Cooking for One & Leftover Tips

Recipes found online, in cookbooks, magazines, or on food packages often yield more than 1 serving, which may mean throwing away food that you can't eat. When you're living on a tight budget, wasting food is not a good idea. The good news is that there are simple things you can do to avoid wasting food and money. Check it out!

  • Check the yield and serving size of a recipe first. Most recipes can be cut down to only yield 1 or 2 servings. For example, if a pasta dish yields 4 (1 cup) servings and you want to just make 1 serving, simply divide the amount of each ingredients by 4 and use that instead!
  • Be smart with your leftovers. If you do cook something that makes more than 1 serving, don't throw out the leftovers. Instead, divide the remainders into single serving containers and refrigerate or even freeze. That way you have a precooked meal at your disposal for later! Pasta and rice dishes, soups, chilies, and stir fries can all be easily frozen and reheated. Important: When reheating leftovers, you only want to reheat once! So dividing up leftovers into smaller containers is a better idea than in one large container.
  • Make it how you want it. Sometimes a recipe can be discouraging if it has a long ingredient list. For instance, a homemade pizza recipe that lists 10 different ingredients may not be appealing. Change the recipe to better fit your time frame and taste buds! Just use the recipe as a general guideline, but only use a few ingredients you really like. For the pizza, you could use a pre-made crust, pre-made tomato sauce, cheese, and a couple of your favorite veggies.

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Comment by Brandi Cunningham on April 1, 2012 at 10:43pm

I really enjoyed this blog post although I usually don’t have issues with serving sizes, and I try to keep that in mind when eating. When I get food from the grocery store I separate the meats by serving size, and place them in labeled zip lock bags. However, the issue lies in finding the time to cook and make a decent meal as a busy college student. Often, after a long day of classes and even organization meetings, it’s usually too late to cook a full meal, and I’ll be too tired and end up eating fast food, or a quick snack at the house.

Comment by Courtney Colquhoun on April 1, 2012 at 10:32pm

I enjoyed this blog post because I always find myself having lots of leftovers. I didn't know that you were only suppose to reheat leftovers once so that was a very helpful tip. I will definitely cut the portions of my leftover containers so I will only have to reheat them once. Thank you .

Comment by Erin Tucker on April 1, 2012 at 9:19pm

I really enjoyed this blog post, his was definitely beneficial to me. Next year when I move off campus and we don't feel like cooking coming home from practice or even a big track meet instead of buying fast food we could definitely use these tips.

Comment by Godfrey Thompson on March 29, 2012 at 9:00pm

One day when I actually start cooking I will use this information. It will save me a lot of money. This will also help when I have kids that don't eat all of their food. I could really save some of the foods and make them eat it the day after.

Comment by Hunter Furr on March 29, 2012 at 12:27pm

When me and my two room mates cook we all usually chip in on a cost to make the meal less pricey. This allows for the full portion sizes to be made, but it costs you 1/3 of the original price. I find this to help a lot, and even then sometimes there are leftovers. What we do is just put them in a tup-aware container and reheat it. This works the majority of the time if we remember to reheat it, sometimes things just get pushed to the back of the fridge and it becomes wasted. In order to prevent this my mom put sticky notes on our fridge and now we just write what we cooked and the day so we will know whether it has gone bad or not.

Comment by Kevin Brandt on March 29, 2012 at 11:48am

I cook at home all the time, most of the time I'm doing work on the grill. One of the things that helps me minimize leftovers and cost is go ahead and plan what I'm going to cook and just call some friends or neighbors over and ask if they've got plans for dinner, which most of the time they don't. So I'll just go ahead and cook all that I've planned to cook and just ask them for a few dollars. People would rather have food made for them that taste a lot better than fast food for the same price or less. Whatever doesn't get eaten I just throw in foil or ziplocks and put it in the fridge for tomorrows lunch.

Comment by Stephanie LeAnne Hawks on March 25, 2012 at 5:19pm

When me and my roommate cook, we always have leftovers that we don't ever know what to do with. We typically throw them away because we know that if we store them in the refrigerator they will not be eaten before they go bad. When my mom realized how much food we were wasting she went out and bought me a FoodSaver. This is a vacuum sealing system that you can use to seal all different kinds of food. The FoodSaver comes with specific bags that you put food in and then vacuum seal it shut. Whenever we get home with our groceries we will portion out various items into the bags that yield approximately 1-2 servings. They can work for all kinds of foods and can preserve foods that you put in the freezer as well to prevent them from getting freezer burn. Not only does the FoodSaver preserve food that has already been opened, but it also preserves it for so much longer! Whenever you cook, if you do have leftovers you can use the FoodSaver to preserve the food even longer.Yes these might be a little pricey for college students, but I have found that it actually saves me money in the long run. The prices for these vary depending on the brand and model. 

Comment by Lindsey Holland on March 22, 2012 at 9:01pm

I really enjoyed this blog post because it gave me some great tips so that I will no longer be wasteful. As a regular college student, money is tight so eating leftovers is beneficial to my wallet! When cooking, sometimes I get frustrated because the list of ingredients is so long. Now, I'll begin looking more carefully and deciding what I really need to use when making food. I also can save food by taking turns cooking with my roommates. 

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