"The plan was to start driving north and not go home to Los Angeles until I was done with a record," Five Easy Hot Dogs is a collection of instrumental recordings from Mac's time on the road. "Kind of like being on tour, except there weren't any shows and I'd just be burning money." All of the songs on Five Easy Hot Dogs were recorded and mixed in the corresponding city from each song title and the tracklisting reflects the chronological order in which the songs were produced.