PREP COOK: Job Description, Salary, Skills, and Difference

Every kitchen must have a professional chef who has the potential in making great meals and a kitchen potter who has the experience to assist and carry out minor kitchen functions easily, and effectively. A prep cook must be one who can pay close attention to details when it comes to preparing ingredients for a meal.

Prep cooking can be stressful but it’s a level position where one can learn and get more experience in becoming a professional cook. In this article, we will be discussing prep cook duties, the necessary skills, and their merited salary.

What is Prep Cook

A prep cook is a kitchen hand, an assistant, or a food preparation worker who sanitizes cleans, wash the dishes, and makes sure that the work or kitchen environment is properly kept in order.

Also, a kitchen hand is in charge of making and preparing the ingredients used for all the meals on a menu. He makes work easy and reduces the workload of the chef or head chef because every calculation, what and how the recipe should be mixed and used is done by them.

A kitchen hand is one who slices, trims, chops, dice, mixes, monitors, organizes, maintains, expedites, prepares, plans, and makes sure that the resources and equipment used in getting the dishes and drinks served to customers are ready are in order and in place.

What Are the Duties of a Prep Cook?

A prep cook has various duties to perform, they include the following:

Ensure that the kitchen environment is properly clean, and swept.
Make sure that the surface is well-sanitized.
Portion meals appropriately and wrap them as supposed.
Organize and keep recipes in a place where they can be accessible and reached.
Take out dirt, or trash and make sure the work environment is not unkempt.
Perform other responsibilities as assigned by the management.
They assist in making simple dishes in other to reduce stress and workload for the head chef.
Identify and know when the kitchen is out of stock, what, and when to purchase and restock the stocks needed in the kitchen.
They must also ensure that foods and drinks ordered by customers are served at the appropriate time, and must make sure that the dishes used in serving customers are cleared immediately and well washed.
A prep cook must ensure that the ingredients used in preparing meals are healthy and wouldn’t cause any form of damage to customers’ body system and they must not also hesitate to reject unhealthy recipes from suppliers.
Must never take a decision on his own when things go wrong in his place of work but should report to his manager.

Is Prep Cook a Hard Job?

Cooking is one of the most stressful jobs one can venture into and being a kitchen hand is more stressful than being a chef because they are so many duties attached to being one.

Prep cooking is very stressful and labor intensive because it requires a whole lot of strength, you will have to make sure that the kitchen is clean, help out in washing the dishes, running errands, supervise and make sure the ingredients or recipes needed for the preparation of meals are supplied on time and when needed.

As a prep cook, you must be available, willing, and always ready to work under pressure because they are times you will get more orders from the customers and this happens when you least expect it, that’s why you must be ready and physically fit to carry your functions perfectly well to avoid complains coming from the head chef.

What Is Another Name for a Prep Cook?

A prep cook is a food preparation worker, a kitchen hand, or a kitchen portal. One who assists in the preparation of the meal menu and making sure these meals are well served to customers.

Is Prep Cook a Chef?

A prep cook is not a chef but an assistant who helps the chef in getting things ready and done. Their job is to assist the chef in mixing the ingredients, cutting, peeling, and chopping the vegetables, running errands, cleaning, washing, and sanitizing the surface, etc.

What Is the Difference Between a Cook and a Prep Cook?

The difference between a cook and a prep cook is that a prep cook put things in order and makes sure the resources needed for preparing a meal are available and enough to get it ready while a cook or a chef uses the available resources made by the prep cook to make the meal.

Cooks are more experienced and have a higher rank than prep cooks. The cook receives a higher salary than the prep cook because they are superior and act as the head of the kitchen. Every instruction comes from the chef and must be obeyed or adhered to by the prep cook. It is the chef who says what, how, and when things should be done while the prep cook carries out these functions in a coherent manner to meet the set goals of the organization.

How Do I Prepare a Good Prep Cook?

You must be a professional and have a full or little idea of what your job is all about in other to give proper training to others. You must have good communication skills, and be willing to teach and correct in love.

How Can I Be a Good Prep Cook?

To become a good prep cook, you must live by example. You must be clean and make sure everything around you is in good shape.

You must adhere to every instruction given to you by other chefs, follow the guidelines, rules, and regulations of the kitchens, and be able to manage the stress that comes with your job.
You must possess physical stamina in other to carry out your functions well.
You must be willing and ready to stand through the duration of your shift.
Prep cooking is one of the hard jobs to do, it requires your physical strength. To pull through and also become a professional you need to be passionate about cooking.
You must prioritize every task given to you.
Always improve your cooking skills and increase your deep knowledge of your cooking method.

Requirement and Qualifications of a Prep Cook

#1. Communication

to become a good prep cook one has to have the ability to speak well and be able to express themselves without fear. You must be fluent and proficient in English to interact and communicate verbally and non-verbally to your employers and to customers.

#2. Education

You don’t need to have all the qualifications to become a professional, and to be paid well as a professional but it is very necessary you know how to read and write, understand the basic things about your jobs and follow instructions properly, know the basic things about your job and the set rules and regulations of your organization.

#3.Training

They are crucial and essential training you must undergo to become a professional. You must have knowledge about the health and safety rules of the kitchen to promote hygiene and stay very positive and negative under pressure. Training from a culinary school will be of great help to your journey of becoming a good prep cook.

As a kitchen assistant, you must be one who has undergone different training on what your job is to avoid mistakes and messing things around. Every kitchen assistant must have the potential of handling the kitchen knives well, how to chop, peel, dice, trim, cut, clean, etc.

#4.Availability

You must not be found during working hours. Give a good explanation of why you are not going to be on duty.

Prep Cook Salary

The salary of a prep cook depends on the country where they reside. Overall, the average salary of a prep cook in the United state is $15.85 per hour.

In Los Angeles, the salary of a prep cook is $18.22 per hour.
In St. Louis, MO the salary of a prep cook is $15.81 per hour.
in Chicago, IL the salary of a prep cook is $17.75 per hour.

Resume For Prep Cook

A good kitchen assistant resume must have the following;

Maintain a clean work environment.
Make simple things like tea, coffee, etc
Must ensure to always be available and have no excuses.
You must have good communication skills, able to interact with people around you.
Adhere to the rules and regulations of the kitchen, or restaurant.
Must have an in-depth knowledge of what health and safety regulations are all about.
Prepare food using customers’ orders or indications to create new recipes or menus.
Must have the ability to manage stress and be able to work under pressure.
Be patience
Must have in-depth or little knowledge of the equipment used for food processing.
Must have good communication skills and be able to interact with people around them.

How To Interview for Prep Cook

The skills and requirements of a prep cook or kitchen assistant differ so, it is better you ask questions based on what your requirement is, and the things you want your employee to have. They are crucial questions to ask and they are:

What is their experience?
What is their experience in using kitchen equipment and how to handle it properly?
How do you handle and talk to an aggressive customer?
What is customer service?
What do you understand about hospitality?
How can they offer clients the best customer service?
What equipment do you think is necessary?
What do they like doing when they are not busy?
How fast they are in running errands to make work easy and fast?
The most critical and difficult situations they encountered in their formal place of work and how they were able to scare through?
What do they love and their passion for prep cooking?
Can they work under pressure and how well they can manage the pressure?
must ensure that clients’ or customers’ needs must be met.
What are their likes and dislikes about the cooking menu?
What can they do to improve the quality of the meal?

Prep Cook Resume Objective

They are certain objectives a prep cook resume should have. This also helps you know the skills you should have as a prep cook and a proper understanding of what the resume is. This is what every prep cook resume must have and they are:

Every kitchen assistant must be hardworking and not slothful in their job.
They must be passionate and goal driven.
Disciplined and consistent.
Pay attention to details.
Accountable and calculative in measuring ingredients properly.
Proactive and excellent in what they do.

How to Improve Your Skills as a Prep Cook

Learning how to cook is very difficult especially when you are doing it for the first time. It is important you have the basic skills as a prep cook before jumping into it so you don’t end up making things worst or messing things up.

Knowing the prep cook resume of the company you work with will also help you improve your skills and meet the company’s desired goals.

#1. Have The Right Equipment and Recipes

Make sure you have all the necessary tools needed like your pot, cutlery, etc. You must also have a different variety of ingredients like your oil, vegetables, spice option, etc.

#2. Practice

Practice makes perfect, and this cannot be left out when improving your cooking skills so you need to start practicing what you have learned so far and then start making use of them to become a professional.

Focus more on balancing and mixing different flavors or recipes to get a unique taste for your meals

#3. Time

One of the skills a prep cook must have is learning how to be patient when preparing meals. It is better for a meal to take time and come out great than ready in minutes and tasteless. Take your time in preparing meals it will help you become and improve your cooking skills.

#4. Kitchen Skills

To improve skills as a prep cook, you must be able to use your kitchen equipment well and they are skills you must have most especially knife skills.

Learning how to use your knife to dice, chop, and cut things in a nice shape and the same is one skill rare among prep cooks so, it is a very crucial area you must improve to become a professional.

Conclusion

Every kitchen assistant must be one who is capable of carrying out the kitchen functions without any form of disagreement. They must have a proper understanding of what their resume as a prep cook entails, their salary, and the skills required from them.

References

Indeed

Glassdoor