15 Mistakes Beginners Make Cooking Food For the Week

00:00 - 1. Variety Is Key
01:00 - 2. Tupperware
02:13 - 3. Timing
02:45 - 4. Spice Mix
03:43 - 5. Your pantry
05:45 - 6. All purpose grain
07:25 - 7. Sheet pans
08:25 - 8. All purpose sauce
09:53 - 9. Set it and forget it
11:17 - 10. Freeze fruit
12:30 - 11. Healthy Snacks
14:25 - 12. Raw Prepped Food
15:25 - 13. Healthy Baked Good
16:20 - 14. Leftovers
17:08 - 15. Fun meal prep?

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[carolinebalbuena]

Biggest tip for rice, speaking as a brazilian, who use to eat rice like every day: fry some onion and garlic with olive oil, add the rice, stir a little, put a pinch of salt and then the water. That’s is the perfect rice, give it a try

[LangZyne]

If you want a large amount of variety, then start a culinary group with friends. Every participant makes seven batches of the same meal and then swaps them with six other friends. Now you have a different meal every day of the week but only had to cook once. It's simple and easy!

[nancyvukovic]

When you add new pantry ingredients (like almonds as we see here) into your storage jar, it's super important to rotate stock. Pour the old contents of your nearly-empty jar into a handy bowl, empty your new bag of almonds into the bottom of your jar, then put the old contents on top. Make this a habit and you will use up the older contents first, preventing the layer at the bottom of the jar going stale.

[jasonjaeger]

Cleaning up while prepping was a huge game changer for me. It is just a good feeling to have little to no dishes left when the last item is done cooking

[lagerregal]

Going to comment again: Please do more of this kind of videos Mike! This is the holy grail of cooking and the most helpful kind of content on the entire internet!

[Zalzal]

There's a lot of great tips and ideas here. My biggest pet peeve with meal prep is all the time it takes to cut, wash ingredients and then cleaning up cookware. The actual cooking itself is not laborious. Just the stuff you do before and after

[PBrownleeJ]

When prepping lettuce or veggies that contain alot of moisture i always put a paper towel in with them to absorb some of the moisture and extend their shelf life ✌

[deemiller]

Soo, guess what I just did? Picked up our daughter from her college campus and we prepped three weeks of vegetarian freezer meals 2gether. She was always saying the campus had very limited options (salad/fries/occasional non meat pizza.) and was always hungry. So I bought her a crock pot, and we made gallon sized freezer bag with everything for Vegetarian Taco Soup, Swedish Meatballs, and Plant based beef stew. She is a happy camper, and I don't have to worry. 💗

But this video, and subsequent comments have now inspired me to do even more and tweak the prepping. Batches of rice cooked with onions and garlic. Our daughter taught me to flavor the water with red pepper flakes. Gonna roast veggies instead of just steam, etc Thank you❣

[fufufuaru]

Yup, homecooking is only expensive when you're building your pantry from scratch (unless you always go for expensive ingredients of course). I recently moved to my own place and had to restock my pantry regulars and it was quite painful on my wallet lol

For beginners or casual homecooks like me, one way to save when building your pantry is to stick first to a cuisine or cuisines that share common ingredients.

[LucyLynette]

I'm not a "prep for the whole week" cook. I'm a "just make more than you need right now" cook. I don't got into the kitchen to make one lunch when I'm hungry. I'll make three, leaving 2 prepped lunches for later in the week. I don't bake just enough potatoes for the meal that's going to include them. I'll bake a few extra, to be used in a different dish in a day or two. An extra prepped ingredient, snack, or full meal made when you have the time can make a big difference when you don't.

Last night, I was making unstuffed peppers (stuffed peppers in casserole form, with the peppers chopped up) and realized early in I'd gotten some of my proportions wrong. Instead of setting aside the excess to be worked into another meal, I just went with it, scaling up all the other ingredients so I'd have an entire spare dinner ready to help us out on a busy night.

We also fully embrace the joys of leftovers. Good, homecooked food that you've already put the work in to get? Yes, please. Reheat as is, or throw a bunch of leftover stuff into a pan and see what I can make of it. Either way is a win. There are few things better than looking at the contents of your fridge on Friday and realizing you can go all-in on having a Lazy Saturday by not even having to cook. Tell your housemates "Saturday's meal plan is to clean out the fridge, " then sit back and relax.

[wheresthegabagool]

Me: *eating a bowl of cereal*
Mike: You should really put some flavour blast on that

[writtenedge]

I grew up never really being taught how to cook or meal plan. This helps me immensely as a young adult with my own house and family to feed

[ergnasn]

I use all of the glass jars that came with food in. It's environment friendly and I saved so much money, not buying any extra food storage containers

[mackieonthemove]

RV tip ... Works in home kitchen too. Use/buy SQUARE containers. It optimized space, stacks better, and if they taper stagger them right side up and upside down. Works great for cabinets and fridge as well

[marlatupper]

I love how he gets right to the point instead of showing five minutes of chopping. Very creative and fun. Thanks!

[tompadfoot]

Pro-tip for portioning out/freezing soup: Use solo cups. Pour soup directly into the cup or line with some plastic wrap then pour, set the cups in the freezer until frozen solid, then pop out your frozen soup pucks and throw them in a freezer bag. Great way to make individual soup portions for lunches and the like, just throw a puck in a bowl and microwave until melted. Great way to save home-made stocks as well. I made some butternut squash soup last fall that I still have a few pucks of, and it reheats beautifully every time.

[oAvalono]

*Quick tip for those of us trying to make it until the next paycheck:* Try seasoning after separating one big batch of food into daily meals. Exp; Monday: soy sauce, Tues: tumeric mix, Wed: Mccormick, Thursday: ketchup, Friday: BBQ sauce, Sat: Teriyaki sauce, Sun: garlic salt.

[chrisc]

It's crazy how organized his kitchen is. So many tools and foods to organize as well. I can really feel how intentional every space is.

[frickinlark]

PRO TIP: I made a ridiculous amount of east Indian onion masala a while back. After it cooled, I skimmed off all the excess oil, and instead of tossing it, I use it for cooking. This way, I can start off with just a huge kick of sweet and savory flavor in whatever I'm cooking. I mostly use it for roasting vegetables, but my favorite is using it to make stovetop popcorn. Add a little salt, and it becomes an experience. The bright yellow color is fun, too.

Also just want to add, I love your kitchen, and can't wait until I'm in a position to get that same aesthetic. The black iron on hard wood is just fantastic.

[MagdaNarima]

This channel trained me to be better at cooking at home since college and now that I'm an adult and married, I'm still watching it! The core content is the same as it was a few years ago but it has definitely changed and improved. This is probably the only channel I've kept watching since college :) It's been a decade...