Easy Recipes for Seniors Who Live on Their Own

Print Cookbooks

There are plenty of cookbooks that feature recipes for one person – such as The Healthy Seniors Cookbook: Ideal Meals and Menus for People Over Sixty, The Senior Gourmet: 200 Easy-to-Make Recipes for the Senior Who Wants to Prepare Fresh and Healthy Meals, and The Essential Diabetic Diet Guide for Seniors (for those seniors living with diabetes), to name just a few.

Online Recipes

Recipes of the whole world can be found online, including meals for one and meals designed to be suitable for those with a variety of medical conditions – from gluten intolerance to diabetes to arthritis. The University of Minnesota offers an informative online article called What Should I Eat for My Specific Condition?

Make Ahead Meals for Seniors

For those folks who don’t like the effort they have to put into cooking, the solution is to make enough of a dish – such as a soup, stew or chili – to have several servings left over. Place each serving into an individual glass storage dish, making sure to put a sticky label on it with the date it was first prepared.

Put a calendar on your refrigerator door and put a date – every Saturday, perhaps – for when you’ll heat up and consume one of these individual servings

Healthy Aging Recipes

1. Vegetable Faux Cream Soup

Soups are easy to make, and you can make large batches and refrigerate or freeze some for later.

Ingredients

The Vegetables

Use whatever vegetables you like that you feel go together. Chop up enough of each vegetable to fill a cup – such as onions, celery, carrots, mushrooms, corn, and green beans. Use a half cup for some vegetables if you don’t want them to be overpowering

The Broth

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Teaspoons of herbs to taste, such as thyme or oregano
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour (a substitute for cream, which has more calories)
• 4 cups milk (whatever milk you generally use)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Heat the butter and olive oil in a large, deep frying pan. After the butter has melted, add the chopped onions, celery and carrots. Cook these, stirring frequently, until the onions have just become soft. Then add your other ingredients and continue to sauté for another 3 or 4 minutes. Then add any herbs or spices, as well as the flour. Stir everything together for about a minute, and then slowly add in the milk.

Bring everything to a boil, and then lower the heat and let it simmer for 5 or 6 minutes, until the broth begins to thicken.

Add salt and pepper to taste and serve. Freeze any leftovers.

2. Chicken Faux Cream Soup

Use the same recipe as above for your chicken soup. Just cut up a single chicken breast into small pieces, and fry it first until the pieces are cooked. Then add in the other ingredients.

3. Fish and Roasted Vegetables

Unless your local store features a butcher who can cut your meat to order, consider purchasing a box of six frozen filets of tilapia or salmon.

Bake a single filet following the instructions on the box.

In a separate pan, roast your vegetables – whatever kinds of vegetables you like.

Ingredients

Suggested vegetables are squash or zucchini – sliced into thin “rounds,” one sliced onion, a cup of cherry tomatoes, and a sliced bell pepper of whatever color you like.

Dressing

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon seasoning – whatever flavor you like. (Cajun, dry rubs, thyme and/or rosemary all work!)

Instructions

• Preheat your oven to 450° F.
• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil, or if it’s a non-stick pan, spread a little vegetable oil evenly over it.
• Place all the sliced and chopped vegetables into a large bowl with a lid. Add the tablespoons of oil and seasoning. Place the lid on the bowl and shake to distribute the dressing evenly.
• Spread the vegetables in one layer on the baking sheet, and pop them into the oven for fifteen minutes.
• Then serve the fish and vegetables together.

Refrigerate any left-overs – remember food always tastes better the second day!

4. Chicken and Vegetable Stir-Fry

Ingredients

• One raw chicken breast, sliced into small, thin pieces
• 1 tablespoon olive oil or vegetable oil (make sure it’s non-hydrogenated)
• ½ cup sliced bell pepper
• About ½ cup of onions
• ½ cup mushrooms
• ½ cup snap peas

For dressing

• ¼ cup orange juice
• ¼ cup water
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon honey

Instructions

Heat the olive or vegetable oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. After 3 minutes, add in the chicken, and continue to stir for five or six minutes until all the chicken pieces are lightly browned. Then add in the vegetables and stir together over medium heat for another few minutes (from 5 to 10) until each vegetable is soft. Put the heat on low at this point.

In a small bowl, mix together the sauce ingredients. Pour this mixture into a different pan, and bring to a simmer for about three minutes until it begins to thicken.

Pour this sauce over the chicken and vegetables in the first pan. Increase the heat and stir together for two to three minutes.

Then serve for a delicious meal!

For more recipes for seniors, check out our recipe page here!