How to Organize Your Recipe Prep
The scene might be a familiar one…It’s a rainy Sunday, you’re thumbing through a new cookbook, or bouncing around cooking apps, and suddenly you discover the one…The recipe that completes you. You google it, and it’s been confirmed: it has more than five thousand five star reviews! You must make this recipe ASAP.
Days later, after your best of intentions, the poor thing has been put on the sidelines in favor of the old standby, like your go-to mac and cheese or omelet. And who can blame you?! The prospect of cooking a big meal can be daunting, and sometimes you simply would rather NOT with all that peeling and the chopping and microplaning.
If you really do want to make that Thai Red Lentil Curry, but struggle with that extra push, here’s how to make it happen. (Hint: it involves a little mise en place, but not the kind where you’re sprinkling all your spices into little ramekins.)
1. Read the recipe from top to bottom. The day of, scan the ingredients list quickly to confirm you’ve got everything you need. If there are one or two things you’re almost out of or don’t have, google common substitutes if you’d rather not run to the bodega/grocery store for a random thing. Read each step carefully to make sure there’s no hidden time sucks involved (i.e. soaking nuts for five days or letting dough rise for five years, which is the last thing anyone wants to see when you’re mid-chop/toast/roast). Think of reading your recipe as a little insurance policy on your meal, ensuring you have all the time and ingredients you need to make it happen.
2. Line up your ingredients. If the mere thought of crushing garlic cloves makes you want to order Uber Eats, give your future self a hand by prepping your ingredients in advance. At around 5 or 6 pm, I recommend corralling everything together on your countertop so you’re not scrambling while cooking. Prepping can be as simple as dumping what you need on the countertop, or as advanced as chopping up vegetables. But, if you’re like me, placing a chef’s knife next to a pile of carrots is enough to inspire some future chopping. Which brings me to my next tip: gadgetry AKA wizardry.
3. Grab your gadgets. Does your recipe call for canned tomatoes? Can opener time. Minced garlic? Pull out the garlic press. A dusting of parm on your Amatriciana? Whip out that Microplane. If you can round up all your gadgets beforehand, you’ll be doing yourself another favor so you’re not rifling through that messy kitchen gadget drawer.
4. Pull out your pots and pans. Perhaps this is just me, but the prospect of filling up water WHILE I’m cooking can put me off the whole thing. I find that pulling out necessary pots and pans and skillets in advance (and filling them with water if the recipe requires it) is enough to set me on track. Extra points for putting the salt next to your pot of water when it comes time to, you know, salt your water.
5. Easy on your eyes. If you’re using a cookbook for your recipe, refer to your cookbook. If you found a recipe on the internet, go easy on yourself and use your laptop/tablet and not your phone. There’s nothing worse than squinting to see the steps on your iPhone, and being forced out of a recipe with a silly ad for ugly sneakers.
While all of these steps might seem like even more work, once you make a habit out of recipe prep, you’ll be a Julia Child in the kitchen before you know it.