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A household of two

Dinner for two, five nights

Five weeknight dinners for two people, assembled from three cooked components rather than five separate recipes.

10

meals from one session

2h 15

in the kitchen

10

containers in play

Cooking for two on a weeknight fails for a different reason than cooking for one. It is not boredom, it is timing. Two people rarely get home at the same hour, and a meal that has to be cooked at seven becomes a takeaway at half past.

The fix is not to prepare five finished dinners. It is to prepare three components that combine into five, and to store them in a way that lets whoever gets home first put something together in eight minutes without a recipe.

Step by step

The session, in order

  1. 1 Sunday, first hour

    Three components, not five dinners

    A protein, a grain or potato, and a sauce that carries flavour. Roast a chicken and a tray of vegetables, cook a pot of grain, blend a sauce with enough acid and salt to wake the other two up.

    Five dinners come out of that: over rice, in a wrap, on a salad, in a bowl with an egg, folded into a soup. None of them needs a recipe once the components are cold and in the fridge.

  2. 2 Sunday, second hour

    Portion in pairs

    Two dishes side by side, filled identically, is faster than one large dish that gets split later, and it removes the small nightly negotiation about who gets more.

    It also means one of the two can go into the freezer on Tuesday when plans change, and nothing has to be repackaged while it is already cold.

  3. 3 Every evening

    Reheat the dense part first

    Grain and protein for two minutes, then add the vegetables and give it another forty seconds. Everything at once means overcooked greens and a lukewarm middle.

    Take the lid off, or set it on loosely. A sealed lid traps steam, and steam is what turns a roast vegetable into a boiled one.

  4. 4 Thursday

    Empty the fridge deliberately

    Whatever is left of the three components becomes one meal on Thursday: fried rice, a frittata, a soup. Planning this in advance is what stops half a container of grain going out with the bin on Friday.

    It is also the meal that tells you whether you cooked the right amount. Too much left over on Thursday, cook less next week. Nothing left, cook one more portion.

Worth knowing. Cooked chicken, grains and roast vegetables all sit comfortably in a fridge for three to four days. Thursday is the honest edge of a Sunday cook, and that is what makes it the clear out night.
What this week takes

The containers this plan is built on

Three sets, and the reason each one is here. If your household is a different size, the kit builder will scale the numbers.

Eight large single bay dishes, enough for five nights of two portions.

Two bays, for keeping a sauce off a grain until the evening.

Glass for the dinners, plastic for the components that get combined later.

Other plans

One person, weekday lunches

The five-lunch Sunday

Five lunches cooked in one go on a Sunday afternoon, eaten Monday through Friday, with nothing frozen and nothing wasted.

5 meals90 min in the kitchen5 dishes
One cook, two weeks of dinners

Cook once, freeze twice

One long cooking session that fills a fortnight. Half goes in the fridge for this week, half goes flat into the freezer for the week after.

10 meals2 hours in the kitchen10 dishes
Anyone counting, for a month

The portion reset

A fortnight of meals built around fixed compartments instead of a scale, for people who want portions to stop being a daily decision.

10 meals75 min in the kitchen5 dishes