Nutritionists have forbidden you from shopping in the middle of the grocery store.

Which is actually good advice...

For unsophisticated home cooks.

The problem?

If you only shop in the outer edges of grocery stores, you'll find good-quality:

• Fish

• Meat

• Produce

But you'll miss:

• High-fiber, heart-healthy grains/starches

• All-natural fats and oils sold in bottles/jars

• Old-world ingredients prized for their flavor

The bottom line?

When you know what to look for in the MIDDLE of the store...

Instead of just scrounging through the outer rim territories for "single-ingredient" foods...

You uncover a whole new dimension of healthy ingredients...

And your cooking comes alive.

A handful of special ingredients come together in this masterpiece of healthy meal prep...

But you won't find them in the meat, seafood, or produce section.

Follow me to the heart of the grocery store to learn what they are.

Grains for meal prep

I was watching a show the other day and a health "expert" mentioned people should cut out white foods from their diet.

"Strange advice," I thought.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized she had a point.

Many of our favorite starchy foods (like bread and rice) turn white as they're stripped of nutrients during processing...

Either from bleaching, or from removing the nutritious brown outer coating of the grains.

Are they "bad" for you?

Not really.

But eating these processed grains is a missed opportunity for your body to get the higher quality nutrition from whole grains.

That's why my favorite starches for meal prep are pastas, rice, and ancient grains that are minimally processed to retain their fiber and vitamins.

Like the forbidden rice I cooked for this week's SIMPL recipe.

No. Seriously.

That's what it's called.

Prized by ancient Chinese emperors, they reserved this one especially for themselves.

Peasants were "forbidden" from enjoying it.

With flavor and texture similar to brown rice, forbidden rice is loaded with fiber, vitamins, and antioxidants - especially anthocyanins.

These are the same compound found in blueberries, which give the rice its dark purple or black color.

Who knew "eating like a king" would turn out to be the healthy option?

Oils / Fats for meal prep

I've never had the pleasure of making my own coconut milk.

If I did, OBVIOUSLY it would be the best coconut milk anyone's every tasted.

The problem is, I don't own a machete.

My knives are the delicate kind made for shallot brunoise and parsley chiffonade.

One hack at a coconut and they'd crumple like a Toyota Corolla hitting a telephone pole.

So unless I buy a machete, I'll keep returning to the Asian foods aisle of the grocery store to buy the canned version.

I'm fine with that.

Because commercial canned coconut milk and coconut cream are rich, healthy additions to some of my favorite recipes...

Including the lemongrass sauce that coats the chicken in this week's dish.

PRO TIP: Make sure to buy the unsweetened variety. Sweetened coconut milk is for drinks and desserts.

Condiments for meal prep

People have been making wine for 8,000 years.

But it wasn't until the 11th century that Italians refined wine into balsamic vinegar.

My point?

Such tasty treats aren't invented overnight.

They evolve over generations as pioneering cooks develop recipes through trial and error, refining ingredients into the distinctive foods that enrich our culinary heritage.

Fish sauce is one of my favorites.

It's a brown liquid made from fermented salted anchovies, and you can find it bottled in the Asian foods section of the store.

Used mainly in Southeast Asian cuisine, it's notoriously smelly on its own.

But as a flavoring for sauces, soups, and curries, its distinctive, briny flavor makes it an essential flavoring condiment for the meal prep kitchen.

Pick up a bottle for yourself and thank me later.

Now that you know of these hidden treasures buried deep in the heart of the grocery store, let me show you how I combined them to create this week's SIMPL recipe.

To make this Southeast-Asian-inspired sauce, I sweat lemongrass, aromatic vegetables, and turmeric in a pan with coconut milk.

I season this sauce with fish sauce instead of salt.

After puréeing the sauce, I use it to coat the chicken breasts before cooking them until golden-brown under the broiler.

Shiitake mushrooms are sautéed with bok choy and mirin wine, then plated alongside the rice.

After dicing and plating the chicken, I spoon the leftover sauce on top to finish.

With a cooking time of only 90 minutes, this one's a solid addition to your high-protein meal prep rotation.

Get the full 5-portion recipe for this, and all my high-protein dishes when you become a SIMPL Insider.

When you upgrade, you'll also:

• Get the full-length step-by-step videos showing how I created each weekly dish

• Save 2+ hours each week by using my links to order ingredients online for delivery (no more grocery shopping)

• Learn the fundamental skills that separates the kitchen pros from the amateurs in my video: Knife Skills Mastery

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