Sauce and the Single Person

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

The refrigerator of a single person is a mysterious thing indeed. If you are single, or know someone who is, then you probably know what I am talking about. For instance, if you get hungry while visiting the house of a single friend, don’t go to the refrigerator looking for food and expect to find much. Oh, you might find a vast array of things in that refrigerator. But unless you like your Coca-Cola with a side of Tabasco and a squirt of mustard, then feeding oneself from the contents of this fridge might not be all that appetizing.

The dilemma of cooking for one is a common problem. Most recipes are designed for four or more. Unless you want to eat the same leftovers everyday that week, this leads to a lot of waste. In addition, many of my single friends contend that the time spent cooking feels pointless when they are only doing it for themselves.

As a result, the single’s default for cooking at home can usually be found in the freezer. If not a frozen entrée, then it is a pre-cooked frozen chicken breast waiting to be defrosted, chopped up, and tossed with a salad. With such mundane dinner options, it is no wonder that the condiment section of the fridge is often the best stocked section of the single person’s kitchen.

Now I could get up on my butcher block and preach the merits of cooking from scratch, even if it is just dinner for one. But I’m not going to (this time). The reality is that the life of the bachelor or bachelorette is often a busy one, just not busy with kids. Between working late hours, hitting the gym, and the demands of an active social life, cooking for one--if it happens--often happens on the run. This means not a lot of time for complicated culinary techniques.

If one is going to default to the same old dinner of chicken and vegetables, there are simple ways to break the monotony of a plain old piece of meat. If anyone knows the value of the proper condiment, it’s the single person. An easy homemade sauce can make that Styrofoam tray of boneless skinless chicken breasts into a different and exciting meal every night of the week.

A good sauce does not have to be the work of a master French chef. The making of a sauce can be as simple as yogurt. Plain yogurt is widely available, and even better for condiment purposes is the increasingly available Greek yogurt. Greek yogurt is thicker and richer than standard American yogurt, thus lending itself well to sauce making. Adding chopped dill, garlic, a splash of white wine vinegar, a pinch of salt and sugar makes for a simple Greek-style sauce that can be served alongside grilled chicken, broiled salmon, or a roasted lamb chop.

If one has a little more time and motivation in the sauce department, making one’s own version of some of those refrigerator classic condiments is a satisfying way to spice up a meal. Homemade barbecue sauce is not very complicated and there is nothing like a good barbecue sauce to take beef, chicken, or pork from blah to delicious. A basic barbecue sauce needs to the elements of sweet, spicy, and tangy for that full bodied flavor. The sweet comes from some kind of sugar, the tangy from vinegar, and the spicy from anything from jalapeno to Tabasco. When all these elements are added to a tomato sauce you have a barbecue sauce that sure beats Bulls Eye in about the time it takes to defrost that precooked chicken breast.

Reaching back into that refrigerator door full of condiments, good old mayonnaise can be the base for dressing up a number of dishes. Aioli is just a fancy word for homemade mayonnaise. So the cheater’s aioli just takes that Best Foods hanging out in the fridge and mixes it up with some other condiments for quick burger topping or French fries dip. A little chopped Chipotle pepper makes a great aioli for a southwest chicken sandwich. Some lemon and garlic makes a good dip for swordfish kebabs. Or try cilantro and garlic to go alongside some fried potatoes.

Making dinner for one does not have to doom one to either unnecessary kitchen hassles or the monotony of a boring meal. With an arsenal of cheap kitchen tricks and a fridge full of condiments, a new and exciting dinner can await anyone with some saucy ingenuity.

Serves/Makes: 4

• 1/4 onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/2 a chipotle pepper, chopped
• 1 tablespoon molasses
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 2 teaspoons yellow mustard
• 1 tablespoon Mexican hot sauce (more if desired)
• 1 can (8 ounce size) tomato sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 pound thin cut boneless pork chops
• salt and pepper
• cornbread or corn muffins