2017 — Dinner Desperado

One pan salmon with 5 serves of vegetables

Super easy warm summer salad. A great 'go to' dish when you want healthy without effort.

Fresh pasta with pancetta, pinenuts, mushroom & spinach

Pinenuts for a bit of luxury and fresh pasta to make preparation quick and easy.

Spiral pasta with asparagus, pinenuts & lemon

Wonders of Meal Prep

Pre-prepped and frozen mince, tomato salsa and rice means I can make a healthy meal with one pan and just 15 minutes.

Ingredients for simple one pan curry

Mild vegetarian curry with red lentils

Meal Prep Sunday

This simple range of ingredients turns into 10 super healthy meals ready to freeze and whip out on those nights when you can't be bothered or have no time.

Meal Prep Sunday - 2

Meal Prep Sunday 3

Meal Prep Sunday - Ready to eat!

Menu planning inspo

Do you tear out recipes? I'm a huge hoarder of recipes!

Prep for my favourite meal of the year!

Brussel sprouts roasted with lemon and pancetta and served on roast pumpkin / chickpea / cumin smash

This was so good I had to take 2 pictures!

Getting ready to make fish pie

Sometimes you just want to indulge or try a recipe you have been lusting after! These are the ingredients for Neil Perry's fish pie recipe. I hadn't had an opportunity to invite friends over, so I decided to adapt it for one. Very luxe and indulgent - but totally worth it!

Neil Perry's fish pie recipe adapted for one

Chicken & vegetable soup for one

Can you believe I cooked Chicken Soup for the first time this year!! This one is loaded with vegetables and uses smashed butterbeans to add texture. It's also loaded with vegetables - cabbage, peas, spinach, carrot, celery, leek and onion! You can keep it 'clean' by using water, or add more flavour with chicken stock. Definitely one of my new 'go-to' favourites. Especially as it can all be cooked in one pot.

Chocolate sponge cake for one! Adapted from the Country Womens' Association Cookbook

Favourite warm salad of the year

This is actually made up of leftover roast vegetables and leftover bits and pieces such as fetta and pomegranate seeds from a dinner party.

Version 2 of re-purposing leftover roast vegetables into dinner for one

Simple pasta with beef & spinach

Perfect easy, healthy, quick dinner for one

Strips of beef fillet panfried with steamed broccoli & spinach. Topped with avocado.

Steamed salmon on bed of smashed pumpkin with chickpeas and cumin

Feeling like a bit of luxury and having the time to do something different with salmon I served it on my latest favourite flavour / texture combination - roast pumpkin smashed with chickpeas or butter beans mixed through with some cumin.

Fillet steak with mushroom sauce & potato dauphinois

simple, elegant meal for one - for when you have a bit of time and feel like indulging. The recipe for potato daupinois is adapted for one serving.

Beef with rich mushroom cream sauce

Healthy, simple beef stirfry for one

Meal Prep Sunday

Leftover beef fillet re-purposed into a curry

Simple, hearty & warming

Roasting in one pan is my go-to solution for an easy meal. It may not be quick, but the prep is and you can go and do others things while it is cooking.

Leftover sausages & vegetables about to be re-purposed into a Shepherds Pie

'Shepherds Pie'

I can't begin to tell you how wonderful this meal was. The same ingredients for the previous day's roast transformed into a completely different meal - and one that was fantastic - filling, winter comfort food. Delish!

Meal Prep magic

The benefit of meal prep and cooking a whole chicken means it is really easy to make a healthy dinner quickly - and with just one pan - NO washing up.

The end result - a 'Meal Prep Wonder Meal'

Roast chicken with 6 serves of vegetables

Leftover magic

Roast chicken and vegetables repurposed and served on a bed of cauliflower & broccoli 'rice' topped with avocado.

Boosting leftovers with 5 serves of vegetables

Leftover beef with 5 serves of vegetables

'Go-to' one pan salmon with quinoa and vegetables

Chicken panfried with lemon & spinach and topped with avocado

Simple poached chicken with broccoli and avocado

This meal can be made in minutes if you have done meal prep and have poached, shredded chicken that you can pull from the freezer.

A desperado - but fantastic dinner

Scrambled eggs on toast topped with avocado. Not pretty, but simple, healthy, filling and quick.

Tinned salmon turned into a quick, healthy dinner

Mushroom sauce made with Thyme, Marsala and cream

Chicken tacos - boosted with greens - delicous!

Roast dinner for one

This is such a fabulous meal. It honours eating eating for one - but requires little effort - yet the caramelised roasted vegetables and mushroom sauce make it a real treat. But it is really only one roast pan and one skillet to wash up.

Poached chicken with pasta

This is one of those meals that is made quick and easy by having fresh pasta on hand (4 minutes to cook) and pre-prepped frozen, poached chicken to pull from the freezer. It is made a bit decadent with pine nuts.

Fudgy chocolate pudding for one

Meal Prep Magic

I LOVE it when my freezer looks like this. It is a combination of cooked carbs and grains such as rice, quinoa etc as well as proteins such as poached chicken and lentils and a couple of sauces.

Batch cooking - winter-y lamb casserole with thyme

I don't often feature this type of meal on my blog as I figure there are many places you can go to find recipes for casseroles and I am all about single serve recipes. However, I love having some big batch meals cooked and frozen into single serve portions and this is one of my alltime favourites.

Risotto with roasted beetroot and barley

Beef & vegetable stirfry

Meal prep - quinoa

Using pre-prepped qinoa to make cooking a salmon dish quick and with just one pan.

Rough puff pastry for one

Lamb pie for one - TOTALLY worth it!

Jam tart for one

Chocolate sponge cake for one

Chocolate sponge cake with cream for one

Pulled pork rice paper rolls for one

Sunday Meal Prep

Meal Prep - Mega Healthy Vegetable Soup

Chicken soup

Enjoying the fruits of Meal Prep Sunday - boosting the flavour with a a squeeze of lemon and some parmesan cheese

Steamed greens, Roasted vegetables & salmon topped with Avocado

Setting the week up right with Monday's meal with 6 serves of vegetables

Meal prep for one pan simple 'curry'

Chicken panfried with ginger & turmeric and served with broccoli & cauliflower

Yummy slow cooked beef stew for one

Ingredients for a delicious one pan fish dish with coconut cream, lemon, ginger & turmeric

Step 2 of fish with coconut milk

This dish was so yummy and simple I ate it before I could take a photo of the end result!

Sunday Meal Prep

Enjoying the benefits of Sunday's Meal Prep - 1

Enjoying the benefits of Sunday's Meal Prep - 2

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164

Desperado Dinners is a blog dedicated to cooking for one.

We share tips, recipes and menu plans tailored for one person.

But mainly we're about community. Creating a community to help each other stay motivated to cook great meals, even when it's 'just me'.

Menu Plans

Help Choose Recipes for Meal Plans

Contact Us

2016 meals so far - pictures only

2016 meals so far - pictures & descriptions

Be a recipe tester

Read the 'Kitchen Insider' series to get tips from other solo cooks.

Become part of the community