The Dinner That Looks Like You Tried Harder Than You Did - Because You Have a System (Mise en Place)

There are some dinners that look as though you spent half the afternoon fussing over them. This isn’t one of them.

Well, it looks like one of them. But the point here is having a system: A) Understanding the importance of Mise en Place, and B) having certain basic meal components handy in the freezer.

This grain bowl is one of those meals I love because it’s colorful, satisfying, endlessly adaptable—and, with a little planning, remarkably easy to put together.

The secret isn’t a complicated recipe. It’s mise en place (which I'll address in a minute).

Plus, having a few useful things waiting for you in the freezer and refrigerator doesn’t hurt.

This dinner may have taken about 20 minutes, start to finish. The secret? Having everything ready to go before you even heat up the pan.

Start with the rice you already cooked

That brown rice? Batch cooked and portioned into the freezer.

I do this regularly, which means that when I want rice for dinner, I don’t start by measuring rice and water and waiting for a pot to cook. I take a portion from the freezer and put it in the microwave.

Done.

That one habit can make the difference between a meal that feels like a production and one that comes together easily.

Get the tofu going first

I use firm or extra-firm tofu, cut into bite-sized cubes and seasoned. "Seasoned" simply means tossing it in a flavorful sauce and let it sit and absorb flavors for about 15 minutes. Longer is good but don't stress about it.

The tofu cubes get a quick spray of Canola oil and goes into my air fryer oven for about 15 minutes. My Instant Pot air fryer oven delivers great little cubes using the Bake setting at 350 degrees. You'll need to adapt time and temperature according to your wall oven or air fryer/countertop oven.

While the tofu is baking, I prepare and cook everything else. There’s no reason to stand around waiting for one part of dinner to finish before starting another.

The goal is to have everything arrive at the finish line at approximately the same time.

This is an old Instant Pot air fryer oven with rotisserie basket. I've had this for probably about 10 years. It can get fussy but still works fine.

Raid the refrigerator—or the garden

This is not a dish that requires a particular list of vegetables.

Use what you have.

I generally have a bag of snap peas in the vegetable bin - I like them simply because I can use them in salads, as a stand-alone vegetable or as part of a stir fry. This time I had a small eggplant from the garden. I usually have some sort of sweet pepper either in the refrigerator or growing outside.

Zucchini would work. So would yellow summer squash. Green beans would be terrific.

And I nearly always have fresh garlic and some member of the onion family around—onions, shallots, or both.

The particular vegetables aren't terribly important. How you cut them is.

Cut everything into pieces of roughly similar size, keeping in mind how quickly each vegetable cooks. A dense vegetable may need to go into the pan before a tender one.

And that brings us back to mise en place.

Mise en Place makes this easy

These are actual mise en place photos from actual meals that I've cooked over the last few years

Mise en place is French for “putting in place” or “everything in its place.” The expression comes from the tradition of the French professional kitchen, where cooks learned that the actual cooking could move quickly and smoothly only if all the preparation had been done first. Ingredients were washed, chopped, measured and arranged; pans and utensils were ready; and each cook had his or her station organized before service began. The system became especially important in the highly organized restaurant kitchens that developed in France in the 19th century and were later formalized by chefs such as Auguste Escoffier.

But you don't need a brigade of cooks—or a French restaurant—to appreciate the wisdom of it. At home, mise en place simply means do the thinking before you start doing the cooking.

Cooking for a crowd isn't as hard as you might think ... if you've planned it out and organized the process.

Before the pan gets hot, I want everything ready.

The onion and garlic are chopped and waiting. The remaining vegetables are cleaned, cut and arranged according to when they'll go into the pan. Vegetables with similar cooking times can simply go in together.

The rice is hot and waiting.

The serving bowls are warm.

The cherry tomatoes are halved and ready for their final appearance.

And the sauce is standing by.

For this particular meal I used hoisin sauce. You could use another sauce you enjoy. This is dinner, not a test of authenticity. The point is to have a sauce you like ready to go rather than start concocting one while vegetables are rapidly becoming overcooked.

Now dinner moves quickly.

Onion and garlic go into the pan first, followed by the vegetables in order of how long they'll take to cook.

The goal is vegetables that are cooked but still have some life and texture to them—not a pan full of mush.

Once they're al dente, I add the sauce and toss everything together.

By now the tofu is browned and hot (or another plant-based protein is ready). Out it comes, and added straight into the vegetables.

One more toss. Adjust seasonings and sauce.

Dinner is done.

Now for the trick that makes it look fancy

This takes perhaps a minute, and it's worth doing.

I heap the hot rice into the center of each warmed bowl. Then, using the back of a large serving spoon, I gently push the rice outward to form a ring.

Into the center goes a generous mound of those glossy vegetables and browned tofu.

Then I scatter the fresh halved cherry tomatoes around the bowl.

That contrast matters: warm brown rice, glossy cooked vegetables, golden tofu and those bright little bursts of uncooked tomato.

Suddenly, Tuesday-night leftovers-and-vegetables dinner looks like something you planned. Which, of course, you did.

You just didn't work very hard at it.

I used a similar technique the next evening with some Asian long beans that a neighbor gave me from his garden. I sauteed the Beyond Steak Tips first and removed them from the pan, then sauteed the onions, garlic and long beans. Add the steak tips back in, adjust seasonings and sauce with a vegan steak sauce. Plate similarly to the Asian version.

The real recipe is a 'system'

There really isn't a conventional recipe here, and I think that's the point.

Keep cooked grains in the freezer. Keep tofu (or other plant-based proteins) on hand.

Buy—or grow—vegetables you actually enjoy eating.

Have garlic and onions around. Keep one or two sauces you like in the refrigerator.

And before you turn on the heat, get everything out, cut, organized and ready to go.

That's mise en place, and it isn't just something restaurant chefs do.

For the home cook, it's the difference between frantically chopping garlic while something burns in the pan or calmly adding the next ingredient when it's ready for it.

Fifteen minutes of cooking can produce a dinner that looks considerably more ambitious than it really was.

And I see absolutely no reason to tell anyone at the table just how easy it was.