Every recipe on the internet serves four to six people. Every box of pasta is sized to feed your family…plus your son’s whole fifth grade class…and the neighbors. Every bunch of cilantro contains approximately forty times more cilantro than any single human being needs for one recipe, and the rest wilts into pathetic mush in the back of your fridge by Thursday.

Cooking for one or two requires a totally different skill set than cooking for a family, and nobody talks about it. There’s MATH involved! Limiting waste is like trying to solve a riddle. And it requires thinking about grocery shopping and pantry stocking totally differently. Scaling a recipe for six down to two in your head while you are already hungry is a special kind of frustrating, and "just freeze the rest" is not always the answer.

This newsletter is for the solo cooks, the couples who do not want 75 servings of quinoa on a Tuesday, the empty nesters figuring out a new kitchen rhythm. Here is what actually works.

A couple people asked about if Pepper can import recipes from online…the answer is a resounding YES! Just copy literally any link from anywhere and click import!

It all really comes down to stocking a kitchen that works at small scale from the start. That means leaning on single-serve items, flexible ingredients that work for multiple meals, and a short list of things that are genuinely better made in small amounts than scaled down from a big batch.

Single-serve formats that work every time:

Ingredients that earn their keep for one or two:

Below are some of the classic grocery staples that you never end up finishing in time, and what to do about it.

A standard loaf goes stale before two people can finish it. Freeze half immediately when you buy it. Bread toasts directly from frozen in the same time as fresh. I can’t believe it took me this long to finally start doing it, but it is truly gamechanging.

You need two tablespoons. The bunch contains approximately…one thousand tablespoons. Instead, buy herb plants from the grocery store instead of cut bunches. They cost about the same amount and look really cute on the windowsill. You can also freeze leftover herbs flat in a bag and crumble them into cooked dishes straight from the freezer, but personally, I like the plant idea better.

Buy loose instead of bagged wherever possible. One tomato, three carrots, two apples. Frozen veg is also a great solution! Frozen spinach, corn, edamame, and broccoli all turn out the same as when you cook them fresh. Use what you need and leave the rest for later. No wilting, no waste.

Grocery store packaging is almost never portioned for one or two. The fix: freeze individual portions the day you get home, before you refrigerate anything. Five minutes of work, problem permanently solved. A freezer with single portions of chicken thighs and salmon labeled and ready is one of the most useful things a small household can build.

One salmon fillet, whatever vegetable you have (asparagus, broccoli, zucchini), olive oil, salt, lemon. 400 degrees, 12-15 minutes. That’s it!

Here’s a sample recipe to iterate off of!

Half a can of crushed tomatoes in a small pan with olive oil, garlic, cumin, and paprika. Simmer for five minutes. Make a little well, crack in one or two eggs, cover and cook until the whites set. Eat directly from the pan with bread. This is one of my favorites because it feels fancy and takes literally twelve minutes.

Recipe here!

Four ounces of dry pasta is exactly right for two people. For an easy sauce, chuck in a can of crushed tomatoes, two garlic cloves, olive oil, and salt. You can add a protein if you want, top with parmesan, and you’re done!

A frittata sounds fancy, but really it’s just four eggs whisked with a splash of milk and salt. Saute whatever vegetables need using in an oven-safe skillet, pour the eggs over, cook on the stovetop until the edges set, then slide under the broiler for three to four minutes until puffed and golden.

We did a whole newsletter on egg dinners. The frittata builds in there are worth bookmarking.