diff --git a/recipes/configs/llama3_2/1B_lora_single_device.yaml b/recipes/configs/llama3_2/1B_lora_single_device.yaml
index 72c03f55d9..fff39d461f 100644
--- a/recipes/configs/llama3_2/1B_lora_single_device.yaml
+++ b/recipes/configs/llama3_2/1B_lora_single_device.yaml
@@ -52,6 +52,13 @@ seed: null
 shuffle: True
 batch_size: 4
 
+validation:
+  dataset:
+    _component_: torchtune.datasets.alpaca_cleaned_dataset
+    packed: False
+  run_every_n_epochs: .5
+  max_batches: 5
+
 # Optimizer and Scheduler
 optimizer:
   _component_: torch.optim.AdamW
diff --git a/recipes/lora_finetune_single_device.py b/recipes/lora_finetune_single_device.py
index 9a3f3eacfb..964f75fbd5 100644
--- a/recipes/lora_finetune_single_device.py
+++ b/recipes/lora_finetune_single_device.py
@@ -335,6 +335,36 @@ def setup(self, cfg: DictConfig) -> None:
             last_epoch=self.global_step - 1,
         )
 
+        # Setup the validation dataset
+        validation_config = cfg.get("validation")
+        self.run_validation = validation_config is not None
+        actual_steps_per_epoch = (
+            self._steps_per_epoch
+            if self.max_steps_per_epoch is None
+            else min(self._steps_per_epoch, self.max_steps_per_epoch)
+        )
+        self.run_val_every_n_steps = int(
+            actual_steps_per_epoch * validation_config.get("run_every_n_epochs", 0)
+        )
+        if self.run_validation:
+            self._sampler_val, self._dataloader_val = self._setup_data(
+                cfg_dataset=validation_config.dataset,
+                shuffle=cfg.shuffle,
+                batch_size=cfg.batch_size,
+                collate_fn=collate_name,
+            )
+
+            if self.run_val_every_n_steps is None:
+                log.warning(
+                    f"""Validation is enabled but run_val_every_n_steps is not set.
+                    Will be set to steps_per_epoch. ({self._steps_per_epoch})"""
+                )
+                self.run_val_every_n_steps = self._steps_per_epoch
+            elif self.run_val_every_n_steps < 1:
+                raise ValueError("run_val_every_n_steps must be greater than 0.")
+
+            self.max_validation_batches = validation_config.get("max_batches", -1)
+
         # Set up profiler, returns DummyProfiler (nullcontext object with no-op `step` method)
         # if cfg is missing profiler key or if `cfg.profiler.enabled = False
         self._profiler = self._setup_profiler(cfg.get(PROFILER_KEY, None))
@@ -652,6 +682,34 @@ def _loss_step(self, batch: Dict[str, torch.Tensor]) -> torch.Tensor:
 
         return loss
 
+    def validate(self, curr_epoch) -> None:
+        pbar = tqdm(
+            total=min(len(self._dataloader_val), self.max_validation_batches - 1)
+        )
+        val_losses = []
+        for idx, batch in enumerate(self._dataloader_val):
+            if (
+                self.max_validation_batches > 0
+                and idx == self.max_validation_batches - 1
+            ):
+                break
+            utils.batch_to_device(batch, self._device)
+
+            current_loss = self._loss_step(batch)
+            val_losses.append(current_loss.item())
+
+            pbar.update(1)
+            pbar.set_description(
+                f"{curr_epoch + 1}|{idx}|Validation Loss: {current_loss.item()}"
+            )
+
+        self._metric_logger.log_dict(
+            {
+                "avg_val_loss": sum(val_losses) / len(val_losses),
+            },
+            step=self.global_step,
+        )
+
     def train(self) -> None:
         """
         The core training loop.
@@ -674,7 +732,7 @@ def train(self) -> None:
                 # in case shuffle is True
                 self._sampler.set_epoch(curr_epoch)
 
-                pbar = tqdm(total=self._steps_per_epoch)
+                pbar = tqdm(total=self._steps_per_epoch, position=0)
                 for idx, batch in enumerate(self._dataloader):
                     if (
                         self.max_steps_per_epoch is not None
@@ -723,7 +781,7 @@ def train(self) -> None:
                         loss_to_log = running_loss.item() / num_tokens
                         pbar.update(1)
                         pbar.set_description(
-                            f"{curr_epoch + 1}|{self.global_step}|Loss: {loss_to_log}"
+                            f"{curr_epoch + 1}|{self.global_step}|Training Loss: {loss_to_log}"
                         )
 
                         # Log per-step metrics
@@ -753,6 +811,12 @@ def train(self) -> None:
                         num_tokens = 0
                         t0 = time.perf_counter()
 
+                        if (
+                            self.run_validation
+                            and self.global_step % self.run_val_every_n_steps == 0
+                        ):
+                            self.validate(curr_epoch=curr_epoch)
+
                     # Stop tracking CUDA memory now that active steps are complete
                     if (
                         curr_epoch == 0