Store sub-results (rows) during a query and filter them by input parameters

Question

I need to write a filter function for my application where I have to filter by - a searchstring - min. price - max. price - category for now. I have read a bit about dynamic sql and that it's slow to execute and unsafe. I have an idea for my task, but I'm not sure if it's possible. I would like to create a stored procedure which runs a default query. select * from Items There will be 4 input parameters @exp nvarchar(max), @minprice decimal, @maxprice decimal, @catid int After the default query I need to store the result somehow and run an other query depending on the value of @exp lets say. if @exp NOT NULL select * from earlierResults(?) where itemname like '%'+@exp'%' Basically I need to replace the earlierResults with something. Plus I'm not sure how the column names will work from these results. And I need to further filter it down with the other parameters.