Meal Prep like a Private Chef: Four Menus for Weeknight Dinners
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What do private chefs actually cook for families during a typical week?
Have you ever wondered what private chefs really cook for their clients in a week? Hi, it's Sonia. Today Carrie and I are sharing menus that we've cooked as private chefs for our clients. From busy families with teenagers to households that are balancing different dietary needs, these are the kinds of meals that are flexible, make-a-head friendly, and designed to stretch over the course of multiple lunches and dinners, and some breakfasts too. We're also sharing all the techniques and tips we've picked up for menu planning and for the recipes that really work year after year. And if you're looking for the recipes from this week's show, you can always find them linked in our show notes, or you can get them delivered straight to your inbox by subscribing to our Substack, foodfriendspodcast.substack.com.
And for more recipe inspiration, you can find us on Instagram. At Food Friends Pod. Stay tuned to hear more about meal planning like a private shop. Welcome to Food Friends, a podcast inspiring home cooks to try new dishes in the kitchen. By sharing trusted recipes, tips, and friendship. Hi, I'm Sonia. And I'm Carrie. We met in Los Angeles over 15 years ago as personal chefs and haven't stopped talking about food since. We're so glad you're here. Hi, Carrie. Hi, Sonia. You and I both really started our culinary careers as private chefs. That's how we got into food. We cooked for families, we worked for families. And I actually returned to it this year. So now it's an active part of my life. But I think it really has shaped us as home cooks, not just as what we do for a job.
I completely agree. I've said this before to you, is it was such a privilege to do this as a job. And now that I am a working parent and my son has a busy schedule, I think the ability to cook and meal prep and think of menus, especially, it's so much additional work that I didn't realize it when I was doing it as a personal chef. It was just part of my job. But now I have to do it as part of my real life. Yeah. Think about menus a little bit like I think about outlining an essay or a writing project. You never want to outline. It's so boring. It's a little tedious. And then, but if you don't do that, the work suffers for it. And not that you have to menu plan every week of your life, but when you do, it's such a gift because it accounts for all the various things that get thrown at us.
So if you take a beat, and think about what is needed through the week, whether it's for you or for a client, you're thinking, okay, on these nights, this is happening. If I can get ahead and make something that I can reheat. It's gonna save me time and I'll have a little more breathing room. So I think that's the way I'm always thinking about it, whether it's for me, whether it's for other people. And for real, I don't do this every week for myself. But the weeks that I do, I truly am grateful. And so you and I are each gonna share. Two menus from real private chefing weeks where we're accounting for different ages, different dietary restrictions and needs, and different preferences because everybody has preferences.
Even if you eat everything, you have preferences. It's so true. I know you're gonna share a little bit about what you're doing for your clients now, but what I would often do when I was working as a personal chef is I would cook a live dinner. I would make dinner and serve it to them that night, but then I would also add other things to their refrigerator for other days of the week. And I worked with other personal chefs. I would cover them on vacation where they would basically just cook a bunch of food in the morning or the midday and put these Tupperware glass containers full of food in someone's fridge for an entire week. And those two ways of cooking are totally different as well. That's a really good point.
Yeah, because my when I started out, I was cooking dinners for that night. And now I'm really cooking a combination of for the night that I'm there plus the week ahead. So that's actually a good segue to my first menu, which is for one of my current clients.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What do private chefs actually cook for families during a typical week?
0:00–5:13
2
How do Sonia and Carrie design flexible, make‑ahead menus for mixed‑diet households?
5:13–9:42
3
What is the full taco‑bowl menu (protein, slaw, sauces) and how can it be mixed‑and‑matched throughout the week?
9:42–15:10
4
How does the fish‑taco & steak‑taco menu for a family of four get prepped for quick weeknight dinners?
15:10–19:19
5
What are the key batch‑cooking techniques (soup, roasted veggies, tuna salad) that keep meals reheatable and tasty?
19:19–23:36
6
How can you plan grocery trips by aisle to save time when cooking for multiple clients?
23:36–27:06
7
What strategies make burger nights, mac & cheese, and panini sandwiches work for both kids and low‑carb adults?
27:06–28:24
Speakers
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