoon of unless it keeps for months. Fresh herbs and delicate greens are the usual culprits — buy them only when a specific dish needs them this week.

Cook in halves, eat the rest tomorrow

Most of our recipes are written for one to two servings, so they’re already close. When a dish does make extra, lean into it:

• Fried rice and noodles are better the next day — make a full batch and reheat.
• Braises and curries like ayam kecap or Thai red curry keep for two to three days and deepen in flavour.
• Eggs are the great rescuer — a fried egg turns yesterday’s plain rice into a fresh meal.

Store so things last

• Keep day-old rice in the fridge specifically for frying — it’s the right texture and it’s the base of half these dinners.
• Freeze bread, ginger, and chilli; grate or slice them straight from frozen.
• Store leafy vegetables dry and loosely wrapped; wash only what you’re about to cook.

Waste less by deciding less

The hardest part of cooking for one is the nightly “what do I even make” question. That’s the whole reason OneToCook exists: tell it what’s in your fridge and it suggests dishes ranked by how much you already have — so you cook what’s about to turn, not what needs another shop.