- Hi there, I am Erica
and I'm a professional meal prep-er,
otherwise known as a personal chef in New York City.
I'm today headed over to Claudia's house
to do a big family-style meal prep,
and excited to take you guys along for the ride.
(lighthearted music)
I just arrived at Claudia's house,
and the FreshDirect is here already which is great.
I'm just gonna unpack it.
This is always the first thing I do
whenever I get to a client is double check
that I have everything I need for the entire menu.
(lighthearted music)
What we're doing today for Claudia is what I call
family-style meal prep.
I've seen it on the web called buffet-style meal prep
a good amount.
Family-style meaning a few mains,
a few sides all stored separately
instead of what I call a composed meal prep
which is more like a lunchbox style
where you would put a main and a couple of sides
in one container.
(playful music)
The little one of the family
really really likes noodles and red sauce,
so we're gonna mix it up,
get some vegetables into her diet.
Hopefully (oven beeping)
make her feel comfortable
with the idea of eating spaghetti squash,
or maybe she won't even realize she's eating it.
(lighthearted music)
Whenever I know that I'm going to be using
quite a bit of one ingredient,
I try to get all of it's prep out of the way
at the beginning of the meal prep.
So, a good example is something like garlic
which I'm gonna be using a lot of.
I just minced quite a bit of it,
maybe like 10 cloves.
And so I've got it in this little container,
I'm gonna use it throughout the meal prep.
Another thing I always like to have handy
is a little side cellar of salt.
It's just a lot easier to be able to pull the salt out
with your fingers rather than pouring it
or cracking it with a container or a mel.
(lighthearted music)
It's my personal opinion that if you find a store-bought
sauce that you really like that has great ingredients
and is similar to something you would make at home,
it's a great way to shorten the time
that your meal prep might take you.
So starting with a store-bought sauce,
I do it every once in a while.
I think it's definitely an okay shortcut to take.
What I've done here for the marinade,
I'm not just using the pesto,
I've got some garlic,
some balsamic vinegar,
some salt, and some cracked pepper,
and I'll add a little extra olive oil,
and then our chicken will be good to go.
(classical music)
A question that comes up to me a lot
when people are asking about meal prep
is how much should I make?
And as a rule of thumb with grains,
what I always aim for is a quarter of a cup
of the dry grain per serving per person.
Hot tip, always salt your grains
while they're cooking.
You wanna salt the water a good amount,
like half a teaspoon per cup of grain.
You want food that's gonna taste good
over the course of the next five days.
So what I like to focus on are hearty vegetables,
so something like asparagus.
I also really like dark meat.
If dark meat is something that you enjoy,
I highly highly recommend leaning in that direction.
So for example, today we're having chicken thighs
instead of a chicken breast
because chicken thighs are gonna stay moister.
A couple more things that I love
are cruciferous vegetables.
So we're talking cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli,
cauliflower, all those things will stay fresh.
So I love kale salads for that reason.
The final thing I'll say that I really like
for meal prep is meatballs or any type of burger
because you're infusing flavor and you're also creating
a little ball or burger that has built-in moisture,
so it's gonna stay nice and moist
even if you reheat it.
(classical music)
So we're about an hour and a half in,
and we're getting close to finishing up over here.
I have the onions caramelizing.
Once that's done, that's just like an assembly deal.
It's important to, before you store your food,
let it cool down completely.
This is for any meal prep,
but especially family-style meal prep where it's going
into a big Tupperware.
You don't want a bunch of heat in your Tupperware
before you pop it in the fridge
because it will create condensation
which can affect freshness.
(lighthearted music)
I love family meal prep as a way to make
back to school more manageable.
It's a great way to just get ahead of lunchbox prep
because what you have when you're all done
with a big family meal prep is a bunch of little things
that can go into Bento boxes like this.
If you don't have anything to go
in the final compartment, a fun thing to do
is just put some stickers or a note in there.
Now I am arranging the finished product
so that it can be photographed
which is one of my favorite parts.
If a recipe
really really strikes me
as being special, I will write out the recipe
and post it to my blog.
But you gotta get it all just right.
(lighthearted music)
So the last thing I always do
before I leave a client's is make note
of everything that I've made on little Post-it notes.
If there are specific reheating instructions,
I'll always make note of that.
And I'm also gonna leave a little note
just letting them know
how it went in the kitchen today,
and any information about the food
that they might need to have.
(lighthearted music)
I just took everything to the trash,
all done for today.
If you have any questions about family-style meal prep,
definitely drop them below in the comments section.
You can also find me, my Instagram handle is @Fresh.Erica,
and if you're interested in my blog, it's FreshErica.com.
- I have rice, I have chicken,
thank you for my lunch.
- It's so good, it's amazing.
(lighthearted music)