Leah Victoria’s Meal Prep for Real Life

The Dinner Plan

Leah Victoria joins The Dinner Plan to share her flexible, non-perfectionist approach to meal prep and home cooking. She outlines practical strategies for building a

Key takeaways

• Leah Victoria advocates for 'organized chaos' meal planning using her phone's Notes app instead of rigid binders or aesthetic containers.
• She recommends freezing building blocks like baked meatballs, extra sauce, and homemade chicken stock in a 'stock bag' to transform vegetable scraps into future meals.

Main topics

• Flexible meal prep philosophy
• Freezer & pantry building blocks

Notable quotes

"I think people put a lot of pressure on themselves to make it like this whole production. And it really just doesn't have to be that."

Conclusion

Listeners gain actionable, low-pressure strategies for building a func

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) Before we get into my conversation with Leah, I want to thank Lotus for supporting this episode. If you're listening to this podcast, you probably have a passion for cooking, and passion deserves tools that truly perform. Meet Lotus, the new range of chef-inspired countertop appliances. Lotus designs appliances for precision and performance so you can enjoy delicious, consistent results. Whether you're using the perfectionist countertop oven, the power spin blender, or the top drip coffee maker. Check out the professional series at lotuscooking.com. That's L-O-T-U-S cooking.com. And use code dinnerplan for 10 % off. Speaker 3 (0:49) Welcome to The Dinner Plan, where we start every week with fresh cooking inspiration. I'm so excited for today's episode. We're getting meal prep advice from Leah Victoria, who you may know as Leah's Cucina on social media. She draws on her Sicilian roots to make recipes that work for busy families. And her new book is called And That's Dinner, flexible recipes for cooking smarter, not harder. Leah, thanks for coming up to Brooklyn today. Speaker 2 (1:16) Thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited. So before we get into Speaker 3 (1:20) the book, I would Speaker 2 (1:21) love to hear what you've been cooking Speaker 3 (1:22) lately. Speaker 2 (1:23) Listen, as soon as there's a chill in the air, I need something braising away on the stove, okay? Recently, I braised these country ribs, which is a very inexpensive cut of pork, actually, in tomato sauce with red wine, carrot, celery, fennel, and I served it over some polenta. Speaker 3 (1:40) Ooh, were they bone-in? Speaker 2 (1:42) They were boneless, and I braised them for about four hours, so they really were just fork-tender. Okay, and something a little different. Everyone's used to a meatball in their sauce or sausage. This was delicious. My kids loved it. What have you been cooking? Speaker 3 (1:56) I made a really fun dinner last night that I definitely will repeat. I love that feeling when you like take the first bite or the second bite and you're like, oh yeah, like this is a keeper. Liza Peterson shared this recipe on Instagram. I'll share the link in our newsletter this week for a crunchy buffalo chicken slaw wrap. So you make this really simple, creamy buffalo dressing with like mayo and Greek yogurt and Frank's hot sauce or some lemon juice. And you use it to dress a slaw that's thinly cut cabbage and carrot and scallions and celery for crunch. And you add a bunch of cooked chicken, like rotisserie chicken. And that's your filling. And you wrap it into big tortillas, like the 10 inch width. Speaker 3 (2:43) crumbled Fritos for crunch. Speaker 2 (2:45) That is crazy. And Speaker 3 (2:47) you wrap it all up and then you crisp it in a pan, you know, so it kind of stays closed, which I wasn't sure I could pull off, but it totally worked. And then you serve it with a super simple stir together blue cheese dressing. And it was really fun. And I think I would definitely do it again. I would probably, for my family, I think we wanted less cabbage, more celery. Maybe more chicken, but it was creamy and spicy and crunchy. That's Speaker 2 (3:11) the Speaker 3 (3:11) best. It's Speaker 2 (3:12) hitting all the notes. So Speaker 3 (3:13) fun. Speaker 2 (3:14) Yeah, I love that. Speaker 3 (3:15) So fun. And, you know, sometimes as we get into the routine, I find myself just needing dinner to be a little more fun. And comforting. Exactly. And I think, you know, you're totally right. You should be braising something all the time. Even if those country ribs weren't your dinner, like you could braise them and put them in the freezer. 100%. Speaker 2 (3:35) That's why you have to get yourself a good Dutch oven because I swear that's like a number one staple in my kitchen. Everyone loves the slow cooker too, which is great, but a Dutch oven does exactly the same. Just got to be home, of course. Speaker 3 (3:45) I'm so glad we're talking today because I think so many people listening just need advice for setting themselves up for an easier time when you're in charge of weeknight dinners. So if we were to open up your freezer right now, what kinds of things would we see that make your dinners really quick and easy down the road? Speaker 2 (4:06) I am a believer of doing a little extra when you have the time. So, you know, you have that prepped, ready to go for your next meal. On the nights when there's absolutely do not have any time, I have a little something cut in the freezer or I have my garlic already poached. I have my onions already caramelized. If you open my freezer right now, you would definitely find meatballs, of course. I'm always making extra meatballs. And those could be used for so many things. A quick meal during the week, if you have no time. You can completely transform the meatball into a new meal. And then, of course, sauce. I'm always going to freeze extra sauce. I make lots of chicken stock. I have something called a stock bag, where as you're chopping your onion, your garlic, all the things that you would be putting in like a soup. I put it in a Ziploc, I freeze it, and then when you want to make a really good chicken, you know, chicken stock or even a beef stock, you put those scraps in there, you boil it up, and you really make a beautiful stock just by stuff that you would be throwing out in the garbage. It really is amazing. And it's like something that I always stress. I've been doing it for years. And if you open my freezer and you see a bag of garbage, trust me, it's going to be something delicious one day. I actually still have a ton of overflow from the garden too because I froze a lot all summer. So you're going to see lots of fresh vegetables in there. And, you know, I really don't want a freezer full of cooked meals. I want things that I could do stuff with them. So, you know, the stock, the sauce, the meatballs, something that you can build something further. And also, if you have something in your fridge going bad, like say you have a zucchini going bad or maybe cauliflower or something. Chop it up into portion size, put it in Ziplocs, and you pop that right in the freezer. Now, you didn't waste the vegetable. And also, say you're building something and four or five days from now, you already prepped it. I had a celery that I shamefully let totally go bad in my fridge. And Speaker 3 (5:56) that is the kind of thing where even if it's getting a little bit floppy, if you chop it, that's going to be good in a broth. Speaker 2 (6:03) So true. That's why those celery, carrot, like you should always have something like that in the fridge because they stay a while. You know, you don't have to use them the day you buy them. Speaker 3 (6:10) And you could put them in a pot of beans. So when you are freezing meatballs, are you freezing them raw? Are you freezing them cooked? Are they in Speaker 2 (6:17) sauce? Like what stage are we in? So I bake them all off and then I freeze them just in the bake stage. I don't want to put them in the sauce because maybe when I take them out of the freezer, I'm not in the mood for the sauce. I have a really delicious recipe in my book called Meatballs Still. And you can use frozen meatballs for that too. Speaker 3 (6:32) Okay, we've done the freezer. Let's turn around. I don't know where your pantry is, but what do you keep in the pantry? That's, you know, affordable and easy to make into a meal. Speaker 2 (6:43) I'll always have a can of clams in there. I mean, I grew up eating clam sauce, very simple dish, olive oil, garlic, parsley. And it is so comforting. My kids love it. Believe it or not, they actually like my husband's version better than mine. I'll always have a can of anchovies in there. And I tell people, even if you hate anchovies, you have to give it a chance because they completely melt into whatever you're frying them into. And they don't even taste like the fish anymore. They just give it this like savory, briny, umami taste. So that little can take you a really long way in a dish, okay? Giardiniera, pepperoncini, something pickled. You could chop it up, add it to pasta salads, regular salads. You can chop it up and add it to a mayo. It works as a really great spread for sandwiches. You can even use the brine for a martini if you're feeling a little frisky. Speaker 3 (7:33) Totally. And the brine can be good in a salad dressing. I mean, that's valuable stuff. Or, you know, even in a braised dish, you know, a little bit for a little pep. Speaker 2 (7:45) You could even use the pickle brine or whatever it is and add your own veg. That celery that's gone bad in your fridge, put it in the leftover brine. Oh, yeah. Besides Speaker 3 (7:55) like spaghetti with clams, what else would you use a canned clam for? Speaker 2 (7:58) Clam chowder. You can make clams oregano. You can make clam, like fried clam bowls, almost like a hush puppy, but with the chopped clams in it. If you have like a box of jiffy cornbread plus the canned clams, you have a delicious hush puppy recipe right there. Speaker 3 (8:14) That's so smart. So this book has a few different meal prep sections, and I want to really dive into those. But let's start with some strategy. What kind of meal prep? works for you and what doesn't? What's your most important meal prep advice? Speaker 2 (8:34) So meal prep for me is not like making five of the same meals and eating it all week, putting them into little containers, you know, and that could work for some people. And if it does, I suggest you stay that way, you know, because if it's going to work for you, you know, it may not work for the next person. And that's okay. My kind of meal prep is really just like making my life a little easier. for later. So if I have an hour on a Sunday, what could I do in that hour that's going to save me some time, you know? So on a Wednesday, you know, comes around, everyone has three different activities to get to. I have no time to put something on the table. And I know that I could still provide a delicious meal for my family. Sometimes that means washing and just chopping my vegetables, doing all the fruit prep so it's ready to just grab and go throughout the week. I'll marinate some chicken at the beginning of the week, even bake a loaf of bread. Like, I know we're going to need bread in the house this week. You don't have to meal prep a thousand things just because somebody on the internet told you that's what you need to do. You know, you need to make meal prep work for you and your family. Like, if you think you struggle around breakfast time, then prep a bunch of breakfast. If you're struggling around like five o'clock to figure out what to cook, maybe prep those extra meatballs or grill that chicken so you know when you come home, you could put a nice meal on the table. You don't have to. Always be so perfect with creating these whole meals. Like, what am I going to make? You got to do a side, a starch, a protein. Like, just prep a few things that you know that you and your family are enjoying and build off that. Speaker 3 (10:01) You know, I think we sometimes see these videos, they're very aesthetic. They're like stocking the fridge and the containers. But it might be best not to start with some huge effort and to start with prepping one thing. Speaker 2 (10:14) It's true. That can be very overwhelming, especially when you're just like, you know, I'm going to start meal prepping. And you're watching this insane video. It's like it could be discouraging for people. And I don't want people to feel that way. I want you to feel that this is something that you're going to be that you're going to do that's going to help you in the future, not stress you out. Speaker 3 (10:31) So if someone listening has been really flying by the seat of their pants, it's October now and they haven't been doing any meal prep or meal planning. September felt crazy. How? Would you walk them through the whole process? Speaker 2 (10:45) First of all, I would say do not make this a whole production, okay? As soon as it starts to feel a little overwhelming, no one's going to do it again. Honestly, it cannot feel like a chore. Before I even make a grocery list, I look at what I already have in the house. I think people will forget that they have a pantry. They forget they have stuff in the freezer, you know? There's so many meals in your house that you don't even know you could build off of what you already have, okay? So half the time you already have this thought of three or four dinners sitting in your fridge or your freezer. And then you want to look at what your week actually looks like. So what nights are really busy? What nights are you home a little bit earlier? Like I'm not going to plan to bake a lasagna at 6.30 at night on a Wednesday when I know it's a busy night, you know? That's like a meeple from the refrigerator type of night, okay? So you need to be practical in that sense as well. And then I'll pick maybe like three or four dinners, not seven, okay? I like to leave some room for wiggle. You know, give yourself some time for the meals to overlap. Like maybe you're using something in Monday's meal that you could also use in Wednesday's meal, you know. And if you are planning everything to the T, then you have all these extra things. You're, you know, you're too busy shopping for 47 meals and you're probably not even making all of that because by Thursday you're so tired of whatever else that you were going to plan. What I normally do is I start during the weekend. Like I'll think about over the week, what does my week look like? So that's really it. Look at what you have in your house. Look at what your week looks like. Pick a few dinners. Shop for those dinners. And give yourself a little head start, you know? The plan is supposed to make your life easier, and it's not something you have to be perfect at. Speaker 3 (12:16) How do you keep all this information organized? Speaker 2 (12:20) I wish I was, like, the color-coded, binder-girly. I'm really not. If you were to walk into the Notes app on my phone, you would be so scared. But for me, it's organized chaos. Like, that's how I... keep everything busy, honestly. I will jot it all down in my notes. And then also what I'm doing is I'm remembering a few things that I am making that we love because you forget about that. Like you were just saying it in the beginning, right? So I'm jotting that down in my notes as well. But also this is something you need to make fit your lifestyle. I can go buy the labels, buy the binder. I'll do it all for three days and I'll never touch it again. You know, that's how I stay organized. But there are people out there that need that. And I suggest you do that then, you know? Just because I'm living in organized chaos doesn't mean the next person has to. Speaker 3 (13:05) Yeah, I mean, I do love a paper product. I love watching it. I Speaker 2 (13:09) do. Speaker 3 (13:09) I have a very cool calendar that I use for my work that I highly recommend, but I have not switched to paper for any meal planning stuff. It's sort of notes. But so, okay, so you have a note of things you love. Speaker 2 (13:22) Note of things I love, and then I'll have a note of