Kendall Reagan Nutrition Center Pulling Together Our Meal Prep series: Prioritize and Prepare

By Bailey Carr, Culinary RDN

You made it! Welcome to the final blog of our Summertime Meal Prep series!

Do you feel like you’ve gotten in sync with your inner meal prepper over the past few months? All of these stepping stones have led us to the final P’s of the series: prioritizing and preparing. Let’s make sense of all of the groceries you learned to shop for last month and review the last steps of meal prep!

Prioritizing and preparing go hand in hand, they are not two separate topics we crammed together to make a neat summertime series. Prioritizing sets the stage for efficient use of groceries and effective preparation technique, which in turn sets you up to stick to the meal plan you created for yourself. Let’s discuss.

Prioritize

The word prioritize can have many different interpretations. When we introduce the prioritizing step of meal prep, we do not simply mean choosing what foods you want to eat. You did that in the planning stage. Prioritizing is getting even deeper, and asking yourself the following questions:

• What are the most perishable ingredients you have that need to be cooked quickly before going bad?
• What food, if left outside of eye level, is most likely to be forgotten and go bad?
• What meal or snack is most important for you to have prepared to improve the flow of your day?
• What steps of food preparation are you willing to do nightly, versus what steps do you want to have done ahead of time?
• What foods are most important for you to have cooked fresh, versus what foods are you ok re-heating?
• What ingredient(s) will you use in multiple meals throughout the week that would be helpful to prepare in bulk?
• What does prioritizing look like for you considering your meal prepping style of choice? (New here or need to revisit this idea? Check out our Discover Your Inner Meal Prepper Blog!)

Now, let’s see how asking yourself these questions can create a strategy from a scenario:

You are on your way home from the grocery store after reading last month’s blog. In your haul you have asparagus, broccoli, chicken, steamer bags of quinoa, and a whole pineapple, amongst other things. Your plan for the week is to have a well-stocked refrigerator so that you can cook dinner fresh each night. Here are a few tips for prioritizing:

• Follow the first 48 rule: make a plan for highly perishable meats and produce within the first 48 hours of buying them so that there is a reduced chance of spoilage or overlooking them. In this scenario this would look like:
  • Cutting up the pineapple and put it into containers
  • Cooking the asparagus or pre-chopping it and putting it at eye-level in the refrigerator
  • Cooking the chicken or placing it in a marinade for up to 24 hours before cooking it
  • Placing the chicken in the freezer if you will not use it within the first two days of purchase
• Determine your non-negotiables. Is your non-negotiable avoiding eating leftover chicken? Or is your non-negotiable avoiding reheated broccoli in your break room microwave due to dirty looks from your coworkers? It is important to recognize these for the sake of prioritizing!
  • If you don’t mind reheated veggies, but cannot stand reheating meat, consider prioritizing roasting a sheet pan or two of veggies for the week to add to meals to save you time for cooking meat (in this case chicken) nightly OR vice versa, cook your chicken ahead of time to allow more room for a nightly preparation of veggies.

Prepare: Know Your Culinary Techniques

While following recipes for weekly meals will guide you through the general techniques needed to make a dish, having a general understanding of how and why cooking methods are selected is crucial. Cooking techniques determine the final outcome of a meal and can at least partly explain why you liked a food or why you did not. When you have the confidence that comes from understanding what cooking method best suits an ingredient for your taste, it is very likely you will have enjoyable meals that are less likely to be thrown out/forgotten. Below is a breakdown of cooking techniques for you to consider for your weekly meal prep.

Dry Heat vs. Wet Heat Cooking Methods

Food is cooked through heat. Heat can be provided through air (dry), or water (wet). There is no right or wrong medium that supplies heat, but it is helpful to know the difference each produces.

• Dry Heat Cooking Methods: bake, broil, sauté, sear, pan fry, air fry
  • Result: browned food, dry surface, complex flavor
  • Pros: browning (appealing for meat), complex flavors, increased flavor development
  • Cons: can lead to food drying out, food may dry out more if reheated
  • Best uses: roasted veggies, meats and proteins eaten the day of and not used for leftovers
• Wet Heat Cooking Methods: boil, steam, simmer, crockpot*
  • Result: softer texture, vibrant greens, more delicate flavors
  • Pros: food retains moisture and tenderness
  • Cons: food can lack complex flavors, lack appealing color, can take on a mushy texture
  • Best uses: grains, beans, poaching fish, obtaining a soft/tender texture for vegetables
• Combination Cooking Methods: braising, crockpot*
  • Result: flavorful and tender proteins
  • Pros: food retains moisture, tenderness, and complex flavor. Braised food tends to reheat well. Great use for tougher but less expensive cuts of meat
  • Cons: can require long cook times, multiple steps for preparation (searing and simmering meats)
  • Best uses: shredded chicken, beef, or pork, some stews. Check out our Jerk-Marinated Shredded Chicken

* Crockpot can be a wet heat method when it is used to slowly simmer food, or a combination method when food has been browned before being added to the crock to simmer.

How do I tie the step of prioritizing and preparing my meals together?

Great question! Let’s refer back to the food example above and this time walk through not just how to prioritize the ingredients, but options for preparing them!

Example Preparation 1: You are deciding to prioritize cooking chicken for the night and don’t plan on having leftovers from this but do want to roast your veggies ahead of time to last you at least 3-4 meals. While you’re roasting veggies, you’re also going to throw a pan of potatoes in the oven to make this side dish ahead of time. This is what it could look like:

• Italian Panko Parmesan Air Fryer Chicken + Roasted Veggies + Rosemary-Herb Roasted Potatoes
  • Why it works: roasting potatoes and veggies over high heat gives them a more complex, sweet flavor. They won’t turn mushy in storage, so as long as you are okay with leftovers they tend to reheat well. Making the chicken the night of keeps it crispy, juicy, and enjoyable, without causing the breading to get soggy, or the chicken to toughen upon reheating.

Example Preparation 2: You want to plan to have your protein option cooked for the week, because if you have that you can make all meals come together quickly as you have items on hand such as a 90-second steamer bag of quinoa, bagged salads, and some tortillas leftover from last week. This is what your meal prep could look like:

• BBQ braised shredded chicken + steamed garlic quinoa+ slaw from salad kit+ sliced avocado
  • Why it works: braising the chicken and cooking it with BBQ sauce whether stove-top or crockpot promotes a tender product coated in liquid that helps it maintain its moisture upon being reheated and reinvented across multiple meals. It is helpful to prioritize time and energy into making a large serving of chicken all at once so that it will add time back into your week by not having to prepare a protein each night.

And with that the Summertime Meal Prepping Series is complete! Prioritizing ingredients and finally getting to the step of preparation is where the rubber meets the road in meal prep, (or should we say, the ingredients meet the pan…or bowl… or cutting board). Note that prioritizing and preparing ingredients into meals is an art form meant to be enjoyed in the process of learning them. In these two P’s there is so much understanding to be gained, even if it takes a couple weeks to find a rhythm of ingredient use, or multiple attempts to achieve a perfect braise.

How are you feeling going off on your own after the end of the series? Have you already been practicing each new meal prep strategy? Or do you feel like you need a little more guidance? Check out our website to review any past blogs that may help your meal prep journey! Or, come see us for an individual nutrition counseling appointment if you feel more personalized guidance would be helpful. Have a lovely end to summer along with our meal prep series, and happy cooking!

About the Author

Bailey has been with the KRNC since July of 2023, and works primarily at the CSU Spur campus in Denver, CO. Learn more about Bailey’s culinary dietitian background, training and approach in her KRNC Bio.

More Information

For additional resources for healthy eating, check out these programs from our registered dietitian nutritionists. Find delicious and healthy recipes on our Recipes page! More health tips are also available at the College of Health and Human Sciences Pinterest board. Lastly, don’t forget to sign up for the KRNC monthly newsletter!