Freezer to Crockpot Meals
 

What are your favorite freezer meals that can be cooked in the crockpot? I need some yummy ideas for ballet lesson nights, so full meals would be really helpful. I have three crockpots so I can even make three separate things at one time (main dish and sides)! We are gluten free and egg free.

Re: Freezer to Crockpot Meals
 

I am the queen of GF freezer meals! Self-proclaimed, of course :shifty :giggle

Coconut Chickpea Curry
Italian Beef
Plantain beef stew
Pork Carnitas
Red Lentil Soup with Lemon
Shredded Mexican Beef
Southwestern Pulled Chicken with Slaw
Spicy shredded pork
Taco soup
Thai Basil Chicken

Tomatillo beef
Vegetarian Chili
White bean chili

Many of these require rice or GF noodles with them or throw it in tacos. The soups and chili stand alone.

---------- Post added at 03:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:30 PM ----------

I should have said many of these do not appear to be crockpot/freezer meals, but they all can be. Dump and go, truly. Those with beans, I pre-soak and then freeze. No need to pre-soak lentils.

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:rockon Love the recipes! I have a ton of questions. I hope you don't mind, dear queen of GF freezer meals. :giggle

So how do you freeze the larger cuts of meat? Do you season the meat and then add the rest of the ingredients to the bag and then freeze? Do you cook any of it before putting it in to the freezer bags? Do you take it out of the freezer the day before to thaw in the fridge?

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No cooking ahead. I generally don't remember to pre-thaw, but that's a good skill to have :giggle You don't have to "season the meat" per se - just throw it all in the bag and freeze! For SW chicken and Thai Basil, I freeze as whole breasts (or actually I think both recipes originally call for thighs, but breast work fine), and then shred once cooked. I use pork mini roasts usually and not pork butt/shoulder because I prefer it leaner. I freeze them and beef roasts whole.

The way I do the recipes, I use 2 lbs of meat. So I cut spices/chopped stuff accordingly.

Re: Freezer to Crockpot Meals
 

Ive been focusing more on the crockpot this summer.

My 3 favorites

bbq chicken
(Frozen chicken breasts and bbq sauce), serve w gf toast or rice and a veg . I recently got the idea of adding it to salad for bbq chicken salad

Chx tacos
(Frozen chicken breasts w taco seasoning and salsa (just toss in however much you would like) serve as tacos or on rice

Company chx
(2.5 # Frozen chicken breasts, a stick of butter, 2 packages cream cheese, two
Boxes GF cr of mush soup, Italian seasonings), serve w noodles or rice or quinoa

I’ve done them with or without freezing .

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I need to come back and look at bananacake's links

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I've only looked at half of them, but they look good!

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Now that I'm not at work -- Here are ones on the top my list to try (let me know if you try them ;) )

Sesame chicken https://showmetheyummy.com/crockpot-...hicken-recipe/
Beef Stroganoff https://www.recipegirl.com/lightened...ef-stroganoff/
Hearty Western Casserole https://www.sidetrackedsarah.com/hea...-freezer-meal/
Slow Cooker Asian Beef https://momtomomnutrition.com/food-a...ker-asian-beef

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I just made a pulled pork recipe that I am sure could be prepped, thrown in a bag and frozen to be made later in the crockpot. I use trimmed pork tenderloin, season with garlic, pepper and whatever other dry seasonings are appealing, a few glugs or Worcestershire sauce, and not quite a full bottle of BBQ sauce (maybe 300 mls or so), lots of onion cut up....at least one large onion for 2 pork tenderloins. I think it would freeze well in a large bag but I usually just throw it all directly into a crockpot as it takes only 5 minutes to do. I just eyeball the amounts.

This can be served on buns with cheese and coleslaw OR others that I know (that are avoiding breads) prefer it served over mashed potatoes. Both are equally delicious.

I made this a couple of days after my surgery last week(it is that easy) and doubled the amount to give to a friend who had cancer surgery the day after me. It served my family for 2 nights and also hers for at least 2 meals....AND it was relatively inexpensive.

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I'm trying the chicken tacos tonight. That was really easy to throw into the slow cooker. :rockon

SonshineMama, several of those recipe links mention having to do something the last 30 minutes of the cook time. Do you do it that way? Or do you think I can just dump it all at the beginning? I don't have time to wait 30 minutes since we are getting home at 7 pm and everyone is already so hungry.

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Usually I have *someone* home to do it cuz we have 5 different schedules and the house is rarely empty but if I did not I’d toss it in before I left but after it had cooked a few hours. I think I’d also throw a bit extra water in to keep it from getting too thick.. . But I think my crockpot cooks fast

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How did it go? My family adores the chicken tacos and we have very picky people. We have tried tons and tons of crockpot meals and few get repeated :giggle

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It was so easy and so good. We are eating leftovers for lunch today.



We don't repeat very many crockpot meals either. They either don't have enough flavor or the texture is off.

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I use my crock pot at least once a week. I stink at making freezer meals, but I've found keeping components on hand that can just be tossed into the crock pot works for me - things like frozen peppers and onions, ro-tel tomatoes, Thai curry paste, and canned coconut milk plus an abundance of herbs and spices in the pantry. I like cream cheese for creamy sauces over canned cream of . . . soups.

This morning I tossed a roast in the crock pot with a can of ro-tel tomatoes, a bag of pepper and onion stir-fry blend, some chili powder, and a mix of other tex-mex spices. The last time I did that, it was devoured, but we'll see.

ETA: I also soak beans in large batches (when I remember!) and keep them in the freezer. They can then just be tossed into the crock pot frozen for chili and similar dishes.

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GF ravioli was on sale today. My kids are newly on dairy (a few months now) and have never had ravioli, so I'm making Italian beef to go with it :tu

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What store had gf ravioli? I haven't ever seen it. Is it egg free? I'm guessing it might not be.

---------- Post added at 03:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:00 PM ----------

Wait a minute, you soak the beans and then freeze them, but don't cook them and then cook them with the meal? If so, that is genius! :rockon

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Market Basket - a NE store. But it's not egg-free :(

---------- Post added at 03:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:34 PM ----------

Soak then freeze! Don't cook! Isn't it amazing? I'll soak a big bag and then freeze just plain. Lay the bag flat, and you can break chunks off easily! And they don't come out mushy!

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Yup! Exactly! I've been doing it that way for years. Canned beans tend to overcook in the crockpot, anyway. (And you avoid any questions about possible BPA in cans.)

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This week I'm going to try the Italian beef and a slow cooker spaghetti bolognese sauce. I thought that restaurants prepped pasta ahead and then reheated it, so I'm going to google how to do that.



I really need to find some time to organize some freezer meal planning, grocery store shopping, money for advanced grocery shopping, and then a block of time to put together a bunch of freezer meals. I can only think of maybe two other times I have done that. Two freezer meals per week will be used up quickly, but it would make my life so much easier. On the days I have to use the crockpot for dance, I feel like I'm spending all of the time not at dance in the kitchen so freezer meals would simplify that greatly if I just had to dump and turn on the crockpot rather than assembling the recipe, too.

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I made SW chicken today - yum!

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You can reheat cooked pasta by pouring boiling water over it. I use my electric kettle because it's the fastest way to boil water. Put the pasta in a colander set inside a larger bowl, pour water over and let it soak a couple of minutes, then you just pull out the colander and the pasta is drained.

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So I think my plan for tomorrow's grocery shopping is to buy a family-sized package of chicken breasts at Aldi's, and put together one freezer meal each of chicken teriyaki and the chicken for tacos. I might even make a simple one of chicken breasts and bbq sauce. I'm also going to try to put together a balsamic beef roast with carrots. That will give me three or four freezer crockpot meals which is a start. Maybe if I could do about three a week, I'd get ahead at some point. :giggle

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We tried beef stroganoff yesterday. I loved it :heart

We r having sesame chicken soon too.

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We once did a spaghetti fundraiser at church. The noodles were pre-cooked al dente (or a little less) and then a small amount of olive oil was added so the noodles didn't stick together. The portions were then put into ziplock bags until needed. I'm pretty sure we then dumped the bag contents into a colander that could be lowered into boiling water for a minute or two. The noodles drained when the colander was lifted. Darcy's suggestion of pouring water from a kettle would also work.

At the same time you are cooking your noodles you can also cook other things like quinoa and boiled eggs...or whatever else would help you with other meals you have planned.

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So I assembled quite a few freezer meals this afternoon and got them in the freezer!


Here's what I have :
1 bag Italian Beef
1 bag Balsamic Roast Beef and Carrots
1 bag bbq chicken
2 bags chicken tacos
1 bag Chicken Teriyaki
2 bags bbq meatballs - my grandma's recipe :heart
2 bags brown sugar carrots

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I prepped and froze 4 kinds of meatballs a few weeks ago - 2 lbs simple Italian (just meat, onion, garlic and Italian seasonings), and 2 lbs Thai Mini Meatballs. The latter are SO good! And they froze really well.

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What do you serve the Thai meatballs with?

:ty2

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Trader Joe's makes a sweet chili sauce that the boys used. I served it with rice and veggies. Or just as an appetizer :) I actually made Italian meatballs as the meal, but everyone kept eating the others which I intended to freeze.

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Does anyone have any info about the safety aspect of cooking from frozen in a slow cooker?

I've always done it but then someone on a slow cooker fb page jumped all over me about how easy it is to cause food poisoning that way because it takes too long to heat the food up out of the danger zone, especially with large cuts of meat.

My frozen dump bags were a life saver after T was born but I've been scared to do it since, and having to remember to defrost takes all the ease out of it. Since it can take 48+ hours to defrost stuff in our fridge, and leaving things on the counter to defrost is frowned on too apparently (my mom has always done it and never given anyone food poisoning :shrug)

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Officially you aren't supposed to dofrozen meat in a slow cooker ( prusher cooker is fine ). https://www. thekitchn.com/stop-putting-frozen-chicken-in-your-slow-cooker-usda-256924

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I did an experiment once. Even in my super old slow cooker, my frozen chicken was at a safe temp within 2 hours :shrug

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That's a good point, I have a meat thermometer, I could just check :doh

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I was going to say that I think even the lowest temp crockpot would heat faster than any thawing method except the microwave :think

Glad someone experienced chimed in :rockon Yay bananacake

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Italian beef is in the crockpot for supper tonight! It smells soooo good. :yum And how easy was that just to dump it in! :)

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Did you mix your own seasonings? I can't remember what the recipe calls for :bag I make my own Italian Dressing Mix and use that.

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We loved sesame chicken.

We couldn’t tolerate Italian beef (tummies). Not sure if peppers the cut I bought of what) loved the taste but everyone’s tummies were upset! I joke we have delicate stomachs :giggle

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I just use beef and spices for Italian beef. All the peppers contain corn.

---------- Post added at 12:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:14 PM ----------

So for future reference, you can just skip the peppers if you normally tolerate a roast. I also don't use pre-mixed spice packs. I just mix the following and keep it in a jar, using 2-3 T for a roast.

Italian Dressing Mix
1 tablespoon garlic
1 tablespoon onion powder
2 tablespoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1/4 teaspoon celery seed
1 1/2 tablespoons salt

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I used this recipe for the Italian seasoning and just put all of it on the roast. I hope it won't be too much spice.

---------- Post added at 12:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:34 PM ----------

Oh and on Tuesday when I made crockpot bolognese sauce, I ended up making enough for supper that night plus two freezer bags for two more meals.

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Oh my goodness, that Italian beef is so very yummy. :yum I made one change to the recipe besides using my own Italian dressing seasoning mix. I added one cup of beef broth instead of water since I had beef broth already opened. I can't wait to make up some more for the freezer!

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I want to try making the Italian Beef. I'm hoping to find the pepperoncini peppers at the Italian market today. The picture for the recipes shows the peppers whole. Do you remove them to shred the meat?