Why Mexican Cuisine is the King of Meal Prep

you know i realized something very early on in my cooking career which is every time i made mexican cuisine for a party or an event and i had some leftovers i ended up eating really well throughout the week it turns out mexican cuisine is wonderful for parties but it's also great for meal prep and that's what today's video is all about i'm gonna be showing you exactly what type of foods you can make when you have some time to prep things that will last a few days in your fridge so when you're busy throughout the week you can take these different elements and throw together an incredible variety of meals that will really sustain you all week long one of the most versatile ingredients you can have in your fridge is a tortilla and also the base of so many mexican dishes but i find that it's tricky to get a really good store-bought tortilla that holds up to a handmade version and of course when i'm lazy yeah i'll buy a pack of tortillas but it's pretty easy to make tortillas at home and i've developed a method recently that works great for meal prep so if you've never made tortillas at least try this if it doesn't work for you then you can go back to the store-bought stuff to make tortillas all you need is three ingredients you've got your masa water and salt i'm just following the ratios on the back of my masa package to make this dough which is four cups of masa a pinch of salt to season it to three cups of water and i'll start stirring that up with my hand and once it's mixed together i'll give it a few needs so it's really well incorporated so that's the texture you're looking for feels exactly like play-doh if you grew up with play-doh and this dough keeps really well i found so i'll just pack it into some type of food container and as long as this is sealed that will stay nice and fresh in there and i don't know about you but i'm personally the type of person that hates a repetitive task so sitting there and making 50 tortillas not my thing i kind of go a little crazy so what i like to do is just do a few at a time throughout the week whenever i'm feeling motivated i'll whip out the dough make you know 10 tortillas enough for the meal put the dough back and then do it on another day when i'm motivated again oh yeah a little color on there once it's puffed these are good to go so just like that in about 15 minutes i've got a nice fat stack of just i mean you can't beat a fresh made tortilla now i'll throw this back in the fridge you could rattle through the whole thing but when i'm feeling motivated again in a few days i'll make a few more tortillas so one thing i will do is i'll take a few of these save the prettiest ones for dinner like that's a reject that's gonna happen perfect for a tortilla chip before you know this baby spray chips in spray 380. let's try six minutes give it a shake about halfway through if you've never made black beans from scratch i can tell you right now you are missing out on something delicious and yes i too used to use the canned stuff but once you make beans from their dried form you probably will never use the canned stuff again and i have a hack that will speed up this process a lot now i'm going to use my pressure cooker to cook these black beans because you don't even need to soak them but if you don't have a pressure cooker or an instant pot all you need to do is soak your beans the night before and just use a regular pot to cook them in it's just gonna take longer so first i'm gonna chop up half an onion use whatever type of onion you have i'm gonna smash a few cloves of garlic and throw that in my pressure cooker with a little bit of oil on the saute mode because we want to develop a little color a little flavor on these aromatics now after about five minutes when the onion and garlic are looking nice i hit it with a little bit of spice i'm using one teaspoon each of coriander cumin smoked paprika and some chili powder now the reason i'm cooking these spices now is because i want to toast those spices in the oil to enhance their flavor which doesn't take long maybe two to three minutes and then i went in with my black beans and i'm using two cups of dry black beans to four cups of water so a one to two ratio is perfect for this recipe and i set my pressure cooker on full blast if the beans are dried it's going to take around 30 to 35 minutes until they're tender if they're soaked more like 20 to 25 minutes [Music] totally forgot salt like these are missing something but look at the texture on those so tender didn't take long there is another step i'm gonna do this is totally optional if you want them in their whole form which sometimes i do i keep them in their whole form but other times like right now i prefer to just smash these up a little bit it's going to open up some different options as i start building out meals throughout the week [Music] i find when i'm bringing together these mexican dishes and balancing out flavors i'm always craving some type of just drizzle of creamy sauce that goes on top and this next one i don't know if you'd call it a sauce or at least call them zips this thing is going to blow your mind basically i've been making it all the time recently it's become my favorite condiment to have in the fridge so the star of the flavor show are these chipotles which are smoked jalapenos that are then dried if you can't find these well you can probably find something that looks just like this in your mexican aisle of your local grocery store which will work perfectly i'm going to rehydrate these chipotles by pouring some hot water over them and just letting them sit for a few minutes i'll smash and peel a few cloves of garlic and roughly chop some cilantro i can use the stems and the leaves because everything is getting processed up for this recipe and speaking of processing i'm gonna use a food processor you can also use a blender i'm gonna add in that cilantro and that garlic add in those soaked chipotles and about three tablespoons of white vinegar i'll blend that up to give it a head start and this recipe has a two-step creamy approach first i'm adding in one cup of yogurt and i'll add in a bit of salt and blend that up until smooth at this point i wanted a little more smoky flavor so i added in one or two tablespoons of that smoky chipotle liquid if you're using chipotle and adobo just add some of that juicy sauce in the can once that was blended the final step was my second creamy element which was just a little bit of mayo to really round out the flavors and thicken this sauce up a bit wow that right there if you're new to sauces start with that even if you don't like mexican food that will make pretty much anything tastes better so i cooked some chicken in there earlier so i have some chicken fat veggies are going to go right in the chicken when this comes out of the fridge it's like a paste so i can just spread that on so a few pieces of chicken veggies this right here is my bin of cheese make this a goat gouda parmesan i'm just gonna pick a few of these and grate them over and get that in a [Music] pan [Music] yogurt i just made another hot fresh stack of tortillas because i am making huevos rancheros for breakfast so take advantage of that oil there just add a little spinach this should only take a minute to wipe down the insane hit it with a little avocado right on the base of the tortilla egg spinach black beans chipotle yogurt now that is one hell of a brunch i want to take a quick minute to tell you about the sponsor of today's video which is thrive market an online membership based market on a mission to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone now i'm personally a big fan of thrive market you'll see their ingredients popping up in a lot of my videos because thrive is just a great way to stock your pantry with ingredients that are well priced and also ingredients that i personally trust i find that people don't put enough value into the quality of the ingredients they're buying if you focus on quality your food's gonna taste better and you're gonna feel better from the food that you're eating and when it comes to thrive i know their ingredients and i know their products are high quality and i'm also a big fan of their online shopping experience it's really easy to browse through all of the products they have and you can find everything from all of those kitchen essentials to beauty products to cleaning supplies and it's always nice just having a well-stocked pantry right here we've got options and options means delicious meals so for me i go with the 12-month plan which comes in at five dollars a month but if you're new to thrive you can easily try it for a shorter period of time so if you're interested you can click the link below in the description to join thrive today and get 25 off your first order and a free gift now back to some meal crab in my last meal prep video hopefully you learned the value of having some type of homemade pickle in your fridge at all times so crucial for meal prep and when it comes to mexican cuisine well the pickled red onion reigns supreme but rather than me telling you about it i figured i would toss this over to someone who has the most pickled red onion clout on youtube hey everyone i'm ethan chabowski youtube's resident pickled onion spokesperson and i'm here to tell you that pickled onions are an indispensable item when it comes to mexican cuisine because no matter what dish you are making adding a pinch or two of these babies is likely going to make it even better they provide contrast in taste texture and color the acidity provides brightness and generates saliva making food quite literally mouth-watering besides that they take all of five minutes to make the basic blueprint i use is one part water to one part distilled white vinegar pour the water and vinegar into a pan over high heat to bring to a boil along with a big pinch of salt and stir it to dissolve if you want sugar or any number of spices could be added here meanwhile get out the red onion and slice it from root to stem this will burst less onion cells compared to orbital slices meaning less of that oniony stench and i prefer the texture of these slices add the slices of onion to a jar and pour the hot pickling liquid over the top let it cool and that's it so i expect all of you to have a batch of these in the fridge because as mike will show you it'll take those already great mexican dishes to the next level of course when it comes to mexican cuisine you're not getting very far without a salsa and salsas are great because they last a while in your fridge and there's a million different types you can make this recipe i really like because it takes a pantry ingredient canned tomatoes and uses some fresh ingredients to enhance this can right here and we're getting that flavor enhancement from these poblano peppers and what i'm gonna do is roast them to really maximize deliciousness i just lightly oiled a baking tray tossed on some of those poblanos and i did have half a red onion left over from the bean recipe so i figured i'd cut that up throw that on the tray as well because why not roasted onion delicious i threw those in an oven at 500 degrees for 15 minutes until the skin was blistered and you're gonna want to wait till these peppers are cool if you have the patience or if you have chef fingers you can peel them when they're piping hot like i do most of the time and the skins should slip and slide right off and then you can take out the seeds just leaving that beautiful poblano meat that is what guy fieri would call flavor town now i'm gonna blend this salsa up because it's gonna save me a bunch of time and when i'm meal prepping saving time is always good and i'm gonna add 128 ounce can of crushed tomatoes then those roasted poblanos and onions a few sprigs of cilantro unless you have a genetic aversion to it then you can just skip it and go straight in with the juice of one whole lime i added a little bit of chili powder just for a little bit of optional kick some salt and a little bit of sugar to season this and then blendy blendy blendy check that out it's a really simple way to ramp up the flavor of canned tomatoes now we've got a really nice base of mexican elements building here but there is one more thing that i have to make i pretty much make this every single time i cook mexican food which is a slaw and it actually doesn't take any cooking at all this is your fresh element and you can use up whatever fresh ingredients you have in your fridge and it's so freakin simple to make so for this slaw i've got cabbage red onion again one lime cilantro and garlic i'm gonna rip through that cabbage making sure it knows who's boss i'll slice those red onions exactly how i slice them from ethan's tip on the pickles rough chop some cilantro leaves squeeze in the juice of that lime and then i'll take a garlic clove i'll peel it and i'll just grate that into the slaw and that's that secret ingredient that's gonna add just that little bite that you deserve and then finally just a little bit of oil i'm using some avocado oil to round out the flavor and season of course with some salt and pepper give that a toss and simply that is your slaw and you can see as i prep all of these different foods there's a balance happening which is very important when it comes to meal prep we've got all of these different flavor profiles the creamy the roasty the spicy and this right here this is your fresh option and throughout the week this is gonna come in handy if you just want a little you know fresh bite to throw on top of a taco or you toss it on the side of a rice bowl a lot of good options when you have a slaw on hand so i've officially unlocked everything at this point so it's time to make some tacos i've got some sea bass here make sure it's dried off and then i'm going to salt and pepper it and just stick it in the fridge for a few hours before i cook it frying up some fresh tortillas and then once those are done in the same pan i will fry up this fish coconut oil [Music] i'm going with this salsa first it's beautiful sea bass drizz of the chipotle yogurt finally get some of these pickled onions thanks ethan making everything taste better a little bit of slaw what do you think of that i think i'm happy and ready for lunch all right i just had an excellent idea this is sort of a leftover salad i've got the fish in there from the tacos some avocado red onion carrots and of course a base of lettuce now i took some tortillas and i cut them in strips and now i have these little crispy tortilla strips and then finally why not just use this delicious chipotle yogurt is the dressing i am super into this right now all right so i wanted one final dish to really go out with a bang for this meal prep video and i was trying to think of a dish that used up a lot of ingredients and i just didn't want to use corn tortillas i'm kind of over the tortillas at this point and then i remembered in mexico you've got a lot of incredible sandwiches like a torta so i had some leftover sourdough these were actually frozen i defrosted them and i've got this steak right here that i just took out of the fridge i salt and peppered about an hour ago so i'm just gonna try to make the most insane mexican sandwich we'll call it a steak torta try steak [Music] black beans avocado [Music] salsa mozzarella put onions cilantro we're not done yet back into the steak pan [Music] a little sloppy but that's all right [Music] i mean come on do you see what i'm saying am i wrong mexican cuisine really is just a dominator when it comes to meal prep but if you know cuisine that's better please let me know in the comments and i'm happy to explore so hopefully you enjoyed this meal prep action thanks again to thrive market for sponsoring this video and i will see you soon [Music]

Channel: Pro Home Cooks

Views: 960,224

Keywords: meal prep, Mexican food, beginners Mexican food, homemade tortillas, black beans, pressure cooked black beans, chipotle sauce, chipotle mayo, chipotle yogurt, perfect taco, mexican food at home, slaw, canned tomato salsa, dinner ideas, week cooking, prepping food for the week, eat well, eat better, masa harina, pickled onions, Ethan, Ethan Chlebowski

Id: 2HiwqSJKSuQ

Length: 18min 47sec (1127 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 22 2021