Cooking as a “single person” is really about mastering portion control and learning how to scale. A single onion may not seem like too much onion, but a single-person portion of a recipe rarely calls for an entire onion. Enter the shallot, which is naturally the size of about half an onion (or less) and is much better…
Source: LifeHacker – Shallots Are the Perfect Single-Person Onion Alternative