Portland Chef Megan Sanchez Has All The Sunday Meal Prep Ideas

Güero is one of those restaurants that sneaks up on you. You go for a quick bite. Perhaps you order a sik’il pak ($7, a fantastic pumpkin dip) or a single torta to tide you over until dinner. But that $10 La Jefa with house horchata and ancho chile liqueur sure does tempt. Suddenly, it’s 10 p.m. and you’ve devoured five tortas and more cócteles than you can count. Thankfully, you’ve still managed to spend less than your Uber to Beaverton. For these reasons and a whole lot more (the greenery!) did Güero grace BA’s 2017 best new restaurants list.

But dining here also hits the healthyish mark, thanks to lots of pickled veggies, plenty of avocado, and fresh, messy slaws. That’s in no small part thanks to chef Megan Sanchez’s background. Growing up in the Northwest with parents from different cultures (her mother is Egyptian, and her father is Mexican and Spanish), Sanchez spent time cooking in France and Mexico, and working as a cheesemaker in Vermont. Now that she’s settled in Portland, weeks fly by at the restaurant, forcing the chef to think creatively and efficiently about how to eat well—and healthyish—in her own life.

“All week long at the restaurant, my entire world revolves around tortas—a delicious and satisfying sandwich that takes the whole plate,” she says. “At home I mix it up by eating the way I did growing up with a Middle Eastern mother and Hispanic father: mezze-style, with no borders. In my home kitchen, I have a well-worn routine of setting myself up to whip out a fresh spread of simple and diverse dishes that add up to breakfasts, lunches, and dinners that are easy, seasonal, and mix-and-match.”

Of course, it’s not snap your finger magic to eat so wholesomely, which is why Sanchez devotes time every Sunday night to prep work. Here’s everything you need to know to replicate her MO:

1. Shop for bright essentials like citrus, herbs (“like, all of them!” she jokes), and chiles.

This will help you build a lineup of quick sauces that can elevate any simply prepared dish (like a a protein or a grain bowl) you want to cook day-of. “A lemon vinaigrette, a salsa verde, a quick chimichurri from the blender, and maybe some carrot escabeche or baba ghanouj, and I feel ready for anything,” says Sanchez.

2. Prep your greens and herbs.

Having these ready for quick use during the work week is half the battle. “After I prep my sauces, I wash my lettuces, folding them into a tea cloth before they go in the fridge, ready to be dressed and eaten. I pop the herbs in Moroccan tea glasses with a little water that I keep in the fridge, kind of just because they’re nice to look at,” explains Sanchez. She also cuts into that fresh citrus and sips on fresh lemon tea that she hopes will “cleanse me of a few of those late-night tortas devoured during the week.”

3. Legumes, legumes, legumes.

“My favorite way to set up for good eating throughout the week is to cook a big pot of beans. The broth will only get better over the next few days and it’s great having a delicious protein on hand to round out any meal,” offers Sanchez.

Her go-tos include Great Northern beans with thyme or winter savory, garlic, and finished with a splash of red wine vinegar; the simple pinto beans served up at Güero with a little queso Oaxaca and paper-thin jalapeño rounds on top (“It’s my idea of simple elegance”); and fava beans the way her Egyptian grandmother made them. “With great nostalgia, I’ll cook up dried favas stewed with garlic, then garnish with diced tomato, white onion, parsley, lemon, and, some will say tahini (I say yes). It’s meant to be a breakfast dish, but we happily eat it any time,” says Sanchez.

4. Make basic chicken soup with whatever is on hand.

“When the right kind and quantity of scraps have accumulated, I reach for my soup pot. I feel lucky to have grown up eating two perfect interpretations of simple chicken soup. One is sopa de lima, the citrus-infused broth you’ll find all up and down the Yucatan and beyond. For whatever reason, my family served it with a big spoonful of rice instead of the traditional fried tortilla,” says Sanchez. Good thing you bought all those lemons and limes right?

Her other go-to is an Egyptian soup called molokhiya, created from leaves that share the same name. Like okra, molokhiya leaves become slimy when cooked (they’re also known for their nutritional value). “A chicken or clean carcass is boiled with onion, cardamom, and allspice. When the broth is flavorful, add a package of frozen molokhiya [you can buy it at Middle Eastern markets],” says Sanchez. Then, mix in a generous handful of minced garlic, “and more lemon than you think.” Serve the soup over rice.

5. Make some homemade labneh.

You’ll feel like a badass, and it’s not hard. “Sunday night is a great time to string up some yogurt to drain into labneh,” says Sanchez. A quart of full-fat plain yogurt with a half teaspoon of salt goes in a cheesecloth bag. My mother would tie the drawstrings around the kitchen faucet, letting the damp bag drip into the sink, and go to bed. She’d bank on the overnight exposure to warm air to give the labneh its signature tang and tartness. In the morning, the whey had been expelled and we’d use the thick labneh as a healthier cream cheese, or on toast with a fried egg and parsley,” says Sanchez.

See our recipe for Greek yogurt labneh here. And for more labneh inspo, here are 13 delicious ways to eat all the labneh.

6. Baptize Sunday as “poulet day.”

“Living in France in my early twenties, my friends and I got together every Sunday for ‘poulet day’ which was a potluck centered around a few steaming bags of poulet rôti from the market. After our meal, we’d drink wine and watch films while a soup of scraps simmered to be eaten late with a baguette and more wine.”

To this day, Sanchez still loves to observe poulet day. On Sunday, she roasts a chicken with plenty of veggie sides or slips chipotle roasted chicken into soft, warm tacos. But the best treat of all, perhaps, comes the morning after. “For tomorrow’s breakfast, there’s toast slathered with that precious schmaltz, topped with tomato and basil or chervil.” And you made soup with the leftover chicken, right?