10 Meals in an Hour™
Do you wonder if it’s possible to make 10 meals in an hour? This post will show you how to become a meal-prepping ninja! Take the stress out of dinnertime!
If you follow this blog regularly, you know I’m a pretty big fan of simple, easy recipes that taste great and don’t take a lot of time, effort or expensive ingredients to throw together. I’m also a huge fan of recipes that can be made and frozen ahead of time to save time on hectic weeknights. Because let’s face it: Life is busy and none of us need MORE things to do (or to feel guilty about.)
Over the past few months I’ve been working on developing some great go-to “cheater” recipes that I could use to create a comprehensive, quick and easy freezer-cooking meal plan. My goal was to develop five foolproof recipes that I could then use to create ten freezer meals in one hour or less. In order to make the cut, each of these recipes would have to meet ALL of the following criteria:
- Deemed delicious by both my kids and husband
- No pre-cooking required (aside from browning ground beef)
- Freezer friendly
- Easy to cook
- Uses everyday, budget-friendly ingredients and pantry staples
Well friends, I am happy to tell you that all these months of trial and error have finally come together, and today I am sharing my very first LWSL Quick & Easy 10 Meals in an Hour™ plan! In this one post you will find everything you need to prep ten awesome freezer meals in about an hour of hands-on time (not including grocery shopping).
Just think, in just one quick Saturday morning session you could have two weeks’ worth of absolutely delicious, family-friendly weeknight meals all ready to go! Sound good? Let’s do it!
Before you begin, you will need to gather your tools & supplies and also make sure that you have all your groceries on hand. I find it is easiest to go grocery shopping the day before I do my cooking. To save time unloading, only put away the items that need to be refrigerated.
Finally, make sure your kitchen counters are cleared of clutter and sanitized and empty your dishwasher and sink of any dishes.
10 Meals in an Hour™
Here are the five recipes we will be making:
- Honey Lemon Garlic Chicken
- Oh-So-Easy London Broil
- Quick & Easy Taco Soup
- Orange-Glazed Pork Chops
- Creamy Italian Chicken
Download THE RECIPES HERE
Here are the supplies you will need:
- 10-gallon-size zipper freezer bags
- Avery 8163 shipping labels or permanent marker
- large mixing bowl
- cutting board
- sharp knife
- garlic press
- can opener
- dry measuring cups
- liquid measuring cups
- dry measuring spoons
- liquid measuring spoons
- 12-inch frying pan
- stand or hand mixer
Here are the ingredients you will need:
Produce
- 18 cloves garlic
- 2 lemons
- Fresh parsley (optional)
- 1 large sweet onion
Pantry Staples
- Honey
- Olive oil
- Soy sauce
- Dried minced onion
- Seasoned salt
- Black pepper
- Cayenne pepper
- Red wine
- Ketchup
- Worcestershire sauce
- Dried thyme
- Brown sugar
Canned/Dry Goods
- Dijon mustard
- 1 8oz. jar orange marmalade
- 1 15oz. can pinto beans
- 1 15oz. can black beans
- 1 15oz. can kidney beans
- 2 15oz. cans fire-roasted diced tomatoes
- 1 8oz. can tomato sauce
- 2 packets taco seasoning
- 1 16oz. bottle Italian salad dressing
- 1 package Italian salad dressing mix
- 2 cans condensed cream of chicken soup
Dairy
- Sour cream (optional)
- 2 8oz. packages cream cheese
- Shredded Parmesan cheese (optional)
Meat
- 8 pork chops (approximately 6-8 ounces each)
- 7-8 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs or breasts
- 2 pounds London Broil beef
- 1 pound ground beef
Frozen
- 1 16oz. bag frozen corn
Be sure to print the following recipes HERE.
PREP
- Set out cream cheese to soften.
- Prep your bags—Use a permanent marker to label each bag with the name of the recipe, date prepared and cooking instructions. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP! While you might think that you’ll remember what is in every bag, I promise you will forget!
- Brown ground beef and set aside.
- Drain & rinse kidney, pinto and black beans; set aside.
- Chop onion and set aside.
- Peel garlic and set aside (or mince if not using garlic press, then set aside).
- Prep chicken if necessary.
PREPARE:
- Prep Quick & Easy Taco Soup using instructions found here. (Use only 1 cup or about half of the already chopped onion.) Divide mixture into 2 freezer bags, press out excess air and seal well. Place bags in refrigerator.
- Prep Oh-So-Easy London Broil using instructions found here. (Use remaining chopped onion.) Place meat into 2 freezer bags and cover with marinade, then press out excess air and seal well. Place bags in refrigerator.
- Prep Orange-Glazed Pork Chops using instructions found here. Place meat into 2 freezer bags and cover with marinade, then press out excess air and seal well. Place bags in refrigerator.
- Prep Honey Lemon Garlic Chicken using instructions found here. Place chicken into 2 freezer bags and cover with marinade, then press out excess air and seal well. Place bags in refrigerator.
- Prep Creamy Italian Chicken using instructions found here. Place chicken into 2 freezer bags and cover with cream cheese mixture, then press out excess air and seal well. Place bags in refrigerator.
- Once all prep is complete, place all bags in freezer until needed. After you’ve made your meal plan for the coming week, consider setting an alert on your phone to remind you to take your bag out to thaw the day before you plan to make it!
Want more 10 Meals in an Hour? Check out the entire series!
- 10 Meals in an Hour
- 10 Meals in an Hour Part 2
- 10 Meals in an Hour Part 3
- 10 Meals in an Hour Part 4
- 10 Meals in an Hour Part 5
- 10 Meals in an Hour Part 6
- 10 Meals in an Hour Part 7
- 10 Meals in an Hour Part 8
- 10 Meals in an Hour Part 9
- 10 Meals in an Hour Part 10
- 10 Meals in an Hour Part 11
PIN FOR LATER
OMG, this is SO AWESOME! I’ve tried freezer cooking in the past but all the recipes seemed to require a lot of cooking. It literally took me all day! I can’t wait to try this! Thank you so much!!!!
It wont let me open the links to print.
In order to access the links you must “like” LWSL on Facebook. Once you like the page you will be able to access the files. Hope that helps! 🙂
What if I don’t have fb because someone harasses me on there? Am I totaly out of luck?
My sister had the same thing she opened a new facebook with a cartoon name for things like this
Thanks for the great recipes! I was able to print them out but not the grocery or ” how to put together” lists. Not sure why? I have ” liked” this site on FB.
Did you click on the photo? It should open up a page with the documents. I emailed you just in case! 🙂
The how to put it together list doesn’t come up for me either. Could you email me the document as well?
Hey, Ruth! I really want to partake in this, but I am having the same issue.. I can’t open the supplies or instructions either. I don’t have facebook, maybe that is the culprit? I would certainly appreciate if you could email the documents to me too!! 🙂
FYI – I went grocery shopping using the handy list from FB. The sweet onion isn’t listed on there at all (only the dried, minced onion)!!! Bummed that I have to figure out when to trek back to the store to pick up that one ingredient. Hopefully you can fix it quick before someone else runs into the same issue.
Maneesha, thank you so much for letting me know, and I am so, SO sorry for the inconvenience! We fixed the printable so hopefully no one else will have that problem!
Wow this is so helpful! I was just thinking about how I was going to plan out this month’s freezer meals and you have solved all of my problems so a big thank you to you! 🙂
I can’t believe how easy that was!! Taco Soup warming in the crock pot, can’t wait to try all 5 recipes!
Hi Ruth – have you thought of doing a vegetarian version? I always love your vegetarian recipes and would love to do a freezer cooking session, veggie style. 🙂
I would LOVE a vegetarian one too! Thanks!
Yes! Please!!! I’m a vegetarian too. I make a lot of freezer chili. I also make mudajara and daal for the freezer. But I would love some fresh new ideas. Although there are so many different ways to prepare chili, and believe me I have tried so many different ones, I am getting a little tired of that being my go-to meal.
Just came across your blog today and love the 10 freezer meals in an hour. Really practical and helpful on those busy days we all have. I do not belong to facebook either and would appreciate you emailing me the necessary pages for fixing the meals. I see there are several others in the same situation. Maybe putting on the blog so it can be downloaded from there might be a help to you. Thank you in advance for these great recipes. Going to be busy in the next week or so.
Can you suggest any easy vegetarian meals?
Thank you so much for the step by step instructions and labels and shopping/prep list. I need things spelled out for me!! I am so excited to try these meals!!!
I can’t get the shopping list or prep to print either, and I did like the fb page. Please email to me. Thanks bunches.
I just e-mailed it to you. 🙂
I’ve noticed printing the labels is off by about a 1/4 of an inch. Am I the only one? Any tips or tricks? This happens on part 2 also. Thanks for making this so easy for the rest of us!
This is the first freezer meal plan that included ALL meals that my family will actually eat. No seafood! My husband thanks you – my whole family thanks you!
Yay! I’m so glad you all liked it Caryn!
Just wondering… what recipe is the Cayenne pepper used in? I had it on hand, so didn’t buy it, but I never ended up using it either… think I followed all the directions…
Thank you so much for this! I found this on Pinterest yesterday and did this today… Everything appears to have come out correctly (& looking scrumptious!)… I made a few substitutes, since I have a milk allergy, and the recipes still came out great! After making the orange glazed pork chops, I kept one chop out and let it marinate, baked it & had it for lunch… DELISH! Loved it. 🙂
Thanks again for putting this together! I think it was very well done. 🙂
Hi!
I cant get the instructions to come up. 🙁 the PDF just has the shopping list and prep/prepare. Can you email it to me? Thanks in advance for a great easy meal prep!
~Lindsey
Ruth. I have never tried freezer meals before but these recipes look great. I have everything printed to do your Sunday prep. I probably will do on a Monday that is my day off. I thought you might like to try this recipe. It has become one of our favorites. I tweak it a little bit I like fire roasted tomatoes and a few small changes but I was thinking it might make a great freezer meal tossed together and dumped in the pan. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Salsa-Chicken-Burrito-Filling/Detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Thumb&e11=salsa%20chicken%20burrito%20filling&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Home%20Page&soid=sr_results_p1i1
I can’t even read this blog all the way through — so so so excited! I am going to go to the grocery store tonight and cook this stuff tonight! Thank you so very much! This will make tax season so so much better. I almost want to cry from relief. Once again – thanks!
Ruth I have been following your Facebook page for some time now and I have to say you are an inspiration. So happy to randomly have come across these tonight while doing a search…how did i miss this! I will be making part one and part two this week. I have a family of nine. Thanks for all you do.
Thank you SO much! I made two of your freezer meal pages today for a total of 20 meals! taco soup for dinner tonight! I forwarded your page on to a military spouse facebook page because we are ALWAYS looking for easy meals and freezer meals! I tasted the sauces as I went and they were so good. This will be dinners and lunches for the next 20 days! THANK YOU AGAIN!
Victoria
This is great! However don’t you have fish and/or other seafood dishes?
THANK YOU SO MUCH for making the labels & prep & prepare sheet! I have done freezer meal cooking before -without these helps- and having it done already was not only a huge time saver but motivation to try again! Thank u~
I like all of these recipes, but am not the cooking type so forgive my ignorance: Do each of these recipes get put into a crockpot when you’re ready to eat them? And for how long?
Thank you.
Thank you so much for sharing, I have never done a freezer meal before. How long do they stay good for? Deciding when I need to start these!
You can keep most meals in your freezer for a couple of months. I usually date my freezer meals and take an inventory of what I have every week. 🙂
These look great! I just had a quick question…When I look at each of the 5 recipes do I need to double the amounts of each one to make it a total of 10 meals? Or is it already doubled to make a total of 10 meals?
Thanks! Can’t wait to try these!
Just prepped all 5 recipes , cooking one for dinner tonight. Thought these were going to be whole meals, so a bit disappointed. However I have 4 lots of marinated meat and pots of taco soup in my freezer.
The website was a bit slow but eventually I printed everything off. Loved having one shopping list done for me. Couldn’t get some things here in England (any ideas for when I need Hambeens?) but seem to have worked out well. Taco soup was good, just needed a bit more marinading. Next one should be delicious.
Can’t wait to try some of the other recipe plans.
I like all the info…but have a hard time printing it. can you make a print application easier?
Do you have any suggestions for a red wine substitute? We don’t purchase alcohol–at all. 🙂 Thanks!
You can use beef stock in place of the red wine. 🙂
Finally someone has some recipies that arent all chicken!
I’ve liked the page on fb but am still having a hard time getting the pro tables, would you send them my way? Thanks!!
Same question as a previous comment and I don’t see that her question was answered. Does this make 5 meals or 10? Title says 10 but according the some of recipes you have to double to make 2 meals out of it. But I shopped for exactly what was on the ingredients list not double. Very confusing! Good recipes otherwise.
Each recipe is meant to be split into 2 freezer bags. So each recipe makes 2 meals for a total of 10 meals. If you have a larger family then you might need to adjust ingredients.
Sorry someone probable already has asked this question. How many does each meal feed?
Each meal typically feeds a family of four.
With my delivery date fast approaching, I am saving these ideas for my freezer meals to use during postpartum. Thank you for making it so easy to have the list already done! I literally used this list to order my grocery pickup order. You are my hero Ruth!
So glad find our 10 Meals in an Hour program helpful. And congratulations on your baby. 🙂
Wow. This is awesome. I already love meal planning and meal prepping. But you took it to a whole new level- 10 meals in an hour? I am pinning this to try this weekend. Thanks so much for sharing all theses great suggestions, and meal prep tips!