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Meal Prep Sunday delivers meal preps to thousands of customers every single Sunday! Every day leading up to that is just as important as the last. It’s important for people to know where they get their food from. Every single ingredient involved in cooking is equally important since they all come together to make one appetizing meal. There is a lot of preparation in every station from receiving the ingredients to delivering prepared meals throughout Southern California. Here’s an insight on how we prepare the ground beef meatballs with sautéed vegetables and white rice.
This is the day where some members of the team come in and thoroughly clean up and organize the kitchen so nothing can slow down the succeeding days. The kitchen is prepared, the stations are sanitized, and the trays and racks are put where they can easily be utilized. A second fleet of deliveries are dispatched to local influencers for video testimonials while the kitchen staff arranges the ingredients and appliances in their proper placement for their team to easily find them the next day. This day serves as the laying foundation of a productive week’s work in terms of composing a safe work environment. We all work more efficiently when we have our work contents in order!
With our executive chef, Matt Kelly, overseeing all of the production in the kitchen, this is the day for mixing the ground beef and preparing the Korean BBQ glaze. One of the cooks, Julio, blends the ingredients (soy sauce, garlic cloves, ginger, brown sugar, red pepper flakes, rice vinegar, and sesame oil) together to create a delicious BBQ sauce that will later coat the meatballs with flavor. A slurry of cornstarch and water will help thicken up the sauce nicely. Matt will then mix the ground beef recipe and scoop up the beef into meatballs, allocating the quantity of food into the appropriate portions to match each meal prep plan. Each plan has a specific count of calories, fats, proteins, and carbohydrates for one’s goals. The total measurement of every macro gives each customer an easier way to plan out their lives without worrying about keeping on track.
Today is the actual cooking of the meatballs, followed by glazing the beef meatballs and sautéing the vegetables. We first cook a small batch for our executives and CFO to taste test before moving into mass production. Matt and David Guerrero, another executive chef, roll two crates at a time into our industrial-sized oven. The beef will be cooked at a sizzling temperature of 350 degrees for 25 minutes on the second. This will add a nice, caramel texture to the outside of beef while it’s rotating.
After the meatballs have received the perfect treatment from the core to the crust, Matt will drain out the extra fat from the trays and check the temperature with a thermostat to confirm that it has been properly cooked. David will apply a Korean BBQ sauce to coat the meatballs and cook them one last time to enhance the flavor. We use a Korean sauce because we believe it to be sweeter and has a more sophisticated taste. Samuel, one of the line cooks, will arrange our vegetables (carrots, broccoli, bell peppers, onions, and kale) and quickly fry them in a little hot fat. Sauteing vegetables will give your body the nutrients it needs to help boost the immune system and maintain a healthy bowel system.
A throng of sauciers will come into the kitchen on this day and distribute sauce into thousands of plastic ramekins. The Sambal sauce is for customers to apply to the meatballs and vegetables for an added source of flavor. Since it has no sugar and a low-calorie count, Sambal is a healthier alternative to Sriracha. The sauce also packs a hot punch and allows you to focus more on the flavors the sauce consists of. Adding this sauce to the entire meal after heating it up will definitely enhance the richness of every ingredient.
After all is said and done, the meals are packaged and covered by a vacuum-sealed film. They are all organized within the confines of the BPA-free container so they won’t slip around and make a mess. The meals are plated to match the keto / shredding / bulking / weight-loss category for each customer. Our culinary experts split up the ingredients by putting in the sauce container, adding the white rice next, then the vegetables, followed by the meatballs, and lastly all will be garnished with sesame seeds. Stickers are applied to the matching receptacle that list the name of the meal, macros, and expiration date. These containers are to make sure the contents inside stay fresh and keep their juicy zest for about a week.
Optimizing the longevity of a meal’s freshness is one of the biggest marks we have to hit every week. Give us a try for yourself and see how we prioritize the quality of our product for you. Just go to our website, add your information, and set up your plan. Whatever your goal is we can help get you there. Try us out here! If you’d like to see more on how we go about cooking our meals, watch this!