Making meal prep , or, in Portuguese, prior preparation of meals , can be tiring. Every time you swear that this will be the weekend when you will finally be crowned the champion of prep … that’s not quite what happens.
“Almost nobody I talk to wants to spend their precious weekend time preparing food for the next week,” commented Utah-based nutritionist Rebecca Clyde, a one-person cooking expert. “Even though they are aware that this will save you time and energy during the week, the simple fact of knowing how many hours a person will spend in the kitchen discourages you.”
Instead of trying to force yourself to change your mind, it may be more useful to think about how you can streamline the process. From that, it is quite possible that you will begin to view this task in a different way.
“Anything that saves time and the fatigue of spending an hour chopping food, for example, can make this job more attractive,” said the nutritionist. This explains the attraction of the mandolin food slicer, grater and slicer. It is faster and more fun to see those vegetables passing quickly through the blade of the device.
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The satisfaction you get from seeing your meals perfectly prepared takes a little work.
“After saving so much time on one thing, you start thinking ‘it wasn’t that bad, after all’. This way, it will be easier to perform this task at other times ”, commented Clyde.
Here are 11 techniques that kitchen experts use to save time in the meal prep stage.
- Master the art of doing one task while waiting for another to complete.
“Think about the task that will take the longest and start with it”, recommends nutritionist Amanda Izquierdo, from Chicago. “It can be something like leaving a protein to marinate, boil water or preheat the oven.”
Processes that you can start and then leave to finish on your own allow you to finish other tasks while you wait, such as slicing vegetables or preparing salad dressings.
- Instead of chopping garlic with a knife, use the microplane grater.
Instead of chopping garlic with a knife, Izquierdo grates the garlic cloves on a microplane grater. “This eliminates the need for a knife and ensures that the pieces of garlic will be identical in size,” he explained.
Just push the garlic clove up and down, carefully as it gets smaller, so you don’t grate your fingers. “You can do the same thing with the onion you are going to use in soups or stews,” said the nutritionist.
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- Use an oversized board.
An extra-large chopping board can save a lot of time when chopping ingredients.
“You can push each ingredient to one side of the board, instead of having to place each one in smaller containers to make room for the next food to be chopped,” explained Michael Broughton, executive sub-chef at Outlier in Seattle.
Another thing: you won’t have to wash or water the board after chopping each ingredient.
- Perfect your peeling technique.
Instead of holding the food (for example, a cucumber or a carrot) in one hand and peeling it with the other, place it on the cutting board and hold it in place while you peel.
“Most peelers work in both directions,” said Broughton. “It is not necessary to remove the peeler from the top of the food to take it up and peel from top to bottom. You can peel up and down. That way the process takes half the time. ”
- Soak steel-cut oats overnight to use the next morning.
Steel-cut oats are made of roasted and cut in half grains, much less processed than the pressed grains seen more commonly. When you soak it overnight in water, the cooking time in the morning is halved.
“When the oats are soaked overnight, the starch decomposes, and this reduces cooking time,” said nutrition coach and recipe creator Katrina TaTaé.
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Steel-cut oats previously soaked are ready in much less time.
Place ¼ cup of steel-cut oats in a glass and cover it with a cup of water. You will be amazed the next morning, when you see how much water has been absorbed.
- Learn how to stabilize vegetables.
“Vegetables generally don’t just sit on the board when we are cutting them. Cut a small slice of the bulkier part of the vegetable to create a stable base on which to rest it. This will save you time, since you won’t have to ‘chase’ the vegetable on the board ”. The tip is from Cynthia Graubart, a culinary professor in Atlanta and author of cookbooks, awarded the James Beard Award.
- Choose a theme – and simplify.
Nutritionist Catherine Sebastian, from New York, chooses a main meat or vegetable protein for the whole week, but with enough diversification not to feel like she is eating the same thing all week.
If your theme of the week is ground turkey, for example, cook it in the slow cooker with a can of beans, corn, vegetables and chili sauce. Then sauté a little to stuff tacos. And add a can of marinara sauce to some of the revoked meat to make a pasta with vegetables.
“So, without any difficulty, you will already have the base of three meals of different flavors with a single source of protein, and all prepared at the same time (not to mention that they can all be made in larger quantities, to serve for lunch and dinner) ”Said Sebastian.
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Prepare bacon in the oven to avoid staining your stove with grease.
- Bake bacon in the oven.
“You can bake a whole package of bacon in the oven. It will be very straight and curly, ”said Denise Bustard, author of a blog about meal prep . “You don’t have to stand in front of the pan anymore, turning the bacon and making dirt.”
Leave the bacon in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes. Just keep an eye on the last few minutes, so you don’t miss the point. And ready!
- Bake the pumpkin before preparing it.
When you cut a raw pumpkin, very hard, and remove the seeds from it, you may be afraid to cut yourself. Because of this, it can almost seem that cooking pumpkin, strawberry and the like is not worth it.
“The process can be difficult and a little dangerous,” commented Bustard. For this very reason, she usually roasts the whole pumpkin before. “It is much easier to cut the pumpkin in half and remove the seeds after roasting it and let it cool a little. If you are making pumpkin spaghetti, this process avoids the risk of spaghetti being too soft. ”
- Use a mandolin grater and slicer.
Clyde’s main recommendation for streamlining the meal prep is to use a mandolin grater and slicer.
“With mandolin, I can slice my vegetables into very thin slices, and super fast,” she explained. “Using the protective support, you can slice beets to onions or Brussels sprouts very quickly – and without losing a finger.”
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Watch your fingers, even when using mandolin.
- Clean while cooking.
Instead of waiting until you have finished cooking before washing all the utensils, wash them gradually when you are free, for example when you are waiting for a pasta to cook or heating something in the microwave.
“It will look like your food is getting ready in less time, and you will have less dishes to wash later,” said Clyde.
