I really struggle with cooking for one, so what can I make in January that’s interesting but easy and, most importantly, warming?
Jane, via email
“There’s an art to the perfect solo meal,” says Bonnie Chung, author of Miso: From Japanese Classics to Everyday Umami, “and that’s balancing decadence with ease.” For Chung, that means good-quality ingredients (“tinned anchovies, jarred beans”), a dish that can be cooked in one pan (“a night alone must be maximised with minimal washing-up”) and eaten with a single piece of cutlery, “preferably in front of the telly and out of a bowl nestling in your lap”. Happily, she says, all of those requirements are met by miso udon carbonara: “It has all the rich and creamy nirvana of a cheesy pasta, but with a delicious, mochi-like chew that is incredibly satisfying.” Not only that, but you can knock it up in less than 10 minutes. “Melt cheese, milk and miso in a pan to make the sauce base, then add frozen udon that have been soaked in hot water.” Coat the noodles in the sauce, then serve with crisp bacon or perhaps a few anchovies for “pops of salty fat”. Crown with a golden egg yolk (preferably duck, but hen “will suffice”), which should then be broken: “Add a crack of black pepper, and your cosy night in has begun.”

“January feels like a time for fresh, bright flavours,” says the Guardian’s own Felicity Cloake, which for her often means pasta con le sarde made with tinned fish, fennel seeds and lots of lemon juice; “or with purple sprouting broccoli and a generous helping of garlic and chilli”. A jar of chickpeas, meanwhile, mixed, perhaps, with harissa, chopped herbs and crumbled feta, brings the possibility of a quick stew, Cloake adds, while it’s always a good shout to braise some beans, because cook-once, eat-all-week recipes are a godsend – so long as they’re versatile, that is.

James Freeman, head chef at Thomas Straker’s new Acre restaurant in west London wholeheartedly concurs: “One of my favourite things is to roast delica pumpkin with aleppo chilli, garlic and ginger, and then eat that with braised white beans and a nice salsa verde to cut through the richness.” Not only that, he says, but “you could also blend the roast pumpkin to stir through the beans and, on another day, turn the beans and pumpkin into soup and garnish with any leftover salsa verde. That would be banging, and you won’t be wasting a thing.” Of course, similar tactics could be applied to roast chicken, if you have time of a weekend: “Save the bones to make a broth, then shred any leftover meat into that, or use it in a salad or even eat with those beans and pumpkin.”

Above all, though, Cloake refuses to recognise “the idea that cooking entirely selfishly, and according to one’s own whims and eccentricities of taste, is not inherently as, if not more, satisfying than cooking to please others”. The “quickest of all” ways to achieve this, she insists, is a three-egg omelette filled with whatever veg, herbs, cured meat or cheese you happen to have in the fridge: “It’s severely underrated as a meal.” On the table in mere minutes, plus “the only person who’ll be cross if you overcook it is yourself”. Win-win.