Forget girl dinner or boy kibble — you deserve a real meal even if you’re dining solo

By Karla Walsh, CNN

(CNN) — Chef Hillary Sterling has worked in kitchens with culinary icons such as Bobby Flay and Missy Robbins. Sterling has traveled and eaten her way through many corners of Italy, and she now helms the bustling New York City restaurant Ci Siamo.

But the Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef isn’t too proud to admit that when she’s home alone for dinner, she occasionally stands at the counter scooping pretzels into hummus straight from the tub.

Chefs, they are just like us.

“My other guilty pleasure is to order delivery from Peter Luger, which is just five blocks from my house. I default to this so often that the team knows my order by heart: a Caesar salad and a burger, medium-rare,” Sterling said, referring to the well-known New York City steakhouse.

The chef, who lives in Brooklyn with wife Tess McNamara and their 4-year-old son, isn’t above a “girl dinner” or takeout. But Sterling also likes to return to her roots and whip up a simple 15-minute pasta dinner that reminds her of one of her beloved matriarchs.

“My grandparents grew up in the Depression, so my grandma was a thrifty yet soulful home cook,” Sterling told CNN. “She also created this environment in our house that was warm and inviting. We always gathered around the table.” To this day, the chef still dreams about her grandmother’s kosher spaghetti and meatballs — served with soft, squishy white bread.

Sterling swears by Bucatini all’Amatriciana as a go-to back-pocket dinner as a tip of her cap to her grandma — and to her passion for Italian cuisine. Featured in her new cookbook, “Ammazza! Culinary Adventures from New York to Italy and Back Again,” Sterling declared it “a dish I could eat every day.”

“I love amatriciana because it’s like the best parts of marinara, the sweet-tart tomatoes, mixed with my favorite part of carbonara: bacon. Or guanciale, if you have it. Plus, if you stock a can of tomato paste, an onion and a box of pasta in the pantry, have some bacon in the freezer, and keep some pecorino cheese in the fridge, you have everything you need for a satisfying meal for one,” Sterling said.

Pasta is actually one dish that’s occasionally better to prepare in single servings. Yes, even beyond those heat-and-eat cups of mac and cheese.

“That’s how I teach my cooks at the restaurant. It’s much easier to emulsify a pasta dish like cacio e pepe or amatriciana in one pan. It helps the marriage of the noodles and the sauce, supported by a splash of starchy pasta water,” she said.

Enjoyed on its own or paired with roasted broccoli with garlic and a medium-bodied white wine like pinot grigio or light red wine such as nebbiolo, Sterling believes this dinner for one might just inspire you to exclaim “ammazza!” — a Roman term for a feeling of overwhelming joy and delight.

Amatriciana has roots very close to Italy’s capital city. The sauce and dish come from Amatrice, a town north of Rome near Abruzzo, Sterling said, “where it’s also claimed as a regional specialty.”

Becoming a chef and cookbook author

Sterling bused tables during high school and, after plodding through a year-long desk job she hated post-college, she completed culinary school in Chicago and hasn’t looked back since. Soon, she’ll open a second location of Ci Siamo in Boston with restaurateur Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group. The chef said she has always thought that “this is the best job in the world. I feel so much joy walking into my kitchen every morning.”

With her cookbook packed with more than 100 recipes to serve one or a party — plus plenty of tips along the way — Sterling hopes to inspire home cooks to feel a bit more delight (or at least confidence) in the kitchen, too.

“My main goal is to teach people to be comfortable cooking and to trust themselves. Using your senses is key. As is not being perfect. It’s OK to make mistakes over and over to figure out what you like,” Sterling said, before asserting that even “bad” pasta is often pretty good. And that hummus and pretzels can be a solid backup plan.

Bucatini all’Amatriciana

While you could use a red onion to add an aromatic note, Sterling prefers a shallot because it lends more natural sweetness, cooks faster and is an ideal size for an individual portion. If you can’t find or don’t love bucatini, she suggested trying this same formula with rigatoni.

Serves 1

Total cooking time: About 15 minutes

Ingredients

• Kosher salt
• 1 cup water
• 2 ounces guanciale or pancetta, rind removed, cut into ¼-inch-thick strips (Bacon is a suitable substitute if you prefer.)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 large shallot, petaled (see note*)
• Crushed red pepper flakes
• 5 tablespoons double-concentrated tomato paste
• 5 ounces bucatini
• Freshly grated Pecorino Romano, for garnish
• Optional: Calabrian chili oil, for garnish

Instructions

• Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Once boiling, generously salt the water.
• In a small saucepan, bring 1 cup water to a boil and set it aside. This unsalted hot water will be used to build the sauce.
• In a medium sauté pan, heat the guanciale and the olive oil over high heat. Once the guanciale starts sizzling, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, stirring often, until the guanciale crisps and renders its fat, about 3 minutes.
• Reduce the heat to low, add the shallot directly to the fat, and cook, stirring often, until soft and translucent, about 4 minutes. Add a pinch of red pepper flakes to the fat, then remove the pan from the heat and let the pepper flakes bloom, about 1 minute. (If the pepper flakes start spitting at you, it means your oil is too hot, and you will burn them.) Pour off about one-quarter of the oil from the pan and reserve it for cooking eggs the next morning.
• Return the pan to medium heat and stir in the tomato paste. Cook, stirring often, until the tomato paste turns the fat red, 2 to 3 minutes. Add 6 tablespoons of the reserved hot water to the pan and bring the tomato mixture to a boil. Stir constantly until the fat, water, and tomato paste emulsify and thicken the sauce, about 30 seconds. Remove the pan from heat and set aside.
• Add the bucatini to the boiling water and cook until al dente, using the package directions as a guideline — but taste a piece for yourself.
• Using tongs, lift the pasta out of the water and transfer it to the pan, bringing along any pasta water that clings and drips from the pasta. Return the pan to medium-high heat and cook, tossing vigorously, until the pasta turns reddish pink — a sign that it is absorbing the sauce — about 3 minutes. Add a few more splashes of the reserved hot water. Continue cooking and tossing until the tomato and fat merge to create a beautiful, glossy sauce that coats the pasta, about 30 seconds more.
• Transfer to a serving bowl and garnish with Pecorino Romano and more pepper flakes or Calabrian chili oil, if you’d like it spicier. Eat hot.

*Note: To petal the shallot, first halve it. Place each half flat side down on a cutting board. Working one at a time, cut it into four wedge-shaped pieces, each ¼- to ½-inch thick, slicing from the center outward. Gently pull apart the layers to form petal-like shapes.

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Recipe adapted from “Ammazza! Culinary Adventures from New York to Italy and Back Again” by Hillary Sterling with Theresa Gambacorta. Copyright © 2026 by Hillary Sterling and Theresa Gambacorta. Published by Scribner.