Easy Meals for Lazy Girls Who Live Alone
No because really… what DO we cook?
If you’re a girlie in your twenties living alone — congratulations on finally finding your peace!
But also my sincerest condolences to the nightly struggle: what are you cooking for dinner tonight?
Seriously, it’s a struggle, and no, you can’t sustain yourself off “girl-dinner” or DoorDash every single night. (Although, tempting, I know.) It’s hard because you don’t want to buy too much food — who else is going to eat it before it goes bad?
I’ve learned a thing or two over the years, so I’m going to share with you some of my 26ixty year old wisdom, and then guide you to some easy recipes. (Yes, with as few dishes used as possible.)
The Ultimate Guide to Cooking When You’re a Twenty-Something Year Old Living Alone
Tip #1: Meal Prep and Pyrex Containers
Yes, you’re seeing it all over the internet because it’s actually insanely helpful. Having food on hand, ready-to-eat in your fridge is going to save you a lot of headaches and help you make sure you actually eat.
There’s a few ways you can go about this:
Sunday night, you can just cook a whole bunch of meals for the week all at once and portion them out in various Pyrex containers. A few hours of work = food ready to go for the week.
OR on Sunday (and this is what I personally do), throw one meal in the crockpot and let it cook throughout the day. This is the easiest, lazy girl genius cooking hack there is.
All you have to do is find a recipe, buy the ingredients, throw it all in the crockpot for a few hours, and BAM! Congratulations, you now have meals that will last you DAYS.
Alternatively, you could even just cook a bunch of chicken/protein of choice in the crockpot, season it very basic — just salt, pepper, garlic, etc. — and have protein on hand for the week.
I like to season it very simply so that during the week if I want to add it to pasta, it’s ready to go, or if I want to use it for a sandwich or taco, I can add BBQ sauce or spice it up for that specific meal.
Tip #2: Actually plan out your meals and make a grocery list. Yes, your mom was actually onto something there with that.
I used to straight up just head into Trader Joe’s with a wallet and vibes. And that’s how you end up overspending and still not having anything to eat.
The trick is: plan out meals you actually want to make and try to find recipes that use the same ingredients, so you don’t end up with wasted food rotting by the end of the week.
The more you cook and find recipes you actually enjoy making, it’ll be easier to see what ingredients overlap.
This is the guidelines for how I normally meal plan and you can adjust however suits your needs:
1 crockpot meal planned (usually lasts me 3-4 days of meals)
2 easy meal ideas (remember, you’ll have leftovers you can use for lunch)
A few super easy things like salad kits or even frozen meals (because when life throws a curveball, a frozen meal is still better than DoorDashing)
Breakfast items (for me that’s usually just yogurt and a granola bar)
Snack items (could be yogurt, dip and chips, fruit, etc)
1 bakery item (yes, this is mandatory — because you deserve a sweet treat after work)
Tip #3: So the $100 question — how do I come up with an easy meal idea?
My meal ideas generally follow the same formula: protein + vegetable + grain.
For me, the grain is normally either couscous, quinoa, gnocchi, orzo, or rice.
And for quick easy meals, you do not need to make this from scratch. Remember: you live alone, you don’t need to impress Gordon Ramsey, you just need to make sure you’re eating. You can do instant rice or couscous, or they even sell frozen packets of rice you can just throw in the microwave.
Same thing with vegetables — sometimes I have a bunch of produce I’m chopping away like an Iron Chef… but other times, I’m throwing a steamable bag of frozen vegetables in the microwave.
As for protein, sometimes I meal prep chicken in the crock pot or oven, but if I’m making something easy midweek, I’ll do chicken sausage or some sort of ground meat I can just throw in a pan quickly.
Some very quick meal ideas to start you out:
Gnocchi Night! Trader Joe’s frozen sweet potato gnocchi (or gnocchi of choice) + chicken sausage + cherry tomatoes + spinach, all sautéed in ONE pan
Easy bowl idea: Ground beef + zucchini + cherry tomatoes + couscous, topped with Parmesan. All sautéed in one pan, instant couscous made in separate pot. (I usually make a salad kit on the side to go with this).
Harvest salad bowl: Ground chicken + sweet potato + spinach + dried cranberries + quinoa + feta + dressing/balsamic glaze. This is a sort of harvest salad bowl, sweet and savory! Just cook the chicken and quinoa, sweet potato can be frozen/microwaved, and toss together like a salad bowl.
Super easy 10-minute meal: precooked chicken meatballs (shout-out to Trader Joe’s pineapple teriyaki chicken meatballs), frozen vegetables, frozen rice packet. While the vegetables and rice are thrown in the microwave, the meatballs get thrown in the air fryer, and everything’s prepped in ten minutes.
And now because I want you to succeed, I’m sharing my meal-prepping Pinterest board with you, which is organized by categories to make your life easy. There are plenty of salad, dinner, crock pot, etc. ideas in there. I’d love to highlight the crockpot Buffalo Chicken Pasta recipe because of how simple, delicious, and comforting it is.
I invite you to check it out, save anything that looks good to you, and reference it if you’re in a jam and just need some inspiration!
Just please don’t judge my pickle section, okay? Remember, I’m trying to do you a favor over here.
I’ll be sharing more in depth recipes with you later, so make sure to stick around for more!
thank you so much. I live alone and even though I love to cook I never have time to do that. this article is very helpful 🤍