Freezer to Crockpot Meals

[charla]

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.

[bananacake]

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

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.

[charla]

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

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?

[bananacake]

No cooking ahead. I generally don't remember to pre-thaw, but that's a good skill to have 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.

[tempus vernum]

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 .

[knitlove]

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

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[RiverRock]

Originally Posted by knitlove

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

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

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

[tempus vernum]

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

[gabriola]

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.

[charla]

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

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.

[bananacake]

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

[charla]

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.

[charla]

Oh my goodness, that Italian beef is so very yummy. 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!

[RiverRock]

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?

[charla]

It was pretty easy to shred around them. I felt like the stems on the peppers were kind of a pain so thinking about taking them off before I freeze next time.