7 Easily Down-Sizeable Recipes for Eating on Your Own

When cooking for one it can be hard to find recipes that scale down simply—sans the tubs of leftovers that tend to sit uneaten in the fridge. After all, one can only take so much lasagna! Most recipes have a serving size between 2 and 6, but we’ve sought out some great ones that easily scale down for those cooking and eating solo.

Whether you live alone and always cook for one, or simply have a night to yourself every once in a while, these 7 recipes have perfectly suited serving sizes to help you keep leftovers out of your fridge—and excitement back in your evening meals.

There will always be a special place in our hearts for this classic French bistro sandwich. It’s comfort between two slices of bread, and really, what’s not to like? Easy to make and even easier to eat—so easy in fact, we might just recommend making two.

This quinoa salad is worth its weight in gold—well, figuratively speaking. Dressed in a silky miso dressing and bejeweled with dazzling dried cranberries, crunchy pecans, roasted beets, and sweet potatoes, you might find yourself actually wanting to make enough to have leftovers! Since each part of this salad is made separately, you can adjust the amounts to help yourself prep—extra quinoa to throw on a salad for an office lunch or extra roasted beets and sweet potatoes to squish onto a sandwich.

When crunchy cucumber meets smooth avocado and a seared tuna fillet, the result is a simple and light meal that transports you to the sea shore in the depths of summer. Remember to buy a sushi-grade tuna fillet, and sear it over high heat quickly—it tastes the best when it’s rare inside.

Fig season is short but sweet, and we look forward to it every year—from eating the figs simply in quarters with our hands to caramelizing them to top vanilla bean ice cream or savory sandwiches like this one. If you simply can’t find figs, or the season has already passed, substitute them in this recipe for a quality fig jam slightly heated in the microwave or caramelized sweet onions with a dash of balsamic vinegar.

Throw yourself a mini-fiesta with this Mexican-style quinoa bowl. Topped with a fried egg, we could definitely see this as a weekend morning brunch dish as well. If you don’t like kidney beans, you can substitute chickpeas or black beans, and mashing that avocado up with some tomato and red onion doesn’t sound too bad either.

Time for breakfast to meet dinner? Then you should whip up this easy omelette with spinach and feta. Make it your own with easy additions of any fresh veggies you have lying around, or sprinkle with chili flakes or hot sauce for a spicy kick.

A little something spicy and fresh you ask? Try this Chinese glass noodle salad with shrimp on your next evening alone and you might just find the recipe too good to share. Remember not to boil the glass noodles, and to rinse them under cold running water once cooked to avoid them sticking into one big noodle mass.