The Finest Kitchen Instruments for Meal Prep, In keeping with a Critical Eats Editor

One in all my pals is de facto into meal prepping. She’ll take a day to cook dinner proteins, steam rice, and saute greens, placing collectively neat little containers of lunch for the week. Me? I’m a rustle by means of the leftovers or make a field of mac and cheese for lunch kinda gal. However this yr, one in every of my New 12 months’s resolutions is to eat extra greens, complete grains, and protein. Meal prepping is a superb, simple strategy to do it. Listed below are 10 kitchen instruments which have helped me lastly perceive the hype and change into a meal prepping aficionado.

I just lately adopted a recipe that required blanching broccoli earlier than searing it in a pan. However blanching includes hauling out a pot and bringing water to a boil, which is simply completely annoying and additional. So as a substitute, I turned to those Anyday microwave containers to steam a couple of heads’ price of florets. Now, anytime I would like successful of inexperienced, all I’ve to do is take the container (which doubles as a meals storage container) out of the fridge.

I’ve lengthy been a proponent of petty knives as a result of they’re like a combo of a paring knife and a chef’s knife: Agility meets versatility. They’re incredible for meal prep, making it simple to slice, cube, and mince a great deal of produce. Their petite body simply slips between broccoli florets and deftly cores peppers and minces shallots. This one from Victorinox just isn’t solely sharp and nimble, however it’s additionally underneath $50—it simply may change into your go-to blade.

A part of my objective this yr is to eat extra complete grains (like, actually complete: farro, barley, bulgur, and so forth). And my rice cooker has change into integral to this: It helps me cook dinner up a giant batch of grains earlier than freezing them for future use. Now I could make a fast pilaf on a busy weeknight with out simmering farro for 20 minutes.

I take advantage of my Prompt Pot on a regular basis for spontaneous weeknight cravings (beef stew in an hour? Heck yeah!). Stress cooking decreases cook dinner time by a big quantity, making it an important device in a meal prepper’s arsenal: You possibly can cook dinner an entire bag of dried beans in half-hour, have tender grains in a flash, and even whip up a giant batch of polenta to portion out for the week.

Salad spinners are nice for bulk cleansing every kind of greens: kale, broccolini, butter lettuce, and even tender herbs like parsley. The one I’ve from OXO has been important for my meal prep objectives, letting me type and clear complete heads of lettuce or bunches of kale in a single go. No extra unhappy, wilted greens nonetheless held collectively by their twist ties!

Should you’re a beginner to meal prepping (like me), arguably step one is getting some truly good meal prep containers. They need to stack simply, seal tightly, and be capable of maintain single-serving parts or massive quantities of prepped meals. I choose glass ones, like this fairly set from Williams Sonoma, as a result of, not like plastic, they do not maintain onto stains or odors.

Okay, that is much less of a meal prep hack and extra of a strategy to entice me to eat extra greens. I want I had been the form of one that was like, “yay, greens!” however it takes rather a lot to make me really feel excited a few plate of greens until it’s coated in cheese. A technique I’ve change into smitten by meal prepping hearty, vegetable-forward meals is through the use of components that convey out the very best in inexperienced issues, like a great, recent extra-virgin olive oil. This incredible olive oil from Peru has a bell pepper freshness and wealthy olive style— a lashing of it makes even essentially the most plain pile of steamed kale pop (paired with a great sprinkle of Maldon salt). 

Whereas I discover mincing and dicing therapeutic, it’s not precisely essentially the most environment friendly batch cooking or meal prepping technique. Should you’re trying to have a mirepoix or sofrito available for including depth to weeknight meals, a meals processor is a lickety-split strategy to do it: Simply add all the pieces and press pulse a couple of occasions. You’ll want a great one (try our assessment) to pulverize hardy root greens and slippery alliums, however it’s a worthwhile funding (I foresee creamy selfmade hummus batched out for snacks). A mini meals processor is one other useful consideration; it’s nice for making dressing or pulverizing smaller meals, like garlic. 

Should you’re cooking grains and steaming greens for meal prep at an alarming fee, think about a vacuum sealer for straightforward freezer storage. A superb one sucks out all of the air from the bag, leaving you with completely preserved contents—no freezer burn to be discovered. 

Kitchen scales aren’t solely important for bakers who measure all the pieces in grams, however they’re additionally nice for evenly divvying up meals. Nobody can complain that so-and-so bought the larger portion while you’ve weighed every scoop of rice and beans! Plus, it’ll assist cut back meals waste. I like my OXO kitchen scale as a result of it will probably weigh objects as much as 11 kilos, and it has a pull-out display for straightforward viewing. 

Why We’re the Consultants

• Grace Kelly is a senior editor at Critical Eats.
• She is a former prep cook dinner and bartender. 
• Her objective this yr is to meal prep so she will meet her fiber and protein objectives.