Guides · 3 min read ·
Cooking Desi Food for One or Two: A Guide for Students and People Living Abroad
How to cook Pakistani food for one or two without waste or boredom: a minimal spice kit, the five most useful tools, cooking once and eating three times, freezer portions, quick one-pot meals and a cheap weekly plan.
Most Pakistani recipes are written for a family of four to six, and most Pakistani cooks learned in kitchens where the degchi was always big. Then you move into a hostel, a shared flat abroad or your first place alone, and suddenly cooking a whole karahi means eating it for four days. Here’s how to cook desi food well for one or two people, without waste, without boredom and without spending much.
A minimal spice kit
You don’t need thirty spices. These ten cover almost everything:
- Salt, red chili powder, turmeric, coriander powder, cumin seeds, garam masala
- Black pepper and chili flakes
- Ginger-garlic paste (homemade and frozen in cubes; see our guide)
- A stock of whole spices: a few cardamom, cloves and a bay leaf
Abroad, a South Asian grocer sells all of these in small packets, much cheaper than supermarket jars. Buy small; spices lose their aroma after a few months.
The five most useful tools
- One heavy, deep frying pan or small karahi with a lid: curries, keema, stir-fries.
- A small pot for daal and rice.
- A non-stick tawa or frying pan for roti, parathas and eggs.
- A rice cooker if you eat rice often: set it and forget it, and many can cook khichdi too.
- A stick blender for pastes, chutneys and smooth daal.
A small pressure cooker or electric multi-cooker is a great extra if you eat meat and beans regularly.
Cook once, eat three different ways
The trick isn’t cooking tiny portions every day; it’s cooking a sensible batch and changing its form so it doesn’t feel like leftovers.
- A pot of chicken karahi (500 g): eat it fresh with roti, roll the second portion into a paratha roll, and shred the rest into a sandwich or pasta.
- Keema: with peas as keema matar, then stuffed into a paratha, then mixed into scrambled eggs.
- Daal: with rice, then thinned into soup with a fresh tarka, then kneaded into paratha dough.
- Boiled chickpeas: chana masala on day one, chana chaat on day two.
Our guide to using leftover salan, rice and roti has many more ideas.
Your freezer is your best friend
Freeze in single portions, flat in labelled bags:
- Curries and daal (3 months)
- Parathas, half-cooked between baking paper (2 months)
- Shami kebabs or kebab bites (2 months)
- Ginger-garlic paste and chopped coriander cubes
With a few portions in the freezer, a hot dinner is 10 minutes away even on your busiest day. See our freezing guide for what keeps well.
Ten-to-twenty-minute meals for one
- Aloo anday or a desi omelette with roti.
- Masoor daal: 20 minutes, no soaking, very cheap.
- Khichdi: rice and moong daal in one pot, perfect comfort food.
- Egg fried rice from leftover rice.
- Keema with frozen peas and a quick roti.
- Chicken tikka in a pan: cubes of chicken in yogurt and tikka spices, cooked on high heat for 10 minutes.
Shopping smart on your own
- Buy chicken in a pack and portion it before freezing.
- Frozen vegetables (peas, spinach, mixed veg) are cheap, last for months and avoid waste.
- Tinned chickpeas, beans and tomatoes save time.
- Onions, potatoes, rice, atta and lentils keep for weeks and form the base of most meals.
A cheap week for one
| Day | Lunch | Dinner |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday | Cook karahi + daal + rice | Karahi with roti |
| Monday | Daal chawal | Karahi paratha roll |
| Tuesday | Egg fried rice | Daal soup + toast |
| Wednesday | Leftover karahi in a sandwich | Keema matar (freeze half) |
| Thursday | Keema paratha | Aloo anday |
| Friday | Khichdi | Freezer meal |
Use the serving scaler on any recipe on this site to halve or quarter it; quantities adjust automatically. Cooking for yourself is also the best way to learn, as our beginner’s guide explains: small batches, cooked often, build skill quickly.
