Madmakker
A meal plan when you live alone — without eating the same thing for four days
Planning food for one is harder than for four, not easier: recipes are written for families, groceries are sold in family sizes, and the rest rots in the fridge. The answer is not to cook less food, but to plan the leftovers as real days and to shop for a week rather than for a recipe.
Why being one is difficult
Because everything in the system around you assumes there are several of you. Recipes say four servings, the cucumber is sold whole, and the mince comes in 500 g. If you have to convert it yourself every time, meal planning suddenly becomes arithmetic on top of a decision.
And then there is the thing nobody says out loud: nobody is waiting for the food. The motivation to cook properly for yourself is lower than for other people, and that is precisely why a plan made in advance makes a bigger difference when you live alone than when you do not.
Four things that work for one
1. Plan the leftovers as a day
Cook for two and write the second day into the plan. That halves the number of times you have to start, and starting, not cooking, is the expensive part.
2. Shop for the week, not for the meal
A list gathered from the whole week's meals uses the cucumber twice. A list per recipe buys two cucumbers and throws one away.
3. Keep two days that demand nothing
Eggs on toast, pancakes, or whatever you can make without reading. When you live alone, nobody takes over if you cannot face it, so the plan itself has to leave room for that.
4. Freeze in portions you will actually defrost
A portion for one defrosts in an evening. A pot for four does not, and then it stays in the freezer for five months.
How Madmakker helps
You set the household to one person, and portions, shopping list and budget are all recalculated to match. Leftovers are worked into the plan on their own, so dinner is reused a couple of days later and you avoid cooking from scratch every day. The shopping list gathers the items from the whole week rather than one meal at a time.
The app is free, needs no account and works without an internet connection. If the week has fallen apart anyway, »Orker ikke« — »can't face it« — gives one suggestion based on what you have, and one of the options is buying something ready-made. The app has no opinion about that.
Read more about what Madmakker does, or see how it stands against the other Danish meal planning apps.
Questions
Can Madmakker make a meal plan for one person?
Yes. Set the household to one adult, and portions, the shopping list and the price estimate are all recalculated to match.
Will I end up eating the same thing four days running?
No. Dinner is reused a couple of days later as a planned leftovers day, not four days in a row, and the lunches vary independently.
What about products that only come in large packs?
The shopping list gathers the items from the whole week's meals, so a large pack gets used across several days instead of sitting there going off after a single meal.
Get Madmakker
Get it free on Google Play Free · Android 7.0 and later · No ads
This page was last reviewed on 3 September 2026 against Madmakker 1.2. If something here is wrong, write to kontakt@nixio.dk.