---
title: 'My Chef’s Guide To Week Night Meal Prepping'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=visxjkAQpTU'
video_id: 'visxjkAQpTU'
date: 2026-06-30
duration_sec: 1277
---

# My Chef’s Guide To Week Night Meal Prepping

> Source: [My Chef’s Guide To Week Night Meal Prepping](https://youtube.com/watch?v=visxjkAQpTU)

## Summary



## Transcript

happy New Year and welcome to the new year new me Club the time of year where
you have every intention of creating new habits waking up early eating healthier
getting fit and saving more money well I can't help you with most of those but I
can help you with creating delicious meal prep that doesn't suck so today's
video is my Ultimate Guide to weeknight meal prep dinners that don't suck from
my Chef's experience so I'm going to run you through four proteins two legums and
10 veg and garnish sides for burrito bowl inspired meal that you can mix and
match and not get bored throughout the week let's get stuck in the me prep
carbohydrate King rice but we're going to season it we'll do that once it's
cooked first of all rice in your rice cooker wash it till the water almost
runs clear enough water to the first knuckle into your rice cooker if you
don't have a rice cooker just use a pot with a lid bring it up to a simmer turn
the heat right down low and cook it until all the water's evaporated but the
same method before that rinse it really well first knuckle water on you go rice
white rice is delicious first step is to fluff it what seasoning we season our
rice people I don't know why people don't season their rice enough so you
can do it with like sushi rice seasoning which you can buy which works really
well what I like to do is use some of this which is a Japanese spice Mi which
I'm pretty sure is pronounced as tagi I could get that wrong I like a bit of
this which adds a nice little citrusy note and I like to amplify that citrusy
note with some lime zest and lime juice so I put half the seasoning in and stir
it through and add the other half take the time to season your rice because it
literally turns plain old rice into something that's really tasty and
Moorish with just a couple of extra
steps into a container give it a label and let it cool completely before we put
a lid on it and get it in the fridge one of my favorites black beans you need to
soak these covered in water overnight in the fridge once they've soaked for 24
hours you rinse them well until the water runs clear and then I found the
best way to cook black beans is in lots of water in a pressure cooker if you
don't have a pressure cooker you can just use a normal pot but it is going to
take a while just keep it simmering keep stirring it's probably going to take an
hour and a half so make sure the beans are really well covered in water it'll
absorb more than you probably expect then you're going to add a big pinch of salt three bay
leaves one onion just peeled and the ends off and four cloves of garlic just
crushed now remember you're going to eat these things for 4 days maybe 5 days
even so take the extra steps add the garlic add the onion season it well
otherwise it's going to be a pretty boring week turn that on you want it on
low pressure we'll check it after 25 minutes these have been cooking for 25
minutes and I release the pressure let's see how they're doing for me the ideal
black bean is it's nice and tender but it's still holding shape drain
those I mean you really just need to get the bay leaves out the onions can garlic
can stay in there nothing wrong with that pour it into our container label
it and let them cool until we put them in the fridge so we're going to get into
the protein section now we're going to start with salmon couple of things to
talk about I love crispy skin hand fried salmon however that does not hold up in
the fridge so don't bother trying to get crispy skin salmon now cuz it's just
going to taste like jelly rubber in 2 days time when you reheat it so I prefer
to bake my salmon when I'm using it for meal prep why cuz I think you can
control the temperature better of the inside for me I like to undercook my
salmon slightly rather than overcook it cuz you probably going to shove it
through the microwave to reheat it later or even when you eat it cold medium rare
salmon is far more juicy and tasty compared to well D salmon seasoning is
super important when it comes to all cooking but especially this cup of
cooking because you want to make sure that everything's seasoned nicely but it
all compliments each other you want something that's kind of going to work
with everything so you feel like salmon and black beans tonight and then salmon
and rice tomorrow you want it to still taste slightly different so all these
seasonings are going to use for proteins you can mix and match them use them on
whatever protein you want for the salmon I'm going to use olive oil then some
salt and then some ground fennel fennel works really well with fish it also
works pretty well with chicken and I'm going to use a little bit of ground
white pepper why white pepper over black pepper I don't know it's a weird like
French chef thing that they use white pepper with fish I guess cuz you can't
see it as much but you can use ground black pepper as well so in the oven it
goes on 190° C fan Force I'm going to check it after 8 minutes it'll probably take 10
though all right I know it's looking pretty pale but it won't be dry 2 more minutes be good to
go perfect you see it's still got a bit of Bounce in it so that'll be nice and
medium rare in the middle we're going to place it into our container let it cool
down before we put a lid on it and that skin will just peel off nicely when you
pull it out of the container chicken the meal protein of choice for most people
why chicken's pretty tasty I like chicken fun fact family owns a chicken
farm olive oil I like Old Bay on my chicken but I think Old Bay works really
well as a seasoning in general decent amount of O B on there and some salt and
then I'm going to take it outside to the grill which I've got ripping hot I'm
going to get some good bar lines on the outside before we put it on a tray line
with paper and we place it in the oven to finish cooking so why do we start it
on the grill and finish it in the oven well cuz we want the bar lines from the
grill to add some flavor finishing in the oven allows us to control the
temperature better and it's also an indirect source of heat so you got less
chance of the chicken drying out once that chicken reaches a internal
temperature of about 68 to 70° C we're going to pull it out and cool it down
quickly cuz it's safe to eat chicken has reached 70° internal pull it out into a
container let it cool down completely before you put a lid on it and place it
in the fridge the obligatory ground beef and I say obligatory but it's you know
it's good for a reason the only thing I will say about cooking beef like this is
go to a butcher and get good beef it makes such a difference if you put it in
the pan it shouldn't leech out heaps of water it's going to sometimes it'll
oxidize a little bit that's okay that's just cuz it's not packed with an inert
gas to stop that happening it's natural it happens if it's got a little bit of
brown like that don't stress it's fine it should smell like beef should be
fresh have no real odor and then we're going to season it and we're not going
to use taco seasoning we're going to use something more interesting this is Rasel
hanut which is a spice blend from like North Africa and really prominent in
Moroccan cooking but you can use whatever spice PKS you want like I said
earlier Pan's nice and hot we're going to break up our beef to little pieces
and just let it get some Browning season with salt and our Russ we're not going
to start breaking that up just you really want to let that mayard reaction
start to work before we start stirring so I'm doing about a kilo of beef in
total here but I'm going to do it in two 500 G batches and you could even go
three or four you really want to get great color on that beef but you know I
think two is enough in a pan this size anyway a bowl is not a Mexican invention
it's not something that you'll find in Mexico I don't think anyway I think it's
like a North Cali kind of thing so you can kind of be a bit more adventurous
with what you're putting in it doesn't need to be super traditional I often
love kimchi in my burrito bowls that I make at home and you see here that mince
has not let any water out into that pan and it doesn't take long to cook you
really do not want to overcook it so as soon as you see all the pink disappear that's good to
go first batch done let's do the other one label on it let it cool down before
you put a lid on it and place it in the fridge and the last protein we're going
to do is some prawns or shrimp if you live in the states well but technically
they're not the same thing but they kind of are the same thing does that make
sense not the same animal very similar anyway peed and deined prawns a good
drizzle of olive oil pinch of salt prawns are great too right really low
fat almost zero fat decent amount of protein they're just expensive and tahen some tahen that's
quite old by the looks of it so perfect for this you wouldn't really want to use
it on like a cocktail or something but considering this is going to be pan
fried it's great if you don't know what tahen is it's a Mexican spice plan very
citrusy uh a very small amount of heat not really much heat at all but um absolutely
delicious make sure all that stuff's all that stuff all that seasoning is kind of
nicely distributed pans on hot going to add a little bit more oil to the pan
olive oil let that come up to temperature and then we're going to add
our prawns a couple of minutes each side and instead of dumping the whole pan in
at once do it individually because it'll allow the pan to keep up a bit better if
that makes sense you put all these cold prawns in there the heat will really
come out of that pan we want to cook these quickly and ideally get a little
bit of char on them too once you see the Tails start to go pink time to flip then
we're going to turn the heat off add the juice of a lemon and out they come label on let
them cool we're going to move into the veg section of this video but I want to
start with something that's actually not going to be ready today Sauer CRA is one
of those things that I always have in my fridge having something fermented with
your diet everyday is really good for your gut health and you can absolutely
just go buy sour crout and use it there's nothing wrong with that but if
you make it yourself it just tastes better cabbage fancy cabbage peeler now
we need to weigh the Cabbage 1.7 kilos every 1 kilo of cabbage we need 20 gram
of cooking sea salt that will work out to be a grand total of 34 gram of salt
so we need 34 G of cooking salt which is more than you probably think actually
let's see oh there we go that's 38 stunning and now we need to get all that
evenly across that the best way to do it is to do it in batches season it really
rub it in there push that to one side Ras you feel the liquid coming out of
that already look at this going to wash my hands we'll leave that for half an
hour and then we'll pack it into a ceramic jar and we'll let it ferment for
4 weeks you won't see the end product in this video I'm sorry but oh it's on a
short I have a short I'll link it below so it's set for half an hour and you can
see here a lot of water's come out but we want that water don't throw that away
going to put some Caraway I like caroway caroway is delicious quite a bit of
carow away going to evenly mix that through and then here I've got a
fermenting jar ceramic jar you can just use a glass jar if you want okay so
we're going to pack this you want to pack it fairly tight you don't want big
air bubbles small handfuls and it goes and push it down and any extra liquid
make sure you pour that in as well so we're going to press down nice and firm
on this and you should feel the the liquid covering the Cabbage doesn't have
to be covered by a lot but you want there to be water on the top if the
water doesn't cover it dissolve some more salt in some water for every kilo
or liter of water add 20 G of salt and dissolve it and then pour it on the top
you won't need a later you might need 100 m or something cuz you need that to
kind of cover it anyway put some weights on top which will keep that cabbage
under that water level stunning secretly just wanted to make some sauerkraut
during work hours so I kind of incorporated into video this will be
ready in 4 weeks it'll be delicious 3 weeks if you want it crunchy and not
super strong 4 weeks if you want it a little bit more you know funky I'm going
to put some water in this too and what that will do is like I said before
create an airlock I'll see you in four weeks veggies there's two things I want to
talk about before you start cooking them cuz we're going to go rapid fry through
these cuz it's a lot of the same thing and I don't want to bore you the first
thing I want to talk about is make sure you undercook your veggies I think a
large reason why a lot of people don't like to eat veggies not looking at
anyone Dez is because they were served rubbish veggies that were overcooked as
kids undercook them they're going to get reheated well-cooked veggies are
delicious overcooked veggies suck the second thing is acid acid is super
important in cooking and I think it's underutilized a lot for the home cook
acid balances flavor enhances flavor and there's lots of ways to add acid you can
use citrus like lemons and limes or even oranges and blood oranges or you can use
vinegars vinegars are very broad there's lots of vinegar if you had to have one
I'd say just have apple cider vinegar that'll do the job well a close second
would be something like this a cherry vinegar this is quite an expensive
Cherry vinegar you don't need to get a super expensive one you can if you want
a very delicious vinegar though a little bit sweeter a Chinese style black
vinegar that's usually the ones that you have in Dumplings but I really like it
um to use it to season veggies as well it's a bit sharper has quite a nice you
know multi flavor almost and then this is a vinegar that I've become really
accustomed to uh lately in the last couple of years spending a bit of time
in the Philippines as a coconut vinegar a bit of more of a mild flavor um as far
as the coconut but it's got quite a pungent kind of vinegar flavor which is
which isn't a bad thing you just need to be careful when you're using it so how
we're going to attack the veggies is we're going to sauté them and a little
bit of olive oil salt and we're going to season them with vinegar the vinegar is
going to balance out flavor and it's also going to help us as we store these
veggies we're going to raise the acid level means they're not going to go off
as quick and they should hold their crunch a bit longer that's enough of me
yapping it's going to be quick fire show you how to cut them pan fry move on to
the next one first up zucchini or corette depending where around the world
so top and tail off your zucchini straight down the middle and then you
want to cut on an angle relatively thick get your pan nice and
hot once your oil is starting to smoke add your zucchini don't overcrowd your
pan and just like with the beef let them get a bit of color up before you start
tossing little bit of salt ground cumin works really well with zucchini after a
couple of minutes give them a stir and then leave them again for another few
more minutes this is what we're looking for if we can get color like this on all
sides we're in a good place however undercooking them is more important than
having color in my opinion in this scenario cuz if you overcook these just
to get color you're going to get really soggy veg that's it that's all those need out
there go and we'll cook the rest all right going to turn the heat
off going to add the first lot back and we're going to dress them with a little bit of
vinegar out they come zucchinis done next up squash but a word of warning if
you you're using your favorite pan of this it's a carbon pan or a cast iron
pan the vinegar at the end might affect your seasoning so don't don't come at me
if you're seasoning your stay in a steel pan no drama to cut these beautiful
yellow squash in half and then each half into three if they're smaller just in
half and in half again very similar to the last ones oiling let it get hot oh
um do me a favor and um like this video And subscribe so that I can um continue
making them and I hate having to ask I don't know why it feels so desperate you
are desperate yeah I know I am I'm desperate oil's hot and those go ideally
you want these the flesh side down that's going to get more color than the
skin side PID of salt going to use a little bit of ground coriander get some color on one side
flip them around same on the other stunning heat off good color on
these I'm happy with those look great don't they let that pan temperature come
down a little bit little bit of apple cider vinegar
and off they come squash done red capsicums slice the faces off make sure you get the bottom
and a bit around the top and then I like strips pan on high olive oil in capsicum
or bell pepper I'm going to enhance the capsicum flavor by using a little bit of
paprika paprika is just dried and ground up capsicum good amount of color there
pan off we're going to use lemon juice for the acid label capsicum done next up
asparagus I have a theory on asparagus my theory is only eat it when it's in
season you should only eat most things when they're in season especially
asparagus I don't know why but in Australia we always get this imported
asparagus and it annoys me because we make we grow great asparagus here if
it's not in season just don't eat it on your Pan's hot olive oil in let that heat up asparagus
salt and I'm going to use lemon Myrtle if you don't have lemon Myrtle it's an
Australian native uh spice if you live in Australia you can order the stuff
online if you don't live in Australia you might be able to order online if you
don't want to just use some lemon zest but we're not going to put it in just
yet we want to get some half de in Char on this asparagus we don't want to burn the lemon
Myrtle oh yeah okay we getting some nice color developing here that is what we're looking for heat
offcial and use a little bit of coconut vinegar with this one actually going to toss that
first asparagus done next up corn it's got the juice how crazy was that well what a
time he's like he was like six so hopefully he's in school going to run
your blade down the side of the cob taking all the kernels off now if you're
a smarter man than me you'll do this into a bowl so it doesn't go everywhere
and if you're even SM you'd stop what you were doing and fix the problem
instead of just carrying on but we're here now pan on high olive oil this will take
seconds I'm not going to put any other spice on that hot oil in the pan pinch of salt
done and that's all the cooking done baby spinach is something that I'll
always have cuz it's delicious and it's full of iron is that true Dez before I
spread false information I have no no idea I'm just referencing Popeye it does
have iron in it can confirm vitamin A vitamin C vitamin K iron potassium and
add some protein leafy greens they're good for you wash it put it in a
container then it's good to go the idea of all this work we're doing now you get
home after a busy day you open some containers you choose your own journey I
want some salmon I want some prawns I want a bit of zucchini some spinach and
some asparagus and then tomorrow the same thing happens and you go oh
actually I want some black beans and a little bit of rice some beef some
zucchini some red pepper choose your own Journey you know what I mean spinach
it's the easiest one yet so since I decided to go RAR you can make a recipe
that takes 4 weeks the other way you can do cabbage is I like to use raw red
cabbage shaved nice and fine I love this thing it's so satisfying and then I just season it
with a pinch of salt and some coconut vinegar it's basically a quick pickle it
will lose a bit of water and kind of pull up in the bottom of the of the
container but that's okay it'll go nice and vibrant red which adds a nice pop of
color and even if you're just pulling a bowl of of veggies into a burrito bowl
at home making it kind of presentable is always good you know eat with your eyes
and all that and that goes some seasoned raw red cabbage label we've only got one thing left and
it is the easiest cucumber the trick I think with keeping cucumber fresh is to
remove the seeds so in half take the tops off in half lengthways and and
again then cut the seeds out and I think they just don't go as soggy we're not
going to season this cuz otherwise the the water will kind of pull out which is
a a thing salted cucumbers does work but I want to try and keep this fresh cuz
everything we've got here you know is nicely seasoned with vinegar and salt so
a nice little bit of freshness always helps to cleanse the pet and then we're
just going to cut these at an
angle cucumber one last thing avocados always have a couple of
avocados on hand I'll have one that's a little bit less ripe than the other one
so that one's ready to eat in the next day or Sue and the other one should be
ready later on in the week if you're only using half avocado cut it open
Twist It Off use the half that doesn't have the PIP in it or the seed in it and
leave the seed in the half that you're saving cover it in plastic wrap or into
an airtight container I don't know if it works or not I don't know if there's any
truth to this but for me I find that it goes Browner slower if you keep that
seed in that side so there you go that's how I meal prep as a chef few key things
to remember don't overcook your veg especially and only just cook your meats
and proteins make sure you got lots of variety so you don't get bored then you
can pull bits different nights of the week Chicken on one night with some
zucchini beef the next night with some capsicum some corn bit of fresh avocado
in there and that way you won't get bored make sure you're using acid to
season things properly it'll also keep things fresher longer thanks so much for
watching Legends Happy New Year hope it's a crack one don't worry this
channel ain't turning into some healthy Channel but people do always ask me how
I eat often at home look when I'm not eating the food that we cook that's
super rich and delicious I eat really simple basic stuff to try and keep a nice balanced diet happy
2025 And subscribe