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Certified Therapeutic Chef

A simpler way to nourish your family.

Simple, easy, delicious. If you're tired of the noise and the endless recipes that never get made, these are the foundational cooking skills for you to confidently nourish your family. No fads, just the skills you keep forever.

See how Kitchen Essentials works↓

From Chef Jake

Most of us don't know what it feels like to feel good until we do.

Chef Jake standing between two long outdoor catering tables set for dinner, mountains and open sky behind him

I started cooking for my family when I was fourteen, the same year my sister was diagnosed with type one diabetes. I've been studying the healing properties of food ever since, and for more than a decade I've worked alongside naturopathic doctors, functional-medicine practitioners, and nutritionists.

I'm not going to hand you another protocol or teach you fads. I'm going to share everything I know so you can be as confident in your kitchen as I am in mine.

— Jake

Plated bowls with steak, avocado, and roasted vegetables

Certified Therapeutic Chef

Clinical culinary training

10+ Years

Working alongside functional-medicine practitioners

Hundreds of Clients

Home-delivered therapeutic meal service

At-Scale Catering

Dinners and weddings for 100+ guests

In the Media

Listen & watch

Surviving the Storm

Podcast interview

Feelings & Food as Medicine

A conversation on food as nourishment, gut health, food sensitivities, gratitude, and the mindset behind therapeutic cooking.

Listen on Libsyn

Kitchen Essentials Cohort

Aug 2025

Inside a Live Teaching Session

A full hour of Chef Jake teaching inside Karen's Kitchen Essentials cohort. Bulk cooking, blood-sugar fundamentals, and the "lifestyle not protocol" reframe.

Watch on YouTube
A platter of crispy plantain rounds topped with caramelized braised meat, orange sauce, and pickled red onions

Fight inflammation. Feel the difference.

Free 1-week anti-inflammatory starter plan + free 20 minute call

Three signature recipes from my 4-week plan, plus the full shopping list and master pantry. No course, no upsell. Just enough to cook a great week, and a free 20 minute call once you've had a chance to look it over.

  • Three signature recipes: breakfast, lunch, and dinner
  • One consolidated shopping list, nothing obscure
  • Clean, organic, foundational ingredients
  • Batch-prep method so it fits your real week
  • A sample week from the plan I send to clients
  • A free 20 minute call with me, no pressure, no pitch

4 quick questions · ~30 seconds

The Course

Kitchen Essentials: Build the skill, then retire the recipes.

Six modules of foundational skills, designed for you to be confident in every aspect of nourishing yourself and your family. Source good ingredients, prep a week of meals in one afternoon, and rotate the spice world so the same base is a new dish every night.

Scrambled eggs with sauteed kale, sweet potato, and avocado

Breakfast Basics

Quick, flavorful breakfasts that steady your blood sugar and carry you through the morning. No crash. Good protein in, bulk prepped for the week, so you're not deciding at 7am.

Butternut squash soup in handmade bowls

Soups

Nourishing, storage-friendly soups. Bulk cooking at its best. Make a big batch, pack it into mason jars, put some in the fridge and some in the freezer, and you're set for weeks.

House-made dips with fresh vegetables and plantain chips

Sauces

The secret to flavor that doesn't come from a jar. Pestos, chimichurris, dressings. A good sauce turns the same base prep into a new meal every week.

Seared steak bowls with mushrooms, avocado, and roasted beets

Meat Basics

Sear, braise, bulk prep. Simple, confident technique on the stovetop or in the oven, so you can impress yourself, your friends, or whoever it might be. Chicken thighs that hold their moisture, steak with a perfect golden sear, and a week of meat prepped in one afternoon.

Vibrant quinoa salad with fresh vegetables, avocado, and pomegranate seeds

Salads & Pasta

Vibrant salads and perfectly cooked pasta. How to cut vegetables so every bite is enjoyable, how to source the best ingredients you can find, and how far really good olive oil, lemon, and salt will take you.

Wooden cutting boards, enamel mugs, a ceramic citrus reamer with lemons, and an olive oil bottle arranged on a sunlit kitchen counter

Essential Tools & Setup

Exactly what a therapeutic chef keeps in the kitchen, and what you can skip. No unnecessary gadgets, just the real working list. My knife, my cutting board, and my parchment paper are my closest friends in the kitchen.

Enroll in the course

Six modules of foundational cooking skills

Before you enroll

Questions I get a lot.

  • I barely have time to cook as it is. How does this help?
    Time is the number one thing I hear. That's exactly why the whole course is built around bulk cooking. Whenever you already have your knife out, your board out, and groceries on the counter, you grab enough to make four to ten portions instead of one. It doesn't take ten times as long. It takes almost the same amount of time. That one shift is what makes this actually fit a real week.
  • I've tried meal kits, Pinterest, and a dozen diets. How is this any different?
    Pinterest gives you recipes. Meal kits give you ingredients. Neither gives you the underlying skill. This course teaches you the foundation, so eventually you can open the fridge, see what's there, and know what to make without looking anything up. I'm not teaching you 200 recipes. I'm teaching you how to not need them.
  • This is a real investment. What am I getting that a cookbook or YouTube can't give me?
    The 1:1 consult and the personal cooking session. You're not watching pre-recorded videos alone. You're getting time with me, tailored to what's actually happening in your kitchen and your body. I'm going to share everything I know with you so you can be as confident in your kitchen as I am in mine. Books and YouTube are great, but they're not personal. This is.
See all questions →

What People Say

From people Jake has cooked alongside

“Jake has a gift for making cooking feel easy. His love for food is contagious, and I really appreciated his ability to bring techniques down to beginner level. He has wonderful suggestions for replacing ingredients if you have allergies or medical needs. He has broadened my horizons in the kitchen and grocery store!”

Jan

“Jake has a contagious energy and positive spirit! His love of cooking shines through his friendly approach to cooking. He never ceases to amaze me with the way he makes it so easy for us to eat healthy. I love how he can take any of your favorites and make them healthy. Not to mention his amazing recommendations for knives, pans, and I now eat the best cut of steak thanks to him :)”

Heather
“Most of us are so accustomed to small symptoms of discomfort (the afternoon crash, the headaches, the brain fog, the bloat) that we pass them off as normal. They aren't.”
Chef Jake · From a recent class

Follow Along

@the_therapeutic_chef

Recent reels from the kitchen.

The 5-ingredient sauce that turns spaghetti squash into a real dinner.

May 20

The 5-ingredient sauce that turns spaghetti squash into a real dinner. Roasted beets. Basil. Roasted garlic. Apple cider vinegar. Salt. Into the Vitamix. 30 seconds. Squash holds it like a bowl. Tastes like it took hours. Comment MEAL PLAN and I’ll DM you the free 1-week anti-inflammatory plan. If you don’t have a Vitamix, any blender that can handle a beet works totally fine. #therapeuticchef #spaghettisquash #antiinflammatory

Staple of 5 that I buy every single week, no questions asked: a colorful array of vegetables.

May 27

Staple #3 of 5 that I buy every single week, no questions asked: a colorful array of vegetables. Purple cabbage, cruciferous like cauliflower and broccoli, root veggies like beets and parsnips, and a handful of berries. Different colors mean different phytonutrients, so I diversify the colorful array every week to get the whole spectrum. This is the easiest rule to shop by: the more colors in your cart, the more anti-inflammatory your plate. Build your week around a handful of staples like these. Want the full week mapped out for you? Comment MEAL PLAN and I'll send you my free 1-week anti-inflammatory meal plan and shopping list. #antiinflammatory

Staple of 5 that I buy every single week, no questions asked: alliums.

May 25

Staple #1 of 5 that I buy every single week, no questions asked: alliums. Onions, garlic, leeks, shallots, scallions. They’re loaded with sulfur and antioxidants, and I use them in almost every meal I cook because they add so much depth and do so much good. This is the foundation. Build your week around a handful of staples like these and the whole plate gets more anti-inflammatory. Want the full week mapped out for you? Comment MEAL PLAN and I’ll send you my free 1-week anti-inflammatory meal plan and shopping list. #antiinflammatory

The one tool that makes cooking actually simple. It's not the knife. Get yourself a large hardwood or bamboo cutting board…

May 13

The one tool that makes cooking actually simple. It's not the knife. Get yourself a large hardwood or bamboo cutting board. 16 by 20 if you can. The small or plastic ones are why every chop feels like more work than it should. Free 4-week anti-inflammatory meal plan + 27 weeknight recipes. Link in bio. https://www.thetherapeuticchef.com/#meal-plan #RealFoodCooking #kitchentips #CuttingBoard #cookingtips therapeuticchef

See more on Instagram →

Still here?

Take the free 1-week starter plan with you.

One short email, the plan in your hands today, no spam.

“Most of us don't know what it feels like to feel good until we do.”

Once you're on the other side, you'll look back at the afternoon crashes, the brain fog, the bloat, and wonder how you lived with them. That's what this course is for.

Enroll in the course