Crockpot Freezer Meals

[alexwyattmommy 181]

Woohoo. Standing by.

[PureTcrazy...rita 380]

Chris went to the Piggly Wiggly and spent about $150. We were not watching for sales or anything at this point. I just wanted food in my freezer! That's still not bad because we figure it came out to roughly 20 meals (supper for each of us and lunch or leftovers the next day) which works out to about 7.50 per meal or 3.75 each serving. That is WAY cheaper than waiting til the last minute and running to town for something from the restaurant. NOTE: The recipe's say they have more servings and I can tell you for sure they do, these ended up huge!

Ok, so we assembled the ingredients for each meal.

Island Pork

Hawaiian BBQ Chicken

Chicken Chili

Terriyaki Chicken

Mushroom Roast Beef

Then we assembled. Mama and Linda helped Christopher and I in this process as well. It took a couple of hours. Remember I am not the most organized of folks! Squirrel!!!

This is what we ended up with!

I can't wait to try them out!

[PureTcrazy...rita 380]

By the way, we added stuff or subtracted as we went based on our own tastes. The terriyaki chicken has way more veggies than the recipe called for. We put extra oranges in the Island Pork. We were short one can of pineapple, so one of the Island Porks is pineapple based while the other has cherries.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

This is awesome, Rita - thanks for sharing. Can't wait to try this myself.

[Live4FW 30]

I am starving! all of the meals sound so good.

[Onkel Hans 25]

From the Lords of Crockpottery:

Frozen food or partially frozen foods:

Require a longer cook time in a slow cooker than the recipe indicates for stovetop or oven. Using an instant read thermometer is recommended to ensure meat is cooked through and tender.

Frozen meats:

Can be cooked in a slow cooker, however, it is best to use the following guidelines: Add at least 1 cup of warm liquid to the stoneware before placing meat in the stoneware. Do not preheat the slow cooker. Cook recipes containing frozen meats for an additional 4 to 6 hours on Low, or an additional 2 hours on High.

[alexwyattmommy 181]

Thank you for the photos of all the ingredients. It does look yummy.

[PureTcrazy...rita 380]

I am starving! all of the meals sound so good.

Most of these are "healthy" meals! We used pork loin and boneless, skinless chicken breasts. We also added lots of extra veggies! We will most of them with brown rice!

From the Lords of Crockpottery:

Frozen food or partially frozen foods:

Require a longer cook time in a slow cooker than the recipe indicates for stovetop or oven. Using an instant read thermometer is recommended to ensure meat is cooked through and tender.

Frozen meats:

Can be cooked in a slow cooker, however, it is best to use the following guidelines: Add at least 1 cup of warm liquid to the stoneware before placing meat in the stoneware. Do not preheat the slow cooker. Cook recipes containing frozen meats for an additional 4 to 6 hours on Low, or an additional 2 hours on High.

Thanks! We will actually thaw these in the fridge before we cook them!

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

Why does "Lords of Crockpottery" make me picture a guy sitting on a slow cooker holding a ladle?

:rofl2:

Both good advice for safe crockpot cooking - for health reasons and so that you don't actually crack your crock (say that 10 times fast) by putting frozen food in a hot crock.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

... We will most of them with brown rice!

I'd think brown rice would actually work better in recipes like this - vs white rice which might be prone to breaking up too much from the longer cooking.

I love brown rice but it takes so darned long to cook on the stove. Crockpot cooking seems perfect for it.

The other healthy thing here is that you don't really need any (or much) fat in crockpot recipes, just a bit of flavorful liquid usually does the trick.

[PureTcrazy...rita 380]

Here is a link to some interesting crock pot meals! http://punchfork.com/recipes/slow-cooker They actually have something different than the ones you see all the time. I don't know how they will freeze, but I am going to be trying some of them!

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Looks good Rita! We did 3 freezer crockpot meals this past week. 2 were great, one was so so. Like anything, it's a matter of finding what suits your family's tastes. I now know that teriyaki is not a fave in my house. LOL> But I will doing the others again, and want to try more.

[Momof6....aka Marty 769]

I always make my rice separately in my rice cooker. I just measure it out in the morning after I get the crock going, then set the delay timer so it is ready about 10 minutes before we plan to eat. This works esp. well for brown rice. I have never tried to cook rice in my crockpot.

[Retired and Happy (Ken) 101]

I did not know brown rice took longer to cook. My doctor wants me to eat that instead of white rice, so there is a change coming. All the stuff mentioned above sounds and looks great! Gotta do some planning when we get home.

[SCTigerCock 171]

We do a beef roast, vegies (potatoes, parsnips, carrots, brussels, shrooms) and brown rice in our dutch oven and let it go for 2-3 hours. We use either a beef stock or water. But the rice absorbs all the goodness off the roast and vegies, yummy. It is sticky, but VERY tasty.

So something similar may be doable in a crock pot.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

I did not know brown rice took longer to cook.

A lot longer, Judy. Depending on the type of brown rice and how cooked you like it, it can take approx. 40 minutes, sometimes longer.

Love the dutch oven recipe, Genia - I'm betting that'll work in the crockpot too with a little adjusting.

[Momof6....aka Marty 769]

Dinner tonight wasn't quite a freezer to crockpot meal, as I had to add spices, since I had frozen it before learning of doing the prep before freezing. I put a pork roast in the crockpot and coated it with spices (salt, pepper, oregano, and cumin), threw half and onion cut in four pieces on top (did that the other day and froze it) and cooked it on low all day. Around 4:00pm, I fork shred it then let it cook more in the juices it had made. Served it with rice, toritllas, salsa, guacamole, and sour cream. My children applauded. :)

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

Sounds delish!!

[PureTcrazy...rita 380]

Sounds good Marty!

[Momof6....aka Marty 769]

For dinner tonight, we had Crockpot Freezer Salsa Chicken. Our official review is, it was okay. We can only have high salicylate foods (like tomatoes, berries, oranges, etc.) once a week due to chemical sensitivites. This was not worth it, for us. It was fine, just rather tasteless. I used mild salsa, so maybe that made a difference. I only cooked one bag of it, so that was about 4 chicken breasts for the 8 of us. To add bulk (and fill up my hungry crew), I served it with rice, tortilla chips, guacamole, salsa, and salad with ranch dressing.

[ImDownWithDisney 342]

Did my first freezer to crock pot tonight. It was gooooood.

[PureTcrazy...rita 380]

Thanks Marty for letting us know how it came out!

Did my first freezer to crock pot tonight. It was gooooood.

What did you fix?

I had a whole chicken in the crockpot. It looks just like a rotisserie chicken and the leg is falling to the side! Gonna try it soon, but can already say that it is awesome!

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

I would love to make the chicken recipes, but Steve is not a fan of chicken cooked in the crock pot.

[PureTcrazy...rita 380]

I did pot roast and a pork loin meals, I'll let you know how they come out Yvonne!

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Tomorrow we are doing chicken tacos. Using breasts which we will shred once cooked, and some pico that I made this weekend from stuff from my garden. Taco seasoning too. And using flour tortillas, sour cream, cheese, lettuce, yada yada.