Prep: Cook once, eat three times.

Mise en place is not a chef's pretension. It is the household version of laying out tomorrow's clothes the night before — small effort up front, much larger return on the day.

The chapter, in sections

• The Sunday batch — A pot of grains, a tray of roasted vegetables, a protein, a sauce. Four containers. The week starts assembled, not from scratch. Two hours buys five quick weeknights.
• Component cooking — Cook ingredients, not finished dishes. The same roast chicken becomes four different dinners. Component thinking is what separates a meal plan from a meal list.
• Storage strategy — Glass containers, labelled lids, dated tape. The kitchen organises itself when storage is the easiest option. The labels matter more than the containers.
• Reheat respect — A reheated meal is not a lesser meal. Refresh with acid, fresh herb, or a quick sauce — most leftovers improve when reintroduced properly. Soup is rarely better on day one.
• The 20-minute window — A weeknight has, in practice, twenty minutes of active kitchen time. Prep is what makes those twenty minutes enough. Without prep, the same meal needs forty-five.

Common questions

• How long should a Sunday prep session take? — Ninety minutes for a household of four; forty-five for a household of one. If you are spending three hours, you are over-prepping — cook some meals fresh.
• What stores well, what doesn't? — Grains, roasted vegetables, braised proteins, sauces — all yes. Dressed salads, fried foods, anything battered — all no. Dress and finish on the day.

Other Plan chapters

• This Week
• This Weekend
• This Month
• Grocery & Budget
• Leftovers
• Seasonal Eating
• Household Constraints