I live on my own. I’m not a terrible cook, but I am incredibly idle, so for years dinner was a takeaway, a ready meal, or steak and frozen chips. Every so often I’d get inspired and batch cook something enormous at the weekend, and be terminally bored of it by day three.
The supermarket didn’t help. Unless I walked in with a plan, my mind went blank and I came home with ready meals and snacks. And when I did cook properly, I’d buy a bag of spinach for one recipe, use a third of it, and throw the rest away at the end of the week, along with half a pack of mince and a sad bunch of coriander. Nearly everything in a supermarket is sized for two or more.
So I asked AI to come up with simple dinners for one, each with a recipe and a shopping list I could just follow. It worked. The supermarket panic stopped and I started cooking. Then I thought other people who cook for one might find it useful too, and things escalated.
What it does
Every recipe is written for one person, and scales up when someone joins you. The planner puts dinners into your week and adds up one shopping list. The clever part picks dinners that share their packs, so the spinach you open on Monday gets finished by Thursday instead of binned.
How the recipes are made
I’d rather be upfront about this. The recipes started out AI-generated. I’ve reviewed every one, I’ve been cooking from them myself for weeks, and a few friends are cooking from them too and telling me what doesn’t work. The photos are AI-generated as well, made to show each finished dish. If something in a recipe isn’t right, the feedback box at the bottom of every recipe comes straight to me, and I fix it.
What’s free, and what isn’t
The recipes are free and will stay free, along with the planner and the shopping list. Pro adds the low-waste planning: weeks picked to share their packs, plans built around what’s already in your fridge, and a count of what you’ve saved. It’s £2.49 a month or £14.99 a year, with a 14-day free trial.
For scale: the average person in the UK throws away about £250 of food a year, according to WRAP. Solo Supper isn’t a business I’m trying to grow; if you find it useful and want to chip in, that’s lovely, and if not, cook away.
Neil
Questions or ideas: [email protected]