Advanced Meal Prep = Lean Thinking You Can Eat
I’ve been “meal prepping” for years, but not in the way Instagram influencers show off with their rainbow rows of plastic tubs. No, I’m talking about a level of prep that’s cleverer, more flexible, and frankly more liberating.
This isn’t about endless boxes of boiled chicken and broccoli labelled Monday to Friday. This is Advanced Meal Prep as deliberate process design. The kind that saves time, money, and sanity… while still leaving room for creativity and spontaneity.
And once you start applying these tricks, you’ll never go back to clumpy freezer bags or panic dinners.
The Spectrum: From Basic Meal Prep to Advanced
Let’s set the scene.
Basic meal prep is what most people picture:
Cooking a week’s worth of meals on Sunday.
Dividing them into identical tubs.
Eating reheated versions for days.
It’s helpful, but rigid. It optimises for convenience at the expense of flexibility. Great if you love routine, less great if your appetite or plans shift…which they more often than not, do.
Advanced meal prep, on the other hand, is process design. Instead of prepping finished meals, you prep modular components. Think of it like stocking your personal larder with versatile building blocks, prepped in clever formats that make cooking fast and flexible.
Instead of six tubs of the same chilli, you have beef mince in burger patties, meatballs, and loose portions.
Instead of limp herbs in a fridge drawer, you have chopped, frozen, and garnishing-ready herbs in three formats.
Instead of clumped frozen chicken, you have individually frozen drumsticks you can grab by the piece.
It’s the difference between “surviving the week” and “designing your kitchen for flow.”
Why Process Design?
Because deliberate process design changes the output.
Basic prep = convenience, predictability, repetition.
Advanced prep = all of the above + spontaneity, creativity, freedom without chaos.
With advanced prep, you don’t suffer the penalty of a chaotic fridge or a 45-minute prep session every night. You’ve engineered flexibility into your system. That’s what makes it “Lean”: the right ingredients, in the right format, available at the right time.
Example 1: Freezer Flexibility, Mushrooms and More
I’ll admit it, most people don’t freeze mushrooms. Supermarkets flash-freeze them, so if you buy frozen, they come ready to go. But what about leftovers? The half-punnet of mushrooms, peppers, or courgettes sitting in your fridge, threatening to slime out before you use them?
Most people shove them into a bag and hope for the best. Cue clumps, wasted food, and frustration.
The fix is simple: freeze on a tray, not in a lump. Spread slices or chunks out, freeze, then transfer into a bag. That way, you can grab just what you need. This works brilliantly for:
Leftover vegetables – onions, peppers, courgettes, carrots.
Berries – raspberries and strawberries for smoothies.
Chicken drumsticks or wings – grab two for lunch, six for a party.
Sliced chillies or jalapeños – throw into sauces or stir-fries without thawing the lot.
Instead of leftovers becoming waste, they become assets, each piece accessible, no clumps, no delays.
Example 2: Herbs Three Ways, Dill as a Case Study
In manufacturing, tools and parts are often classified as Runners, Repeaters, and Strangers. Runners are the items used constantly, Repeaters are used regularly but less often, and Strangers are e.g., machinery rarely used but required for occasional high-value products. The logic is that you design your processes differently depending on the category. Apply that to food prep, and it’s a game-changer.
Fresh herbs are notorious for going from perky to slimy in 48 hours. Dill, parsley, coriander, they look glorious when you buy them, then wilt in the fridge before you’ve used half. instead of treating herbs as one undifferentiated “perishable,” you plan for their different usage patterns. The result? Less waste, faster cooking, and the ability to keep even occasional “special” ingredients ready without cluttering your system.
Here’s where Advanced Prep shines. Take my dill. I portion it into three distinct forms, each with a different purpose:
Chopped (runners) – for everyday cooking. Toss straight from freezer into scrambled eggs, fishcakes, or soups.
Stems (repeaters) – go whole into boiling potatoes for fish dishes, releasing subtle flavour.
Feathery tips (strangers) – reserved for garnishes when I’m attempting fine-dining plates at home.
This is more than chopping and freezing; it’s deliberate process design. By creating three formats, I’ve pre-matched my herbs to three cooking scenarios: everyday, repeat classics, and occasional special dishes.
Imagine applying this logic to other herbs:
Coriander – chopped for curries, stems for stocks, leaves for tacos.
Basil – blended into pesto cubes, torn for salads, whole leaves frozen for garnish.
Parsley – stems for broth, chopped for gremolata, sprigs for plating.
Suddenly, herbs stop being a race against the fridge clock and become a flexible toolkit.
Example 3: Pancetta, Strips, Chunks, and Dice
Now let’s talk pancetta. One of my kitchen heroes. As it’s not cheap and a runner, my business case says buy in bulk & cure yourself…worth the effort. Once ready, I slice it into multiple formats:
Strips – perfect for carbonara or wrapping around asparagus.
Chunks – hearty additions for stews, soups, or paella.
Fine dice – to sprinkle into risotto, omelettes, or fried rice.
Each form matches a cooking use case. No more chopping at the last minute or compromising on dish choice… I also flash freeze them.
And the cost savings are staggering:
Supermarket pack (100g diced) = £2.50 (£25/kg).
Butcher slab (1.5kg) = £20 (£13/kg).
Cure it yourself = ~£7/kg.
That’s up to 72% savings. But more importantly, it’s better quality, less salt, more tailored flavours, and total control. This is Advanced Prep at its best: cost savings, quality improvement, and flexibility in one neat package.
Example 4: Minced Meat, Sausage, Burgers, and Beyond
Sausage meat is a great “starter hack” for laymen dipping their toes into advanced prep. Remove casings, portion into patties, balls, and chunks. Done. But here’s the level-up: I invested in a meat mincer…again my business case says it’s worth the money. Now I mince my own meat from scratch, beef, pork, chicken, lamb. Why? Because:
Quality – I know exactly what’s going in. No fillers, no excess fat unless I choose it.
Cost – Cheaper cuts can be transformed into premium mince.
Flexibility – I can create sausage meat, burger blends, meatballs, or stir-fry mince, all from the same batch.
Here’s my standard workflow:
Burger patties – shaped with a pastry cutter for uniformity.
Mini meatballs – quick to cook, perfect for tapas or midweek dinners.
Loose mince – portioned flat for fast defrosting.
Chunks – for stews and paellas.
This isn’t about being obsessive. It’s about engineering choice. Whatever mood I’m in, burgers, pasta, curry, the right base is ready in minutes.
For beginners, sausage meat portioning is a great first step. For the advanced, mincing your own opens up a whole new world.
The Modular System
What ties all these examples together? Modularity.
Herbs in three forms.
Pancetta in strips, chunks, and dice.
Mince in patties, balls, and loose form.
Vegetables tray-frozen, ready to pull by the piece.
Each is a building block. Together, they form a flexible system.
With this system, dinner isn’t dictated by what’s left in the fridge. It’s dictated by what you want to eat. The building blocks are there, modular, prepped, and ready.
That’s deliberate process design: prepping today for freedom tomorrow.
Quantifiable Benefits
Let’s crunch the numbers and benefits.
Quality – Frozen correctly, herbs last 3 - 4 months, mushrooms 6 months, pancetta a year. But the real win isn’t shelf life, it’s what that enables. With the right ingredients preserved at their peak and portioned in clever formats, you can cook any dish at any time. That means throwing together something that feels gourmet even when you’ve just come home late, pulling off a spread for unexpected guests without stress, or catering to different food preferences in the family without three separate cooking sessions. It’s food that isn’t just convenient, but exciting, adaptable, and confidence-building. And that translates directly into quality of life - better meals, happier moments, more spontaneity, less stress.
Cost – Yes, bulk buying and portioning save money, often 30 - 70%. But the real value goes beyond the maths. Advanced prep reduces the temptation of takeaways, eliminates the guilt of wasted food, and makes higher-quality ingredients suddenly affordable. When pancetta costs you £7/kg instead of £25/kg, or when your own cured jalapeños replace a pricey jar, you’re not just saving pennies, you’re lifting the standard of everyday meals without inflating your budget. That financial breathing space compounds into peace of mind.
Delivery (Speed) – Cooking time drops by 20–30% because the fiddly work is already done. But again, it’s not just about faster dinners. It’s about having the freedom to match meals to your mood, your energy, and your circumstances. You can go from nothing on the table to a “how-did-you-do-that?” dish in 15 minutes. You can host at the drop of a hat, feed kids before football, or wind down with comfort food - all without chaos. It’s speed redefined as flexibility and control.
And the Lean lens? You’ve eliminated TIMPWOOD wastes:
Transport – fewer emergency shops.
Inventory – right-sized frozen portions.
Motion – no repetitive chopping.
People – less stress.
Waiting – no thawing bottlenecks.
Over-processing – prep once, use many.
Over-production – only cook what you need.
Defects – less spoilage, better flavour.
Tools for Advanced Prep
A few investments make all the difference:
Meat mincer – unlocks a whole new level.
Vacuum sealer – extends freezer life, prevents burn…don’t forget the ability to sous-vide!
Pastry cutters & scoops – perfect patties and meatballs.
Labels – the simplest form of visual management.
Sharp knife – obvious, but crucial.
And don’t forget Lean thinking tools:
80/20 Rule – Prep what you use most (for me: pancetta and jalapeños).
Standard Work – Create rituals: herb chopping and leftover freezing on Monday morning to counter my illogical Monday blues, meat mincing monthly.
Visual Management – Clear containers, labelled bags, colour-coded boards.
Beyond the Kitchen
Why am I so passionate about this? Because this isn’t just food. It’s life design. The same principles I use here, modular design, waste elimination, pull systems, I use in business, travel, even relationships.
Advanced prep isn’t rigid. It’s liberating. It’s about creating the conditions for spontaneity without chaos. Want stir-fry? Grab marinated strips. Fancy pasta? Pancetta dice are ready. Craving comfort? Meatballs in minutes. That’s not just efficiency. That’s freedom in flexibility.
Final Thoughts
Basic meal prep is survival. Advanced meal prep is design.
By deliberately portioning, modularising, and prepping, you create a system that saves money, preserves quality, and, most importantly, frees you up to live and eat spontaneously.
Don’t stop at tubs of the same chilli. Raise the bar. Chop herbs three ways. Slice pancetta into formats. Mince your own meat. Freeze leftovers as usable assets.
Advanced meal prep isn’t about containers. It’s about process design for flexibility and flow. And once you try it, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.
Do you make something that saves time, reduces waste, or brings smarter flow into everyday life? That’s Lean thinking in action and we’d love to hear from you. Leanier is opening its doors to brands and service providers who makes life simpler, smarter, and more sustainable. If you (or someone you know) are shaping Lean solutions that deserve endorsement, step forward. Pass our Lean test and join us in bringing everyday Lean to the world.
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