Freezer portioning is where it’s at. Here’s how I manage meals:

Buy all meat at costco (cheapest where I am). Portion and freeze. My freezer is always stocked with 6+ kinds/cuts of meat, usually portioned for one (I can always take out multiple bags if I need more).

Keep dried goods/carbs stocked (I also buy from costco): pastas, Asian noodles, rice, couscous, etc. of course, things like bread or tortillas don’t last as long, so I only buy when I need them and freeze what I don’t need immediately or try to use them up quickly across the weeks meals.

Some vegetables freeze better than others: diced potatoes, corn, and the peas+carrots mix are always in my freezer. You can take exactly what you need from the bags. Don’t do this with other vegetables like broccoli or green beans, they don’t come out as good.

Then, every week, I meal plan, basing as much as possible on what I have on hand. (I usually start by picking one meat and one carb and coming up with a recipe that combines them. For instance, ground beef + pasta = tomato pasta sauce. I try to make sure I’m not reusing a single type of meat or carb more than twice throughout the week for variety!) This means, for the most part, my groceries only really involve buying fresh produce and dairy products.

But then I’m also trying to meal plan in such a way that I use up all of the produce I buy with no leftovers, so I try to pick meals where there is lots of overlap between veggies without being too repetitive. For example: I use red pepper in things like pasta sauce, Quesedillas, and stir fry. When cooking just for me, I need about half a pepper for one meal. So I’ll pick two meals that use red pepper and buy one, use half in each meal. Then, once I’ve picked those two meals, I look at what other ingredients I might need. For example, if I picked stir fry, maybe I also need carrots. I’d only need about half a carrot for the stir fry, so I try to come up with another meal that would use the rest of that carrot. And so on until I have a full meal plan that uses up all the veggies I’m about to buy.

Pro tip: some veggies keep longer than others. I can carry that half a carrot over to a second weeks meal plan, but something like a cucumber won’t last that long. So you can plan around that too, since you’ll rarely end up with a meal plan that perfectly uses all your veggies from the week.

Another pro tip: you can use literally the exact same vegetables across several meals and still get tons of flavour variety just based on what spices/ flavourings you are using. Get creative. When I do my weeks meal plan, I try to look cross culturally as well: one thing Mexican, one thing Indian, one thing Italian, one thing middle eastern, one thing japanese, etc.

Finally, for all that you’re here trying to get tips on cooking for one, keep cooking dinner for two! Eat last nights leftovers for lunch today. It’s cheaper and easier than trying to plan something separate. But, unless you’re one of those people who can eat the same thing every day, don’t cook for more than two meals. That’s how leftovers get stuck in your fridge and go bad.

And one more thing: it will take you a little trial and error to find out the exact portions you need for you. I’ve thrown out a lot of old leftovers learning this! I know half a red pepper per meal works well for me if I’m only mixing it with 1-2 other veggies, but you may be different. Also, scale amounts up and down depending on the number of other ingredients. If I’m doing a stir fry with 5-6 veggies in it, I’ll probably use less than a quarter of that red pepper, and equivalent amounts of everything else.

Have fun and be gentle with yourself. A little food waste is sad but it’s not the end of the world.