Cooking tips and meal prep tricks from a London chef

Julieth Torres remembers the thrill of pitching in at her grandmother's catering business, seeing people's faces light up as they took bites of the lovingly prepared food.

Now, Torres is a personal chef in London and helps meal-prep for busy families. Her business, Bites and Feasts, blends customized, made-from-scratch meals full of flavour and variety, she says.

Here are some tips for people who are rethinking how they plan their menus or want to try batch-cooking.

Sit down and think about what your dietary needs are and how you like to eat. It's Torres' first order of business when working with a new client.

"We establish how many meals you require per day, what you like to eat, what ingredients you have and what you need to buy."

Don't forget to think about where you're going to be storing all the things that you make too, Torres said. The right containers are important so food doesn't spoil and is easily accessible.

Once you know what you'll be making, think about what you need in terms of oils, spices and other basics.

"When you're thinking about meal planning, you want to make sure you don't get sick of eating the same thing over and over again," Torres said. "I try to make things as variable as possible."

If the food you make is good, you won't get sick of it, she added. "I have a lot of clients who become obsessed with my recipes, and they order them over and over again and never get bored."

If you consider those three main parts in every meal, you can mix and match using the ingredients you have and other extras, Torres said.

"I have built a catalogue of a bunch of different recipes and then mix and match," she said.

Shrimp is an easy-to-defrost protein that can be used in a variety of recipes, Torres said.

Don't be afraid to try something you haven't before, Torres added. It might just become your new favourite. "I love trying new things. I love cooking new things, and I actually think that the best recipes come from things that I didn't even know were possible."

Torres trained as a chef in Colombia and worked in kitchens in Chicago and here in London.