Prep Your Ingredients Like a Restaurant Chef and Make Weeknight Cooking a Breeze

There’s a reason a dish can be on the table in 10 minutes in a restaurant, but takes you over an hour to make at home. The difference is preparation. Restaurant kitchens rely on refrigerators full of cooked protein and grains, chopped veggies, and ready-to-go sauces, waiting to be put together and served at a moment’s notice. The good news is you can do this too. Enter: ‘ingredient prep’, AKA ‘component cooking’. Unlike fully prepared meals, ingredient prepping is a favorite of mine for speedy, convenient meal assembly, without sacrificing on freshness, texture, or taste. It also leaves you the flexibility to change up your meal plan throughout the week, mixing and matching components to tackle spontaneous cravings.

By spending an hour or two on the weekend prepping ingredients, I can whip up my favorite recipes (or no-recipe-recipes) all week long, in a fraction of the time, and with less mess.

Use this helpful guide to get ahead on your week with some clever ingredient prepping, so you too can snap together weekday lunches and dinners.

1. Protein

Roasting a whole chicken or poaching chicken breasts on a Sunday will set you up for a week of delicious salads, sandwiches and soups. Once cooked, your chicken will keep in the fridge for 3-4 days, and can be easily used to speed up recipes such as:
- Chicken salad with ginger scallion sauce
- Chicken salad tostadas
- Chicken salad sandwich with potato chip crunch
- Red curry chicken soup with shirataki noodles (simply add the cooked chicken to the broth once simmered, to warm it through without overcooking).

The same principle can be applied to hard boiling eggs, or cooking tofu for vegetarian dishes.
- Hard boiled eggs can be thrown into salads, curries, noodle and rice dishes.
- Fried or roasted tofu can be included in roasted veggie dishes, salad bowls, and quick stir fries.

2. Veggies and salad

If done right, prepped veggies, salad, and aromatics can mean ZERO chopping when it’s time to cook. Stored correctly, peeled, chopped, and cooked produce can last 5+ days in the fridge. Putting in this extra time over the weekend can save you a heap of prep and clean up all week long. Here are a few of our favorite do-aheads:
- Broccoli can be chopped and blanched, then stored for quick stir fries, roasts and salads
- Soffritto forms the base of so many dishes, and can be prepped in your food processor (and frozen) so it’s always on hand
- Boiled potatoes can be served as a simple side, chopped and pan fried, or mashed for a speedy accompaniment to your main
- Lettuce and other salad ingredients can be washed and chopped so they are ready to be thrown together in your favorite salads at a moment’s notice
- Roasted root vegetables, like carrots and sweet potatoes, are delicious warm or cold, and can be served as a side, in a salad, or added to curries, soups and stews (throw them in at the end of your cooking time to avoid overcooking!)

But it doesn’t stop there! Apply this principle to all the vegetable ingredients you find yourself chopping throughout the week; you’ll be surprised how much time you save by getting these little steps done ahead of time.

3. Grains and legumes

A fridge stocked with cooked grains and legumes is what lunch bowl dreams are made of. Simply boil according to package instructions, or if you have a rice cooker, put it to work cooking white and brown rice, quinoa, barley, farro, and lentils (yes, these grains and legumes can all be cooked using the brown rice setting on your rice cooker!)
From there, you’ll have the building blocks for hundreds of our favorite recipes, such as:
- Quinoa, corn and avocado salad
- 5-ingredient pearl barley and roasted carrot salad
- Pumpkin salad with figs, feta and quinoa
- Quinoa breakfast bowl
- Garlicky lentil salad with yogurt dressing
- Xueci makes Chinese egg fried rice

4. Dressings, dips and sauces

The final piece to your ingredient prep puzzle is arguably the most important. Dressings, dips and sauces will bring your cooking to life, so invest a few minutes (literally!) to prep a couple of your favorites and store them in the fridge for quick access. Plus, not only are they healthier and tastier than store bought options, many use only simple pantry ingredients you already have, so they won’t cost you a cent!

On any given week, you’ll find at least two of the following in my fridge, waiting for a slaw, pasta salad, crispy potato or leafy mix to be drizzled over. Make a habit of this and you’ll never look back!
-Chickpea-yogurt dip
-White bean and fennel dip
-Creamy charred scallion dip
-Aioli
-Chimichurri sauce
-Tahini dressing
-Arugula Pesto
-Buttermilk ranch dressing
-Green goddess dressing
-Chili crisp
-German green sauce

So, are you feeling convinced yet? I promise that once you start the simple practice of preparing a few ingredients for the week ahead, you’ll be hooked. Just watch as your busy weeknights begin to feel easier, without the seemingly endless chopping, cleaning, and wiping that comes with cooking from scratch each night.

What’s your favorite ingredient prep hack? Let us know in the comments!