A weekend of cooking for a week of eating

The meal-prep mistake everyone makes once is cooking eight portions of the same dish on Sunday. By Wednesday you actively can't look at it. The fix isn't more cooking - it's better routing. Two or three base recipes, prepped on Sunday, that swap into different formats Monday through Friday.

The shelf-life chart is the unsexy truth of meal prep. Roasted vegetables: four days, peak. Cooked proteins: three to four days. Cooked grains: five days. Sauces and dressings: a week, sometimes two. Knowing this means you cook the proteins at the start of the week, the grains halfway, and lean on the sauce-and-grain combo when the protein expires.

Reheat method makes or breaks the leftovers. The microwave dries proteins out and turns crispy things into wet things. A non-stick pan with a splash of water and a lid - three minutes - restores most things to "fresh-cooked" condition. The exception is salads and dressed bowls, which lose if reheated at all and want to stay cold.

Salt at the prep stage, finish at the eat stage. Over-seasoned prep tastes flat by Wednesday because the salt has had three days to homogenise. Under-season slightly when you cook, then add a finishing flourish - flaky salt, a squeeze of lemon, a drizzle of chili oil - at the moment of eating. The contrast keeps the meal alive.

These eight are the dishes that consistently make it through five days for us. Each clears 30+ grams of protein, each one prefers to live in the fridge a day before you eat it (the seasoning settles), and each one can be served three different ways without you noticing the repeat.