Cooking for one without the waste

The hardest part of cooking for one is not the cooking. It is that the ingredient economy is built for households, and the leftovers compound faster than you can eat them.

Build around a base, not a recipe

Cook one large batch of something neutral — grains, roasted vegetables, a pot of beans — and let it become three different meals through sauces and additions rather than three separate cooking sessions.

The variation lives in the last two minutes: acid, fat, herbs, heat. That is where the impression of a different meal actually comes from.

• One base, cooked Sunday, eaten Monday through Wednesday.
• Three finishing sauces in the fridge, made once a fortnight.
• Anything fresh gets used within four days or frozen on day two.

The freezer is the real appliance

Half a tin of tomato paste, the second half of the coriander, the bread that will be stale tomorrow — all of it freezes, and the discipline of freezing on the day you open something rather than the day you notice it wilting is what actually stops the waste.