Easy Dinner Recipes for One
Dinners scaled down to one plate — cheesy pesto pasta bake, chicken katsu curry udon soup, creamy peanut udon, air fryer salmon bites, spicy potato wedges.
★ lunch
lunchcheesy homemade pesto pasta bake for one
my parents are abroad for the next week, meaning I get a lot more freedom to experiment with cooking foods they might not like. this is what I've made on day one – since I've never gotten to have store bought or restaurant pesto sauce before, I don't know how this compares to the real thing, but it tasted so damn good and I'm so mad I never got to eat anything pesto until this year! please consider a tip on my Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/nyctolust) if you enjoyed so I can buy groceries lol
Atlas O'HareIngredients
- 2 1/2 oz pasta of choice
- 13g (~3/4 cup) basil leaves
- 12g (~1/2 cup) spinach leaves (stems removed)
- 1 1/2 garlic clove
- 12g (1 tbsp packed) pine nuts
- 15g (~3 tbsp) Parmigiano Reggiano (or Pecorino Romano or Grana Padano) grated
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (or garlic infused olive oil)
- few cracks sea salt
- few cracks black pepper
- squeeze of lemon juice
- 1/4 cup reserved pasta water
- 30g (~1/4 cup) shredded mozzarella
Instructions
- 1preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan (400°F/Gas Mark 6). cook pasta in lightly salted water until al dente – around 8 minutes, or 2-3 minutes less than package instructions.
- 2meanwhile, make the pesto sauce by adding basil, spinach, garlic, pine nuts, and cheese to a blender/food processor and blitzing until the mixture forms a paste. add the oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper and blitz again until combined – then taste and add more salt/pepper if you need to.
- 3once the pasta is cooked al dente, save a quarter cup of the cooking water and drain the rest. tip the pasta into an oven-safe dish and mix the reserved water into the pesto. pour the sauce over the pasta and mix well until it's all coated.
- 4top with shredded mozzarella and bake in the oven for 20 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbling and golden on top. serve with extra freshly cracked black pepper and cheese sprinkled over the dish if desired.
P.S. We update the recipes on this page every few days. If you want to cook this recipe over and over again, we'd love it if you downloaded Pepper 🤝.
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Open in Pepper →Cooking For One Without The Leftovers
Cooking for yourself should still feel like dinner. One pan, one bowl, food you actually wanted, and no container of sad pasta staring at you Thursday morning.
Cooks on Pepper reach for these on the nights nobody else is home, when a shift ran long, or when the rest of the house already ate and you still need something warm.
Every recipe here is portioned for a single plate — cheesy homemade pesto pasta bake, chicken katsu curry udon soup, creamy peanut udon, Marry Me Chickpeas, fast turmeric grits, spicy tofu with scallions, and air fryer salmon bites when you want it done in minutes.
Quick Tips
- 1
Use a small skillet
An 8-inch pan keeps a single portion from spreading thin and burning. Sauce for one reduces in about 5 minutes instead of 15.
- 2
Cook noodles right in sauce
For udon, drop the fresh noodles straight into the simmering broth or peanut sauce for 2 to 3 minutes and skip a second pot.
- 3
Preheat the air fryer
Give it 3 minutes at 400°F before the salmon bites go in so the outside sets fast and the inside stays soft.
- 4
Freeze the extra half
When a recipe calls for half a can of chickpeas or half a block of tofu, freeze the rest flat in a bag for up to 3 months.
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