From one-pot meals to versatile dishes that last all week, our panel of experts serves up ideas for solo chefs

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.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

A light but filling no-bechamel souffle with a zingy citrus salad to add a sharp burst of flavour and colour

There is a skill in not wasting food and it’s all about good, old-fashioned housekeeping. If you learn how to store ingredients properly (cool, dark places are handy for spuds, for example) and keep tabs on what’s in your fridge/freezer, you can use everything up before it goes off – and make delicious things in the process. This golden, cheese-crusted souffle uses up the celeriac and spuds left after the festive season, plus any odds and ends of cheeses. It is spectacularly good, especially paired with a sparkling citrus salad.

A homegrown favourite with an Italian twist: choose whichever antipasti vegetables you like, and definitely use the oil from the jar

Perhaps you still have some cheeseboard odds and sods in the fridge from Christmas? I know I still have a few to get through, but, other than that, my fridge and cupboards are looking pretty bare. Beans on toast has always been my go-to meal in times such as these, and when I need comfort, familiarity and ease. What used to involve opening a tin and reheating the contents, however, has now become something slightly more elaborate. But only slightly: these beans are incredibly simple and quick to make, with store-bought antipasti adding real depth.

Beat the winter blues with a soul-soothing, Senegalese-inspired spiced chicken pie and hearty Nigerian plantain boats stuffed with black-eyed beans

If there’s anything that can assuage my winter blues, it’s a soul-soothing chicken pie. I’ve long enjoyed innovating fusions between west African and other cuisines, and today’s marriage of a deeply flavourful Senegalese chicken yassa-inspired filling in buttery, flaky puff pastry is one of my all-time favourites. But, first, my take on hearty Nigerian stewed beans – ewa riro – using tinned beans for added convenience. Typically paired with ripe plantain, I use the rich beans to fill canoas (plantain boats) in a playful, Latin American-inspired twist.

Earthy, sweet swede soaks up a curry sauce like a champion, and this ginger, tomato and coconut number is no exception

As a day-in-day-out home cook, there is no more welcome tool in my dinner toolbox than a bung-it-in-the-oven dish. A second necessary tool in the month of January is the ability to dispose of or transform a swede into an evening meal. For the uninitiated, when roasted, the swede, that pretty, purple-creamed, dense little ball, is part-creamy, part carrot-like in nature, and earthy and sweet in flavour. It also takes to big-flavoured sauces such as this tomato, ginger and coconut curry like a chip to vinegar and couples up well with its seasonal pal, fresh, crunchy purple sprouting broccoli.

This superb winter salad uses shaved and roast pumpkin to bring a riot of textural contrast and a flash of colour to a grey winter’s day

I try to grow a few varieties of squash every season, but in the past couple of years the results have more or less failed me. I originally put that down to the lack of time and attention I’d given those poor plants, but I’m now starting to wonder if the soil in my raised garden beds overlooking Lyme Bay in Dorset is actually right for them.

I’m not giving up just yet, though, and this year I’ll be trying different varieties in a different bed that I’ve prepared and composted over the winter with seaweed mulch. As luck would have it, however, my friend Rob Corbett came to the rescue a couple of weeks ago by giving me several specimens when he delivered some wine from his Castlewood vineyard a few miles away in east Devon. If you know your gourds even a little, you will also know that squashes keep for months, which is handy, because they ideally need to cure and ripen before use. Happily, that also means you can use your crop throughout the long winter months.

Mark Hix is a restaurateur and writer based in Lyme Regis, Dorset. His latest limited-edition book, Fishy Tales, with illustrations by Nettie Wakefield, is published at £90.