Cooking Glorious One-Pot Meals for One

Reader question: Thank you for this way of cooking!  I cook for one only.  Should I get the LC 1 qt dutch oven and cut your ingredient amounts  in half? Will that work?  No where in book or website, have I seen cooking for one only mentioned.  Is there any drawback if I got the 1 qt pot and halved the amounts?  Would cooking time be the same?  Thank You!  Love the taste of food cooked this way!  But too much leftovers.  ~ Patricia D., Hot Springs, Arkansas

Hi Patricia! Thanks for writing. You have a point: I haven’t written much about making Glorious One-Pot Meals for one even though the topic often comes up during my appearances and classes. In fact, many single GOPM fans habitually make a 2-person GOPM and refrigerate half of it in a covered Pyrex dish for enjoying the next lunch or dinnertime.

And, you have the right idea: just as Glorious One-Pot Meals can be easily doubled or tripled to feed four or six people, so can they be halved to feed just one person. I have a couple brands of 1-quart to 1.5-quart size cast iron Dutch ovens that I often utilize to make a single GOPM (I have a Le Creuset and a 1-quart seasoned cast iron Dutch oven from Cajun Cast Iron. One is deeper and the other is wider). I love using the 1-quart pots because they contain just enough for one person, they cook very quickly (typically 25-25 minutes), and fit easily inside a toaster oven.

Does it work? Absolutely.

Be sure to follow the core tenets of making Glorious One-Pot Meals: use a cast iron Dutch oven and fully preheat the oven to 450 degrees F before putting the full pot inside. You’ll be able to tell when your meal is ready, as always, three minutes after the aroma of a fully cooked meal escapes the oven.

Happy cooking!