Nutrition for Older Adults: Cooking Tips for One or Two

Cooking Tips for One or Two

• Frozen meals require little preparation; however, you may need to add fruit, vegetable, bread, tossed salad, or milk to a frozen meal to make it well-balanced.
• Take turns preparing and sharing meals with family or friends.
• Plan to use leftovers.
• Left over ham can be used in an omelet, a sandwich, or in scalloped potatoes.
• Left over baked chicken can be chopped up on a salad or used for a chicken salad sandwich.
• Left over chili can be used on a baked potato.
• If you prepare larger amounts of meat, soup, stew, chili or casseroles freeze smaller portions for later.
• When keeping leftovers it is important to date and store them properly.
• Leftovers should be refrigerated within two hours.
• Use food storage containers or storage bags that seal.
• Always date leftovers so they will not be kept too long and spoil.
• A general rule of thumb is refrigerated leftovers may be kept for one to three days and frozen leftovers may be kept for one to three months.
• Look for cookbooks that have recipes designed for one or two.
• Most recipes can be cut in half or in thirds.
  
  

Guide for Cutting Recipes

If a recipe calls for use:

For half of a recipe:

1/4 cup: 2 tablespoons

1/3 cup: 2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons

1/2 cup: 1/4 cup

2/3 cup: 1/3 cup

3/4 cup: 6 tablespoons

1 tablespoon: 1 1/2 teaspoon

1 teaspoon: 1/2 teaspoon

1/2 teaspoon: 1/4 teaspoon

Large egg: small egg or just the egg white

 

For a third of a recipe:

1/4 cup: 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon

1/3 cup: 1 tablespoon + 2 1/3 teaspoons

1/2 cup: 2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons

 

Sources

Whitney, E.N. & Rolfes, S.R. (2015). Understanding Nutrition, 14th ed., Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, Belmont, CA.

 

Bernstein, M., & Munoz, N. (2016). Nutrition for the Older Adult, 2nd ed., Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Sudbury, MA.

 

Brown, J.E. (2014) Nutrition through the Life Cycle, 5th ed., Cengage Learning, Stamford, CT.

 

United States Department of Agriculture. ChooseMyPlate.gov. Accessed at www.choosemyplate.gov