Dinner Hacks – Prep Meals For A Week In An Hour (without overthinking)

Okay, let’s be honest. I’ve already mentioned in our group a couple of times that I really hate cooking! It’s just not my thing. Neither is cleaning! I tricked my poor husband. 🤣🤣🤣 I had made a post in our group about how I get overwhelmed with planning meals and one of our members recommended this meal planning site.

This post contains affiliate links.

5 Dinners 1 Hour is a meal prep system that gives you tons of meal ideas every month. They have a regular dinner program and a clean eating program. I am doing the combo program which is both and includes lunch ideas. You choose what meals you want then it makes a custom menu and a grocery list for you. When I get the list I go to the Ralphs market website and order all of the ingredients for the meals. I usually choose to go the market at a specific time, then they bring out the groceries and load my trunk. You can choose to do Instacart so you don’t have to leave the house, but I like an excuse to get away for a few minutes and listen to my Crime Junky podcast in peace! The 5 Dinners 1 Hour system saves me time from having to figure out what to cook and wandering aimlessly around the grocery store buying a bunch of food I won’t cook before ordering pizza.

When I have my groceries I have Alexa play 90’s music and meal prep for the week! It takes about an hour and my husband helps me. With four kids this is sometimes considered date night! We have fun listening to music and joking around. Once prep is done the meals are ready to go, I put half in the fridge and the other half in the freezer. Then all I need to do is throw them in the crockpot or the oven.

The Ziploc bags on the left show some meals that I prepped. The right shows pizza cups! They are a huge hit! All you do is get some grands rolls, split them in half, then stick them in muffin tins. Next add some pizza sauce or if you are like me, use the spaghetti sauce you already have. Add cheese, and toppings of your choice before baking. I love that my 8-year-old can prep them himself and stick in the toaster oven.  I used to send them for his school lunch since he’s a picky eater, but now that he’s home he can make for a snack any time he wants.

Here’s a picture from one of my best friends, Kristie, and here’s what she said: First week prepped! I love the different meal ideas. It’s really nice to mix it up with zero thought process of my own! It took me an hour and 15 minutes… but I also hard-boiled eggs and made homemade pear sauce so I feel like the one hour is pretty accurate.

My last tip: If you are using a crockpot make sure to use crockpot liners for easy clean-up! I wasn’t using my crockpot because it was such a pain to clean. These liners are a game changer!!!

If you are like me and get overwhelmed with planning and making dinner, I highly suggest you check this out!