20 Meal Prep Hacks — Step-by-Step Guide & Transcript

[00:01] it is my ability to meal prep and it's the reason why I've been able to thrive as a home cook over the last decade of my life and in order to meal prep at a high level I've had to develop a bunch of different hacks and today I'm going

[00:15] to be showing you 20 of them that make my meal prepping easier quicker more efficient and more delicious all right so before we get into any actual cooking and meal prep there's two quick organizational hacks that I got to start

[00:29] off with the put you in the best place for success and number one is having all of your pantry Essentials in one convenient place I consolidate My Essentials with a lazy Susan for easy access but I've used a ton of different

[00:43] organizational tactics over the years in different kitchens and in the studio I have a few of these to separate out my fats my vinegars and my Essential these are the items that you're going to be using nearly every time you go to

[00:57] either very close to where you're prepping your food like this shelf right here or having a system that's movable that can be brought over to where you're cooking your food will only save you time and enhance the efficiency of your

[01:10] meal prep now another essential for meal prep success is having an assortment of prep bowls this is huge and it's where home Cooks start to take inspiration from professional kitchens with that Mis andlast mindset now of course we don't

[01:24] need to be Meed out every night for service but as a home cook when I get in pants which is why it's so important to have a variety of very conveniently located prep bowls to organize your ingredients as you prep them and easily

[01:38] accessible is key here just like the essential Pantry items you want these prep bowls as close to your Prep Station as possible I actually designed this prep table right here with shelves specifically to house all of these prep

[01:50] bowls but at my house the drawer under my kitchen island I have dedicated both of them to my prep bowls and of course you want an assortment of sizes now if kitchen you could get away with just a set of stainless steel prep bowls but I

[02:05] personally like a variety of materials for different tasks in the kitchen so my veggies are generally going in Wood bowls baking needs are ceramic and glass bowls and the metal bowls are more allpurpose and the last thing I'll say

[02:18] is you want some big mixing bowls at least one this is so important for prepping big batches of food or making a dough or seasoning some popcorn or a big salad which brings me into my next hack

[02:32] the kitchen sink salad and this is a salad that I'm making nearly every day of my life because I can look in my fridge and I can offload those sort of hanging around in your fridge so you can simultaneously keep things from going to

[02:48] waste while getting a delicious salad on the other side so of course you need a base of lettuce or Hardy greens which I try to just have stocked in the fridge at all times and I'll chop that up get that in the big ass Bowl then I'm just

[03:00] scouring the fridge for potential salad ingredients and here I've got some sugar snap peas I've got some random carrots that were going to waste some leftover hard-boiled eggs for my kids dinner and some leftover bread which brings me into

[03:12] my next hack of course all of the ingredients that I can chop up for this salad I will but sometimes I do think it is just more effective and it's quicker to use a peeler over a knife so for these carrots I can peel off the outer

[03:27] skin right into the compost and then I'll just start peeling them right into the salad and the same thing goes for cheese rather than potentially dirtying up your cutting board if it is a hard cheese I generally just peel it right in

[03:39] and you get these nice shreds that mix very well into a salad now of course all of these diverse yummy ingredients are going to make your salad tastes good but in my opinion the key to taking your salad to the next level is a crispy

[03:52] breadcrumbs great option sometimes I'll do that with Crispy tortilla strips anything that you can quickly crispy and my favorite way to do this is the air fryer which brings me into my next hack if you were to dump in small little bits

[04:05] of food in your air fryer tray it's just going to fall right through those holes that's a problem well this might be the most obvious hack on this list but it took me a while to realize that you can just remove the tray it might be less

[04:17] efficient as circulating that convection air but trust me your air fryer doesn't care you can just use your air fryer as a standard roasting tray without that rack but for these breadcrumbs of course we need fat to fry them them up which

[04:30] brings me into hack number six making your own cooking spray now if you've watched my air fryer videos you know I love using cooking sprays cuz it just makes it so easy to evenly coat something with oil but I have been

[04:43] trying to limit them since of course they are single use which is not great filled with propellants and aerosols and different additives so I actually bought a canister that's specifically designed for oil and I just pop in some grape

[04:56] seed oil or avocado oil something neutral that can handle a heat and it's not an airol based spray but this canister does have a pretty nice even misting ability and of course I can just refill it when it's low versus throwing

[05:09] like that I've got some nice crispy breadcrumbs to finish off that salad but of course we need a dressing which brings me into hack number seven the condiment bottle salad dressing this doesn't always work out but I love this

[05:25] the end of its line it just has a little bit left in the bottle and that salad dressing just make the salad dressing in that bottle just like this honey here instead of using a ton of effort to scoop out those last bits I'll

[05:40] make my dressing right in here by adding some lemon juice some apple cider vinegar some olive oil a little bit of mustard a little bit of mayo and salt and pepper and then with this honey it needs a very aggressive shaking in order

[05:52] and just like that I've got a nice Creamy Honey djn vinegret that I can use throughout the week for the next few salads and now that our salad's done I'm moving on to two more organizational and efficiency hacks number eight is having

[06:06] system in the world of cooking there's nothing that gets me more heated than when people just excessively use paper towels to clean up verse having a proper

[06:18] dish rag system it's not that I don't use any paper towels I have a roll right use any paper towels I have a roll right here for certain situations but 90% of the cleaning load is happening with a dish t they are just much more effective

[06:32] less wasteful now I've been preaching this for years but get yourself a pack or two of proper dish towels I like the 15x 25 in range and what I mean by having a system for your dish towels is

[06:46] kitchen that's convenient cuz you're going to be using a lot and then they need a place to go when they are dirty in my studio I have some hangers right chill out before they go in the laundry at home I just a basket that they go

[07:00] into then when they build up and you have a solid load of laundry they all go into the laundry they get sanitized they get folded back up and the cycle continues now coming in at the number nine spot is having a dedicated compost

[07:13] bin somewhere in your Prep Station ready to collect your food scraps now big shout out to Rachel Ray for really popularizing this concept at least for my generation with her 30-minute meal show she always had some type of prep

[07:27] food scrap scps which is just a convenient way to get rid of your waste but I would imagine actually I could almost bet my life that her food scraps were probably going straight into the garbage and I say that from experience

[07:41] from being on different TV cooking sets and seeing the amount of food waste that goes down it's just insane but it was at least a start now I've tried fancier looking tabletop compost bins they don't work for me because I am just absolutely

[07:55] plowing through food scraps which is why I currently like to use these heavy Beauty Cambro plastic containers I have about six of these they're multi-purpose you can use them for all types of prep and storage but also can multitask as a

[08:09] nice tabletop compost bin which brings me to the sponsor of today's video wrinkle and their home composter system now for me it is very important to actually compost my food scraps and not just throw them in the trash and there's

[08:22] a lot of different ways you can achieve this when I lived in Brooklyn there was actually a town system where you'd put your scraps right into to a bin the town out to Long Island and started a garden I had space for a traditional three bin

[08:36] compost system for my garden scraps and then for my food scraps I have more heavyduty plastic composters that keep out animals but if you don't have space for traditional composting system and you still want to compost your food

[08:48] scraps that's where this wrinkle home composter really becomes an amazing composting system is that it comes with a compost starter that actually uses micro technology to break break down your food scraps in just a few days and

[09:01] from testing out this system for a while now one of my favorite Parts is that it's completely hands-off it's got a foot motion sensor to open the lid you add in your food scraps and the wrinkle really takes care of the rest without

[09:13] touching any button it slowly aerates the compost and uses the perfect amount just keep adding in my food scraps throughout the week and when they've broken down into compost I'll scoop out around 2/3 of the bin leaving some of

[09:26] batch and then after a few weeks securing it's ready to be added to the you can give it to someone who does so if you're interested in one of these composting systems wrinkle is offering $50 off either the wrinkle prime or

[09:40] gravity just use the code Mike 50 at checkout all right so moving on to number 10 which is a hack I've been obsessed with recently which are stock ice cubes now this hack came from a bit of a problem I had which is I buy a lot

[09:54] of whole chicken generally around once a week because it is much cheaper than buying individual pieces but to really get the savings out of whole chicken you need to use every piece which means not just the Prime pieces but also the

[10:08] breaking down the chicken I'll take the carcass I'll take the wings I'll throw them in my air fryer I'll roast them until they're nice and golden brown I'll either pressure cook or slow cook overnight and I've got delicious golden

[10:22] roasted chicken stock NOW the problem is when I am buying whole chicken say once a week that's a lot of stock and the free freezer gets packed out very quickly so what I've been doing is taking that stock reducing it down by

[10:35] around 90% or until it can fill up one of these bigger Square ice cube molds the freezer and when the cubes are frozen I can transfer them over to a freezer bag so basically I've made homemade instant Buon cubes which take

[10:49] homemade instant Buon cubes which take up 95% less space than these big frozen stock containers and I'll use these to deglaze a pan I'll use them in soup all you have to do is dilute them and good to go and my number one use for these is

[11:01] making noodle soups that's why I always have a pack of them in the freezer and a simple recipe is just cooking down some ginger and garlic and some fat I'll add some mushrooms some snow peas and a little bit of homemade miso paste and

[11:13] then I'll throw a cube in there and just dilute it with water for a great miso chicken based broth which brings me into hack 11 which are instant rice noodles and I love these things because I'm eating different types of noodle soup

[11:27] multiple times a week especially in the winter so I try to avoid wheat noodles when I can cuz they can be very heavy like Ramen noodles whereas rice noodles are just much lighter and why I love these instant type rice noodles is all

[11:41] like 5 minutes and then when you have your hot soup ready once those rice noodles are soaked and malleable you put them in the bowl laadle over your hot soup and then just cover the bowls with something and let them sit for about 5

[11:55] minutes and the noodles will heat up to the perfect consistency which is much quicker than a classic rice noodle that needs to be soaked for a while or a cooked but to finish these noodles we have another hack coming in at the 12th

[12:08] have another hack coming in at the 12th spot which is scissors Over Knives again like the peeler this is kind of situational there are certain scissors are going to be more convenient they're going to be quicker and they

[12:21] your knife and dirty up your cutting board so in this case for a garnish I've I'll just take out the scissors snip snip snip perfectly garnished soup ready to go by the way these anything bowls were a Mike G Noble collaboration there

[12:36] were only 300 ever made and there's about 120 left so if you're interested info Below in the description and moving on to the 13th hack which is pressure cooked dry beans now I love having beans just prepped and ready to go in the

[12:49] fridge I can throw them in a soup or salad or make a dip with them and fresh cooked beans much more Superior than the canned stuff but of course they take tell you to soak them overnight and cook them until they're tender but one of my

[13:03] favorite hacks is actually not soaking them if you do have a pressure cooker some water generally your pressure cooker packet that it came with will or soaked beans or you can just guesstimate and figure it out on your

[13:18] own for me it's around 14 minutes on pressure cooking add a little bit of salt and boom perfect beans under 30 minutes which is incredible now I'll but I am going to make a soup with some of them as well and I'll start off by

[13:30] rendering some bacon which brings me into hack number 14 always take advantage of rendered fat I just put out an entire video on animal fats and I've been pushing this for years on the channel but just a reminder whenever you

[13:44] have rendered something down and you have that residual fat sometimes yes I'll pour it off actually right here I have I think that is some chicken fat and I'll use that say the next day or sometime that week but 90% of the time I

[13:57] just cook something right away even if I wasn't planning on cooking I'll take a it up throw it in that fat or I'll whip up a fried rice or some eggs because whatever you cook in that fat is going to have that delicious flavor free

[14:10] flavor and now you'll just have more meal prepped items ready to go so for me I cooked down those aromatics added some squash added some beans to ruin one of those stock cubes and Blended this down into a really beautiful soup and then of

[14:24] brings me into hack number 15 which is being strategic with your freezing now this might seem like common sense because it is but it did take me some time to really get the hang of how to properly freeze your meal prep food and

[14:40] for me my best advice is that if you're making a big batch of something like this soup me and my wife will eat say two servings of this before it becomes a little boring so what I like to do is right away be strategic and just freeze

[14:54] a container of it which will ultimately avoid that soup going in the trash later and then the next week even I can take eat it multiple months later all right we're moving on to the last few hacks

[15:08] we're moving on to the last few hacks which all revolve around baking and if you're going to be a good meal prepper like professional level you've got to be a good Baker there's no way around it and my first hack is having a proper

[15:21] Pantry organizational system now this is a very simple organizational concept which is having certain areas of your pantry or your kitchen designated for certain Pantry categories so having all of your spices in one area where you

[15:34] know you can just walk over boom grab them you're good to go and same goes for baking I like having one place for all of my baking Goods ideally that is close to your Prep Station but if it's not you want some type of Bin or basket that can

[15:49] be moved over to your Prep Station so you're just ready to pump out baked goods which brings me into hack 17 the allpurpose dough now this is something I'm doing nearly every single week even if I don't have a specific final product

[16:04] allpurpose dough and I have a full recipe Below on the specifics for this but the general concept is making a dough with really any flour combination dough with really any flour combination that's around 65 to 75% hydration and

[16:17] then once that dough is fermented I made a whole short video on this that went a whole short video on this that went viral you can make all types of things from pea to pretzel buns to faka of course Pizza sometimes I'll just turn it

[16:30] my kids throughout the week bread is life and having it around very helpful for meal prep but another thing that really helps me survive the week is just having an endless stream of baked goods we're talking waffles pancakes muffins

[16:45] and most of you know this by now but I freestyle all of my baked goods I will use recipes for inspiration but just like cooking I freestyle when I get in the kitchen to bake and sometime over the last century of culinary history

[16:59] the last century of culinary history baking became this scientific systematic and every recipe is going to tell you to do one thing separate those dry ingredients and those wet ingredients in separate bowls which brings me into hack

[17:13] 18 dry and wet ingredients in one bowl everything in one bowl and mix it all in but the way I have been making baked goods for about a decade now with a lot of success is I'll start with my wet

[17:27] ingredients I'll build out that base and then I'll scour my pantry for different flowers in this case for these muffins I have like seven different flowers and I call these Vibe muffins cuz I'm really just vibing out the flower combinations

[17:41] that just feel right in the moment mixing things together hoping for the best but ultimately since I've made these muffins so much I know the final consistency that's right so I just mix in enough of the flow until I get that

[17:54] right consistency and I'll pop them in a muffin tray and they are ready for the the oven which brings me into hack 19 because I'm freestyling I don't have a recipe that's going to tell me a relevant time to go off of so I need to

[18:08] figure out when these muffins are done and the way I do that is by using instant read thermometers like this and really the main thing to understand here is that baked goods are generally cooked through around 200 to 210° F I like to

[18:24] pull them a little bit lower on that scale because they do continue to cook after they're out of the oven and I'll use this for bread as well same numbers go for bread making which to me is just the easiest way to know when to pull

[18:37] me into my final food hack which is labeling your food containers not just if you don't label something and it goes into the freezer there's a very good thing until it goes in the trash but when I do have the time and I'm not

[18:53] being lazy throwing a label on food containers that are going in the fridge if your meal prepped items it will almost guarantee that you waste less opening your fridge seeing the labels on there knowing ex exactly what you have

[19:08] that's just going to be a little bit more inspiring to actually use it up and of my number one goals when I'm in the kitchen and prepping food and those are optimize your meal prep if you're looking for more meal prep videos click

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