Most people are familiar with the challenge of getting dinner on the table quickly—especially on busy weeknights. When I became a parent, my previously calm and quiet evenings rapidly turned into absolute chaos. My husband and I would scramble to toss the contents of our fridge into the air fryer or onto a sheet tray in the oven, hoping that it would come out as something edible, or frantically scour the internet for easy, one-pot recipes that could be ready quickly.
One weekend, I decided to try a different approach. Drawing on my former experience as a cook, I decided to prep all my groceries the way chefs do for their mise en place. The French term, which means “set in place,” refers to the practice of gathering and preparing all the ingredients—peeling, washing, slicing, chopping, or marinating—that a cook will need for service. I hoped that having all my ingredients ready to go would streamline weeknight cooking. Perhaps to no one’s surprise but mine, it did.
Unlike traditional meal prep, which involves going into the week with a plan and batch cooking as needed, I’d head to the market, purchase whatever looked good or was on sale, then figure it out when I got home. Instead of shoving a head of broccoli into the fridge, I separated the florets and stored them in a zip-top bag. I peeled and chopped my onions, garlic, and ginger. I thinly sliced scallions, trimmed green beans, blanched leafy greens, and par-cooked tubers and root vegetables, including potatoes and carrots. I washed and spun all my salad greens, drying them on kitchen towels before placing them in a zip-top bag with a paper towel.
That prep alone unlocked meal prep ease and potential: After that flurry of prep, all I had to do was incorporate the ingredients into a soup, stew, or stir-fry when it was time to make dinner throughout the week. It was like receiving a meal kit, except I had prepared it myself. (Come to think of it, it was actually better than a meal kit, since I wasn’t locked into specific meals. There was no coming up with a set meal plan for the week, either—a traditional meal planning approach that felt overly rigid and time-consuming to me.)
While this basic concept might seem pretty obvious to meal-prep aficionados, to me it was a revelation—one that made every night of the week easier, and a process I still use today. Sometimes, when I’ve taken the time to plan and have specific meals in mind, I’ll even create a prep list with the precise quantities I need for a given recipe. Most of the time, though, I have no idea what I’m planning to make. Still, taking the time to prep basic, versatile ingredients like chopped onions and vegetables during the weekend—a process that can take anywhere from 30 minutes to a little over an hour—has streamlined weeknight cooking and has made it possible for my family to enjoy a home-cooked meal each night, with minimal stress involved.
Here are a few ways I prep on the weekend to set myself up for on-the-fly meals throughout the week:
- Slice or chop onions and/or shallots, then store them in an airtight container in the fridge.
- Destem leafy greens, such as kale, Swiss chard, or collard greens, then chiffonade them for salads or blanch them for soups and stews.
- Wash and spin the herbs, then roll them up with a lightly dampened paper towel. Store them in a zip-top bag to prevent them from drying out.
- Peel cloves of garlic. Keep them whole, mince, or slice them, then cover them with a damp paper towel and store them in an airtight container.
- Par-cook starchy vegetables and root vegetables—either by simmering, roasting, or air frying—until they’re fork-tender so they can easily be incorporated into soup or stew.
- Stem and seed bell peppers, then thinly slice them and store them in an airtight container.
