15 Meal Prepping Hacks Every Home Cook Should Know

Today, I'm gonna show you my favorite meal prep hacks

that's gonna help make

your day-to-day cooking easier and faster.

I feel like when it comes to meal prep,

people neglect breakfast.

These are little egg bites you make ahead, you freeze them.

They're super easy to make, and here's how we do it.

I preheat my oven and I have a tray with muffin tins

that have been sprayed with non-stick spray.

So I'm gonna take a dozen eggs, crack them into a big bowl.

Right, so we got our eggs there.

Add some milk, some shredded cheddar cheese, some scallions,

a nice pinch of salt, and some black pepper.

Gonna whisk it together, get our muffin tins,

make sure everyone gets a little bit of ham.

You get a ladle, and we're gonna fill up each cavity,

then we go right in the oven.

So these are out of the oven,

pop them onto a tray so they can cool,

and then throw them in the freezer.

Quick three minutes in the microwave,

we got breakfast for days.

Maybe you need something a little more substantial.

This is a make-ahead egg sandwich.

I toasted an English muffin.

I made a slab of eggs that I cooked in the oven.

I have some breakfast sauces and some cheese.

I let everything cool, I put it together to make a sandwich,

I wrap it in paper, and then I freeze them.

The reason I use parchment is because it is microwave-safe.

Heating the sandwich in the parchment paper

is gonna retain some steam,

it's gonna help your sandwich heat up really quickly,

and it's gonna be melty and delicious.

Make a big batch of these, store them in a Ziploc bag,

label your bag, throw them in the freezer,

grab and go and you're done.

Soup is your friend, and when it comes to meal prepping,

especially soup, I like to store it in a very specific way.

I get the Ziploc bag, I roll the edges over,

put your soup in.

You seal it most of the way,

and then get all of the air out.

Seal it all the way,

lay it on a sheet tray, and freeze it flat.

When your soup comes out of the freezer,

it's thin, it's stackable,

and it defrosts quickly 'cause it's flat.

Soup is your friend. [knuckles tapping]

The rotisserie chicken is the queen of meal preparation.

From one rotisserie chicken,

we get three separate things out of this.

With the leg and thigh meat,

we're gonna make a chicken salad,

with the bones, we're gonna make a stock,

and with the breast,

we're gonna make a Hainanese-style chicken rice.

We have the leg and thigh meat

from our rotisserie chicken here,

and I'm gonna make some chicken salad.

And I'm gonna give it a rough chop,

season this up with some salt and pepper,

garlic powder, some scallions,

Dijon mustard, and some mayonnaise.

Mix that together and you got chicken salad.

So I always save the bones

from my rotisserie chicken to make stock.

If I didn't use them right away,

I would put them in a Ziploc bag, just like this,

and I'd label it, Bones for Stock.

What I do here is, I take any vegetable trimmings I have,

onions, celery, garlic, and I freeze them for stock.

Making a stock is a really easy process,

you're just cooking some bones with aromatics,

and you get a stock within an hour.

With the chicken breast, we're gonna do Hainanese chicken.

It's like a soft, velvety chicken on top of rice.

It's a simple dish,

but it makes a really great dinner or snack.

I have my rice cooker here, and I have some rinsed rice.

I'm gonna add some Chinese rice wine, soy sauce, salt,

and then I have some of the stock that I made earlier.

I'm gonna give it a good mix,

and then I'm gonna layer some ginger, scallions,

and some cloves of garlic, just to kind of flavor my rice.

Put the lid on,

and I'm gonna let it steam for about 30 minutes.

So the rice is done and cooked.

Take one of my chicken breasts, put it on top,

and I wanna reheat the chicken breast in the steamer,

for maybe seven or eight minutes.

So I'm gonna take the chicken off of here,

put it on my cutting board, 'cause I'm gonna slice it up.

A nice pile of rice, chicken breasts,

a little bit of scallion on top, cucumber slices,

cilantro leaves to finish it off.

Serve this with sweet chili sauce, some soy sauce.

That is a finished dish from our rotisserie chicken.

Something that home cooks can carry over

from the restaurant industry is label and dating their food.

This is something we do in every professional kitchen,

and it saves you a lot of waste.

I have a Sharpie, a paring knife, and masking tape.

So I'm gonna lay it out on my cutting board,

give it a cut on the end,

and then I'm gonna label and date, 4/20.

And then we take our knife, cut our labels.

Tomato sauce, right on top,

pickled onions, salsa verde, and gravy.

A Sharpie and some masking tape

is gonna save you a lot of time,

it's gonna save you a lot of waste,

and it's gonna stop you from having to guess

what's actually in the container.

Please, please, please label your food.

One thing I'm a huge proponent of

is using plastic deli containers.

We use these in the restaurants extensively all the time.

Quarts, pints, half pints.

They're super versatile, they stack well,

they're reusable and recyclable.

You can basically store anything in them,

and in the restaurant industry,

this is where we keep our drinks.

Oh, that's good.

How often do you make a recipe

and it asks for a tablespoon of tomato paste,

and then you have all this tomato paste in a can,

and you don't know what to do with it?

One of the things I really like to have

is silicone storage containers.

You just pop off the lid, put your paste in there,

and what's great about the silicone is that it's soft enough

that you can just pop the stuff out,

put the lid back on, throw it back in the fridge.

It's super convenient, super easy.

Now you have your tablespoon of tomato paste

without wasting the rest.

And then if you have something that's a larger portion,

I have some bolognese sauce here,

you can buy one cup, two cup versions of this.

Again, take it out. Look at how that pops out.

Once it's frozen, take it out, put it in a Ziploc,

you can reuse this, and your sauce is secure in the freezer.

A well-stocked pantry is a key component in meal prep.

I use canned beans all the time

and I stock my pantry with them.

They are good for you, they taste great,

they are perfectly cooked

because they have the science down.

They're super easy to upgrade.

I can throw some protein in there, some vegetables,

and I have my meal prep done for the day.

Stock up anytime your supermarket puts them on sale.

Keep your pantry stocked with beans.

Another thing I do for my well-stocked pantry

is to have rice on hand.

Anytime I make rice, I make a little extra.

I get a Ziploc bag.

I pack my rice in there.

I take it, take the air out,

flatten it out,

and then I throw it in the freezer,

and I get something like this.

This is basically a single portion of rice,

stacks nice and easy in the freezer.

I can have 10 portions of rice ready to go

at a moment's notice.

Reheating rice is something I've done on this show before.

Basically, you're gonna throw it in the microwave,

it's gonna be hot in minutes.

Probably one of the most convenient things

you could put in your freezer.

Finally, for a well-stocked pantry,

frozen fruits and vegetables.

A lot of people might look down

on frozen fruits and vegetables,

but I think they are great.

Sometimes they're cheaper than fresh,

they store really well,

and sometimes when you buy something like frozen berries,

they're a little bit sweeter than the fresh.

They pick them later in the season

or they pick them later in their ripeness,

so you'll get a little bit of a sweeter kick from them.

When things like these are on sale,

make sure you're stocking your freezer up.

Another really big time saver

is having your sauces ready to go.

I like to make big batches of sauce,

quart them up or pint them up,

freeze them or refrigerate them,

and then I can just grab and go anytime I want.

I prep ahead so that I can make meals quickly.

It takes one day of cooking,

and then I have all my sauces lined up.

I can do this with tomato sauce,

pickled onions, salsa verde, some gravy.

But basically, you can put these sauces in the freezer

and be ready to go within minutes.

A lot of times when you batch cook,

you have a lot of portions of a single item,

and what I like to do is make single portions.

So I have some little burritos here.

If I just take all these burritos

and throw them in a Ziploc bag,

whatever condenses in the bag,

they get soggy and it gets weird.

So I like to take all my single portions,

wrap them in plastic wrap, nice and tight,

and then a piece of foil, and this avoids freezer burn,

this avoids crystallization on the food,

it stays good a lot longer.

You can also use something like a vacuum sealer,

but that's one of those things that's a specialty equipment,

and not everyone has one.

Short of having a vacuum sealer, this double-sealing method,

or the double-wrapping method, works really great.

One of the concepts I like to introduce

when I'm meal prepping is mixing and matching your carbs,

your proteins, and your vegetables.

So I have these three proteins, some chicken thighs,

some meatballs, and some salmon,

and I can put those in the fridge

and prep the rest of my stuff.

So for my starches, I have some soba noodles,

I have some steamed rice, and I have some roasted potatoes.

And for my veggies, I have some salad, some roasted carrots,

and some sauteed vegetables.

I like everything to be cold before I pack them up,

it just stores better and lasts longer that way.

And now we mix and match.

I'm in the mood for salmon

with noodles and stir-fried vegetables.

Super simple.

I get my soba, get some of my veggies,

and I have a really nice piece of salmon here.

And there you have it,

a ready-made meal that I've mixed and matched,

I've prepped it ahead.

I mean, come on,

you'd pay a couple of bucks for that in a restaurant, right?

Maybe I'm in the mood for chicken tonight.

I have everything ready to go.

I'm gonna have a little bit of greens,

potatoes, some chicken.

All the flavors are compatible.

You get a ton of variety,

and you don't have to eat the same thing every single night.

I promise that if you incorporate

a couple of these hacks into your daily cooking,

it's gonna save time, waste less, save money,

and basically make you a better cook all around.