Cooking for one without waste

Most recipes serve four and most packs are sized for families. Cooking for one means scaling down, cooking once and eating twice, and having a plan for the last bits of everything. This lesson is about those habits; storage rules are in the stocking lesson and batch-cooking methods are in Kitchen Skills.

Know what one portion looks like

• Love Food Hate Waste suggests two handfuls, or about 75 g, of dried rice or pasta per person for a main meal, and one handful (about 37 g) for a side.
• Weigh it a few times on kitchen scales, then find a mug or cup that holds about that much, so you can measure without scales.
• One portion of vegetables for your 5 A Day is 80 g (NHS). As a rough guide, that is a large handful of spinach, a medium carrot or 3 heaped tablespoons of frozen peas.
• If you often have leftovers you do not want, cook less next time; if you are always hungry an hour later, cook a little more.

Scaling a recipe: worked example

• A red lentil soup recipe for 4 uses 1 onion, 2 carrots, 200 g red lentils, 1 tin chopped tomatoes and 1 litre of stock.
• Divided by 4, one portion is a quarter of an onion, half a carrot, 50 g lentils, a quarter of a tin and 250 ml stock. Quarter tins are awkward and often wasted.
• Better: cook all 4 portions. Eat 1 tonight, keep 1 in the fridge for tomorrow's lunch and freeze 2 in labelled single portions.
• Spices and salt do not always scale exactly; start with less and taste.
• Smaller quantities often cook a little faster, but always check meat and chicken are cooked through.

Use the whole pack

• Plan two meals around any ingredient you can only buy in a big pack, such as chicken thighs, spinach or yoghurt (Love Food Hate Waste).
• Swap ingredients rather than buying a new one: carrots for parsnips, chickpeas for kidney beans, frozen spinach for fresh.
• Freeze what you will not use in time: bread (slice it first), cooked rice cooled quickly, ideally within an hour (FSA), grated cheese, chopped herbs in a little oil, ripe bananas.
• Half a tin or jar: move it to a lidded container, label the date and follow the 'once opened' instruction on the label.

Use-up ideas for common leftovers

• Half a tin of tomatoes: shakshuka-style eggs, a quick pasta sauce, or add it to lentil soup.
• Wilting spinach or herbs: stir into an omelette, soup, curry or dal that day.
• Stale bread: toast, croutons, or fattoush-style salad with toasted pitta.
• Very ripe bananas: freeze them peeled for porridge or smoothies, or bake banana bread.
• Odds and ends of vegetables: Love Food Hate Waste's 'throw it all in' meal, such as a soup, stir-fry or fried rice made with rice that was cooled and chilled correctly.

Leftover rules and a waste log

• Eat leftovers within 48 hours or freeze them (FSA). Cooked rice: keep in the fridge no more than one day and reheat only once (FSA home food fact checker).
• Reheat food until it is steaming hot all the way through, and reheat previously cooked and frozen food only once (FSA).
• Keep a waste log for two weeks: write down what you throw away and why ('bought too much', 'forgot it', 'did not like it').
• Use the log to change your list: buy smaller amounts, switch to frozen, or stop buying what you do not eat.
• If you really cannot use something in time, offer it to a flatmate or use a food-sharing app such as Olio, which Love Food Hate Waste mentions.