recipes

Shortcuts, Hacks, and Systems for Painless Meal Prep

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Each week, my goal is to plan simple, healthy meals that require the least amount of “active” time. Here are a few tips that I’ve learned along the way, ranging from how to pick what to make, how to simplify the shopping and planning process, and a few shortcuts to get food on the table quickly.

Deciding what to make:

  • Think about what you like to order when you go out to eat, and then search for a copycat recipe online. My favorite is Chick-fil-a style grilled chicken!
  • Follow food influencers on social media and save your favorite recipes to make the next week. My favorite is Jack Perez on Instagram.
  • When looking for recipes, prioritize crockpot recipes, sheet pan dinners, or one pot meals.
  • Look at active time, not just total time. Also how many ingredients does it need? And how many dirty dishes is it going to make?
  • Consider starting with an “ingredient of the week” and thinking backwards. I usually start with a healthy base like lentils or sweet potatoes, but it could be as simple as picking what you already have on hand.
  • Keep a list of your favorite recipes. Rotate, don’t re-invent!

Planning and shopping for the meal:

  • Make a plan and save your recipes. There’s nothing worse than buying ingredients and then losing the recipe!
  • Look for shortcuts! My favorite is buying pre-diced onions and pre-made sauces. I also keep minced garlic and lemon juice on hand.
  • Shop online! You can shop for the best price, avoid junk food, and go back and forth to your pantry to see what ingredients your already have. I love to use Harris Teeter’s online pickup service!
  • Look at Harris Teeter’s “FoodHealth Score” and it’ll recommend healthier options. I haven’t tested this feature yet but it seems that Harris Teeter also has a way to input a recipe and it’ll auto-add the ingredients.
  • I’ll usually plan 2-3 meals at a time, with each meal making 6-8 servings. When thinking about which meal to make first, think about which ingredients will go bad first.
  • Have one hustle meal in mind that you could make later in the week but also won’t go bad (maybe a frozen pizza?). Keep some backup options in the freezer if you run out.
  • Buy staples like pasta and rice in bulk.
  • Date everything in your fridge and pantry!

Shortcuts and tips for getting it on the table:

  • Always use the air fryer or crockpot when possible– I hate cooking chicken on the stove.
  • Use AI to fix annoying recipe formatting. Paste the link or text into ChatGPT or Gemini and ask it to embed the ingredient amounts directly into each instruction step. It can also scale the serving size up or down or as needed.
  • Clean up as you go, and use parchment paper on baking sheets for easy clean up.
  • Start potatoes in the microwave and finish them in the air fryer.
  • Pre dice and pre portion chicken or ground beef before putting it in the freezer.
  • Cook a large batch of chicken and use it for two meals. For example, if I’m grilling chicken, I may make half barbecue chicken and half Mediterranean chicken.

My favorite recipes so far..

Want more?

  • Send me a message to join my weekly email with new recipes.
  • Check out how my cooking style has changed since college. Previous blogs include “How to Food” and “Less than Four and Under 20.”

The Revolution Taste Test Challenge

/ rkelleyc / 1 Comment

Every party needs two things; a good theme, and good food.

Over Thanksgiving, my friends combined both elements into one event dubbed the “The Revolution Taste Test Challenge.” Each person brought three different varieties, brands, or flavors of a certain food or drink, and we spent the party taste testing each food and trying to determine which one was which. Here are the winners, along with few takeaways that may help you out on your next shopping trip.

Winners:

1st Place: Jacob

  • Jacob led the pack with 20 correct picks. And he gets major props for winning the tiebreaker (which we later found out wasn’t necessary due to an incorrect tally). We gave both Jacob and Andrew two cups and had them guess which one was Smirnoff Ice and which one was Mike’s Hard Lemonade. Only Jacob was wise enough to know that both were Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

2nd Place: Andrew.

  • Andrew came in second with 19 correct picks, but the crazy thing is that he left three categories (representing 10 potential points) completely blank because he was too busy entertaining others. Of the 25 guesses that he actually made, he got 76% of them right, which is insane compared to the group average of 42% (and Jacob’s first place score of 57%). Note Jacob and Andrew both got five categories perfect.

3rd Place: George

  • George got 16 of 32 picks right (50%), and got four perfect categories.

Hot Takes and Lessons Learned:

  • 100% of people know that Poppi is different from Coke and Pepsi, but only 9 out of 13 people (69%) could differentiate between Coke and Pepsi.
  • Only 3 out of 11 people recognized Halo Top (the healthy ice cream) compared to its full sugar counterparts. So you might as well get the healthier Halo Top ice cream.
  • 100% of people confused Barbecue Wings with Honey Barbecue wings. I’m thinking George and Maggie mixed up the labels…
  • Six of 12 participants (50%) thought the instant mashed potatoes were homemade. My recommendation– don’t waste your time making homemade mashed potatoes.
  • Seven out of 10 people (70%) can correctly identify a bottom shelf glass of wine. However, the difference between a mid and upper-mid shelf bottle of wine is harder to distinguish. So next time you’re at the store, go with your gut and buy the second cheapest bottle of wine.
  • 11 out of 12 people correctly identified homemade guacamole. It’s just different, and in my opinion, probably worth the extra time.
  • Zach’s mom makes a really awesome Moravian Sugar Cake.
  • For cookies and mac and cheese, buying the store brand is probably just fine. Only 3 out of 11 people (27%) could correctly identify Harris Teeter cookie dough, and only 3 out of 13 people (23%) could correctly identify store brand Mac and Cheese. Those odds are even worse than a true guess (33%).
    • That being said, it may be worth buying brand name mozzarella sticks. Five out of 13 participants (38%) correctly identified the store brand mozzarella sticks, which is just better than guessing. This doesn’t mean that the store brand mozzarella sticks necessarily are worse (or better) than the brand names, but the data suggests they may be just slightly different enough to notice.
  • Are you a water snob? Most people can’t tell the difference. Only our top two testers (Andrew and Jacob) got all three water picks correct. And while Dasani gets a lot of hate, only 4 out of 13 participants could pick it out of a crowd of premium brands. For the most part, water is water.
  • 75% of participants could correctly identify Gouda, but 42% confused Cheddar with Monterrey Jack. It’s important to know how to lay out a cheese board, but it’s also okay to use a little creativity/flexibility.

Want to really dive into the data?

Here’s the summary table below, or click here for the source data and more analysis.

How to Food: The One Where Ryan Learns How to Cook and Can Teach You Too

/ rkelleyc / 4 Comments

Up until this summer, I was pretty spoiled when it came to other people making food for me.

Now I’ve got a rotating list of at least four meals I can make that are healthy-ish, use less than four ingredients, and take less than 20 minutes start to finish. I think I’m going to call it:

Less than Four and Under 20:

Let’s start with my favorite: How to Quesadillas

As promised, it only has four ingredients: tortillas, cheese, chicken, and whatever else you have in the freezer.

photo 3

Step 1: Cheese and tortilla

Step 2: Chicken

Step 3: The whatever else part. I took a bag of frozen rice and vegetables, put it in the microwave for 5 minutes, and then you’re ready to go.

Step 4: Medium heat, flip it once.

The steps are simple, but you’ll have a fancy finished product; Southwest Vegetable Blended  Quesadilla with Herb-Roasted Chicken 

If you’re not convinced yet, here’s some nutritional facts I made up:

Protein: 20g

Calories: 400

Vegetables? Yes.

Gluten free? Sure.

How to Pizzas: A Close #2

Sweet Baby Ray’s Barbecue Chicken Pizza with Mozzamelt on Fair Trade Pita

photo 1

 Step 1: Pita bread— I’m really not seeing the difference between pita bread and pizza crust so let’s stick with pita bread (I can’t confirm the fair trade part).

Step 2: Pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, and chicken

Step 3: Throw it in the oven for 15 minutes at 350 degrees

How to other foods: 

By having an awesome sister, and a very understanding girlfriend who can make things like this:

French Toast by Erin

Coming soon: I’m going to make my own Crunchwrap Supreme