A Free Cooking for One Cookbook for the Single Life

Simple meals, practical help, and biblical encouragement for the table in front of you.

Cooking for one should not mean settling for whatever is quickest, wasting half of what you purchase, or treating your table as though it does not matter. Your present life is worth preparing for, and the ordinary work of planning and making a meal can become an act of gratitude, stewardship, and faithful care.

Table for One: Recipes and Reflections for the Single Life brings together 28 Dunn family recipes, practical guidance for cooking in a one-person household, and pastoral reflections written especially for single adults. Whether you are preparing one serving, planning intentional leftovers, or inviting someone else to share your table, this cookbook will help you approach mealtime with greater confidence and purpose.

Your Table Matters in This Season

Single life is not a waiting room where everything meaningful begins later. Marriage is a good gift, but it is not the finish line of Christian maturity, and a person’s value is never determined by marital status. In Christ, single adults are fully seen, deeply loved, and called to live faithfully in the life God has given them today.

That truth reaches into ordinary places, including the kitchen. Preparing a meal cannot complete us because only Christ can do that. Yet cooking can become one practical way to care for the life God has entrusted to us. A meal can express gratitude, encourage wise stewardship, create room for rest, and open the door to hospitality and community.

This cookbook was created from that conviction. It offers more than a collection of recipes. Each recipe is paired with a pastoral reflection that helps connect the practical rhythms of the kitchen with biblical truth, faithful discipleship, and the everyday experiences of the single life.

What You Will Find Inside

28 Dunn Family Recipes

These recipes have been gathered from the Dunn family and lightly edited for clarity, ease of use, and single-friendly preparation. The collection includes comforting soups, dependable main dishes, simple sides, breakfast favorites, desserts, and recipes meant to be shared around a larger table.

A Biblical Reflection with Every Recipe

Every recipe is paired with an original reflection written for single adults. These readings explore themes such as contentment, stewardship, patience, hospitality, community, identity in Christ, caring for yourself, and faithfully using what God has already placed in your hands.

Practical Help for Cooking for One

The opening guide addresses many of the challenges that can make cooking for one feel difficult. You will find encouragement for grocery planning, choosing useful kitchen tools, storing ingredients, using leftovers intentionally, reducing food waste, and building a kitchen routine that fits your actual life.

Recipes Designed for Real Life

Not every single adult needs every recipe to produce exactly one serving. Some recipes make one meal. Others create planned leftovers that can be refrigerated or frozen. The “For the Table” recipes intentionally make more so you can welcome friends, family members, neighbors, or members of your church community.

A Clean, Easy-to-Use Format

Each recipe and reflection is presented as a two-page experience. Begin with the pastoral reflection, then move directly into the ingredients, instructions, single-friendly notes, and practical application. The downloadable format is easy to read on a phone or tablet and can also be printed for personal use.

Receive Your Free Copy

Complete the form below, and we will give you access to the downloadable PDF edition of Table for One: Recipes and Reflections for the Single Life.

Use it in your kitchen, keep it on your phone or tablet, or print a personal copy so your favorite recipes are always close at hand.

Recipes for One and the Friends at Your Table

The cookbook includes familiar family recipes organized into six easy-to-browse sections:

• Soups: comforting recipes that are easy to portion, refrigerate, or freeze
• Main Dishes: dependable meals for ordinary weeknights
• Side Dishes: flexible additions that help complete a meal
• Desserts: simple treats without the pressure of preparing a large batch
• Breakfast: practical ways to begin the day with something nourishing
• For the Table: family recipes intended for fellowship, hospitality, church gatherings, and shared meals

Inside, you will find recipes such as Tomato Basil Soup, Chili, White Chicken Chili, Chicken Tacos, Noodles and Meat Sauce, Baked Fish, Fried Rice, Chocolate Cake, Omelets, French Toast, Mommaw’s Goulash, Aunt Martha’s Skillet Supper, and more.



These are approachable family recipes rather than complicated culinary projects. They are meant to help you cook with what you have, learn at your own pace, and build confidence one meal at a time.

Created for Single Adults in Every Season

There is no single story of singleness. Some adults have never married. Some are dating or engaged. Some are divorced, widowed, or parenting children on their own. Some expected their present season, while others are living through circumstances they never imagined. Some enjoy cooking alone, while others are still learning how to make the table feel like a place of peace and purpose.

Table for One was written with this broad and diverse community in mind. You do not need advanced cooking skills, a large kitchen, expensive equipment, or a picture-perfect life to use it. You only need a willingness to begin with the table in front of you.

Wherever you are in the single-adult journey, this cookbook offers practical help without treating singleness as a problem to solve. It points instead toward a faithful life centered on Christ, connected to the church, and open to the people God has placed around you.

A Family Cookbook with a Greater Purpose

The recipes in this collection come from the Dunn family and carry the warmth, simplicity, and practicality of food prepared in real homes. They have been preserved as much as possible while being organized to make each recipe easier to follow and more useful for someone cooking in a one-person household.

Alongside those family recipes, the reflections invite you to consider what God may be teaching through ordinary rhythms. Waiting for something to finish cooking can teach patience. Using what is already in the pantry can encourage stewardship. Preparing a meal with care can remind us that our bodies and our days are gifts from God. Making room for someone else at the table can turn food into hospitality.

Our hope is that this cookbook helps you prepare good food, waste less, welcome others, and recognize that your table already has purpose. A table for one is not an empty table when Christ is present.

Make Something Good with the Life in Front of You

You do not have to wait for a different season, a different household, or a different relationship status to care for yourself and use your table faithfully. Begin with one recipe, one meal, and one ordinary opportunity to receive God’s provision with gratitude.

Download your free cookbook and begin discovering simple recipes, biblical encouragement, and practical help created for the single life.