Have you ever heard of the “mise en place” way of cooking? Well, it is a French phrase for “everything in its place”. Official culinary training in culinary schools teach how to use this way of cooking. In fact, if you watch cooking shows, you will see the majority of cooking shows use this method.

I like to use this method a lot of times when I have time, and may be dealing with a recipe that has a lot of ingredients. This method is also good for meal prep. Here is the steps I do using this method:

1. I always read the entire recipe, ingredients and all steps.

2. Then, gather each ingredient item from your pantry or fridge, and set it on the counter.

3. Gather any mixing bowls and little condiment bowls together.

4. Then start putting the portion items in the condiment bowls (or as I call them, the “mise en place” bowls), per the ingredient list. So if the recipe calls for 1 cup of flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1 tablespoon of baking powder, put one cup of flour in one bowl, 1 teaspoon of salt in one bowl, and the tablespoon of baking powder in another bowl. You will do this for each ingredient.

5. Put all the ingredient containers back up in the pantry or fridge, leaving only the portioned ingredients on the counter. Now, this step is what I usually do, to kind of keep things tidy. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.

6. Now you are ready to start assembling your ingredients, per the recipe steps, to make your dish.

A little note, you are using lots of dishes when you do “mise en place” for some recipes. Not every recipe will take a lot of ingredients, so it won’t always be a lot of dishes. But I think this method is not only very organized and neat, it is kind of fun this way as well.

As you can see, the recipe I was making here was a Chicken Fried Rice. This recipe didn’t have a lot of ingredients, but as you can see, I used what I had to portion out the ingredients. A measuring cup and a few condiment bowls. No need to buy special cooking dishes, but see what you have and use those.

In an attempt to learn some more about “mise en place”, I decided to look up a few articles that might offer good information. First, there is a blog post that really defines “mise en place” and the second article explains how learning how “mise en place” can be very beneficial.

This method is great for meal prep and really keeps your recipe making streamlined. Happy cooking!

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