I’m a chef and I personally prep my meals in advance. The most common misconception I see about meal prep is that it has to be all the food for the week, and that’s just not true. You can, and probably should, do just a little bit each day. It’s called mise, and it’s vastly underappreciated.

As a line cook, I do a ton of prep every day. I chop all the carrots, slice all the onions, etc etc. Mise is a fancy word for all the chopped and prepped ingredients. You do a ton of it at the beginning of the day because you know what dishes you’re gonna be making and you know how you need to prep for them, and prepping everything beforehand saves time and brainpower later. <br><br>When you get home from work and you want to cook dinner but you’re tired, you just want to go through the motions and then sit on the couch and watch tv. If all your ingredients are already prepped, you can do that. But if you have to chop a bunch of onions and carrots first, you’re gonna order takeout. <br><br>If you do a little bit of prep for your meals each day, it makes everything so much easier. Chop all the onions you need for the week when you get home from the grocery store. You can always use them for something, and it’s better to have onions and not need them than to need onions and not have them. <br><br>My advice is to stop thinking about meal prep as cooking all your meals for the week on Sunday. Start thinking about it as just doing a little bit here and there so that everything is easier later. Chop your ingredients in the morning and leave them in the fridge for later. Marinate your meat for a few days before you need to use it. Make a big pot of beans or grains and use some for one meal, then some for another, then some for another. <br><br>If you’re prepping a week’s worth of meals at once, you’re doing it wrong.