Streamline weeknight cooking with this easy meal prep tip.

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

This chef-inspired meal-prep method makes weeknight cooking easier by prepping ingredients ahead instead of full meals. It’s a flexible, low-stress way to get home-cooked dinners on the table all week.

Most people are familiar with the challenge of getting dinner on the table quickly—especially on busy weeknights. When I became a parent, my previously calm and quiet evenings rapidly turned into absolute chaos. My husband and I would scramble to toss the contents of our fridge into the air fryer or onto a sheet tray in the oven, hoping that it would come out as something edible, or frantically scour the internet for easy, one-pot recipes that could be ready quickly.

One weekend, I decided to try a different approach. Drawing on my former experience as a cook, I decided to prep all my groceries the way chefs do for their mise en place.…