Here’s a truth I don’t expect everyone to love: I don’t like traditional meal prep.
I know— a lot of people swear by weekend meal prep. I tried it multiple times, gave it a fair shot, and each time I found it frustrating for the same reasons:
- Repetition – Eating the same dishes day after day got old fast.
- Time sink – Spending an entire day cooking felt like too high a price, even though I love cooking and do it for a living.
- Leftover fatigue – Meal prep often felt like eating leftovers every night.
- Waste – By midweek I’d be tired of the food and either cook something new or eat out, which led to wasted groceries and money.
Then I remembered advice from an old boss that stuck with me: “Take a few minutes to do something now that will prevent you from having to spend an hour fixing it later.” That simple idea changed the way I think about cooking. It helped me move away from the all-or-nothing model of Sunday meal prep and toward something that actually fits into a busy life.
Sunday meal prep doesn’t have to mean losing your entire weekend or eating the exact same thing every night. Instead, I started testing a focused approach: spend one hour on the weekend prepping ingredients—not full meals—to make weeknight cooking much faster and more enjoyable. I was skeptical at first, but the results surprised me.
Because I do two grocery trips each week for our recipe video business, I experimented with prepping ingredients right after my first weekly shopping trip. I’d write out the week’s dinners, identify which components could be prepped in advance, set a timer for an hour, and keep going until the kitchen was clean. No cheating—if I started the stopwatch, I finished the whole process, including cleanup.
Spending an hour (often less) on ingredient prep changed my weeknights. On busy shoot days—when I might be making and filming multiple recipes—cooking dinner used to feel impossible. But with onions chopped, stocks or dressings made, grains cooked, and proteins portioned ahead of time, dinner became fast and low-stress. The heavy tasks were done; the final assembly became quick, fresh, and even fun again. That freed up time to focus on what matters most: family and connection.
Sharing these small wins on Instagram led to so many questions and enthusiastic responses that I decided to turn the approach into a short, free series called 1 Hour to Quicker Dinners. The goal is simple: teach practical ingredient-prep habits that save hours across your week without costing you more than an hour of weekend time.
What you’ll learn:
- How to identify which ingredients to prep in advance so weeknight cooking becomes fast and flexible.
- Practical tips for planning a week’s worth of meals without locking yourself into repetition.
- Strategies for storing prepped ingredients so they stay fresh and usable for multiple meals.
- Simple, printable tools and goals to build sustainable cooking habits without overcommitting your time.
Series dates: The series runs February 21st–24th.
Why this works: The biggest challenge I hear from readers is lack of time. Weeknights are hectic no matter your life stage. This method respects that reality: spend a small, focused block of time once a week, and you’ll reclaim hours across the week while still eating fresh, home-cooked food. It’s practical, repeatable, and—most importantly—adaptable to your preferences so you don’t feel locked into leftovers you don’t want to eat.
If you’re tired of stressing about dinners, want more time for the things you love, and want to streamline your cooking without sacrificing flavor or freshness, this system can help. Sign up for the 1 Hour to Quicker Dinners series to get my step-by-step process for ingredient prep, meal planning tips, and a printable workbook to guide you.
I can’t wait to help you transform your weeknight cooking.
You can find a full index of my recipes on The Life Jolie recipes page (search for “recipes” on The Life Jolie site).
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