27 Crock Pot Meals to Freeze

        Ok, so I am sure many of you have seen the many bloggers on pinterest that make up anywhere from 2 weeks to a month's worth of meals and freeze them. Then, after one afternoon, you have meals you can pop in the crock pot and let cook all day and dinner is done when you come home. With school and work getting hectic and soccer 4 days a week... I was finding it harder to get meals on the table. I was determined not to become a fast food family. It isn't healthy, it's expensive, and quite frankly most of it is nasty. Especially compared to a good home cooked meal. SO, my husband and I decided to go all in and do 27 meals and see if this would be a way to have a home cooked dinner on those tired and hectic nights.

          Here is how we did it. It was super easy to come up with the recipes with there being so many on pinterest and online recipe sites. I just made a "crock pot meals" board on Pinterest and pinned away any that looked good and started there. Once I had 27 meals picked out, with some repeats, I made a template on my laptop to organize them. Recipe name at the top, ingredients with measurements, then what prep needed to be done, then the remaining recipe instructions. Now I had the entire recipe, prep instructions, and the menu planned all in one place. This is what one page looked like-

Notice I also added a note at the bottom if I wanted to add a side or use a substitution for something.

Now, once I had this down I wrote out a list of what I needed, like chicken breasts, and counted how many I would need. And went on down the list. Once I had how many of each ingredient I needed I wrote out a grocery list. Then I sat down with a box full of gallon size freezer bags and wrote on the outside of them the recipe name, the day number, and cooking instructions or anything that needed to be added.. Example- Day 10- Beef Stroganoff- Cook on low 8 hours, add sour cream before serving, prepare egg noodles and pour over top of noodles. I repeated until I had a bag for each recipe. Then we shopped. I found some good deals on some produce and shredded cheddar. If you are a couponer you could do this for even cheaper probably. So after shopping, we came home and I put the frozen chicken breast (it is so cheap at Sam's and really good chicken) in the sink to thaw while we prepped. I started off by separating the groceries out. Produce on one counter, cans on another, meat on another, spices out on another, and so on. Then, we cut up onion, potatoes, bell peppers, tomatoes, garlic... everything we needed. As we got one thing all chopped and into a large bowl we set it aside and went on to the next until it was allll ready to go. Then, we got the meat out and prepped what needed prepped. In some recipes I used beef roast as a substitute, just because I knew I could get it cheaper at Sam's than using stew meat, things like that.

     Once everything was prepped and ready to go, we started with the first recipe and grabbed that bag. We put all the ingredients in the bag, closed it up, and sat it aside. Once we had all the bags filled and had used all our ingredients up we were done. We put them in the freezer (in order so I don't have to dig for one later), then we wiped all the counter tops down and ran the dishwasher a couple of times and we were done. All in all this took us about 5 hours from start to finish (not counting shopping) and that is with our 4 year old "helping" and we were dead tired after getting started way later than we had planned and a busy morning at soccer. If we had set aside a day to do just this, it would have went much faster I think. Plus it was our first time doing it. I think next time it will go faster too.

    These are the recipes I picked for us, all of which are online- most at Pinterest- and some from my blog. A couple are recipes that weren't initially meant for the crock pot but have been modified to be one. I may sit down and type these all up some day, but for now you may have to Google and Pinterest search for these on your own. :-)

Breakfast Casserole (making this one twice)
Cheesy Chicken Broccoli Rice (making this one twice)
Beef Stroganoff
BBQ Chicken and Vegetables (making this one twice)
Beef Stew
Chicken Fajitas (making this one twice)
Mac and Cheese with Smoked Sausage
Garlic Chicken
Beef Roast
Sloppy Joes
Tomato Artichoke Chicken Pasta
Beef Broccoli and Rice
Chicken and Mushroom Gravy
Un-stuffed Cabbage
Marlboro Man Sandwiches (Pioneer Woman Recipe)
Chicken Noodle Soup
Steak Dinner (Pinterest idea where you can use foil to separate steaks, potatoes, corn and cook it all in the crock pot... not sure how I will like the steak this way but wanted to try it)
Chicken Enchiladas
Meatloaf and veggies
Tangy Chicken and Veggies
Smoked Sausage and Potatoes
Chili

         As I made the initial template I noted at the bottom any sides I wanted to serve, like frozen corn and bought that too. I also made a note of anything like buns or tortillas that I would want to buy the week I'm planning on serving those meals so all I have to do is grab a package of buns for sloppy joes and throw some frozen corn in the microwave for a few minutes and I'm done.

The detailed list of what I bought is at the bottom if you would like to read it. I bought most of the meat at Sam's Club because that is the cheapest place to get good meat. I don't use Minute Rice so I cooked all my rice and added it to the bag. I use real brown Basmati rice that cooks for an hour. I just let it cook while we were prepping, then scooped out what I needed for each bag. I have frozen beef and rice many times so I know this rice freezes beautifully and the difference in taste is incredible. Totally worth the extra effort. But if you like you can grab a box of Minute Rice and throw it on just before dinner while you make a side, if you are making one.

     Of the blogs I read, about half of them said do not cook and freeze the pasta and do not add things like eggs and cheese before freezing. Half of them said dump it all and you are good to go. I did add the cheese and pre-cooked the rice and froze it. However, I do not like pasta that has been frozen so I left it out. I will throw it on to cook while I am giving Zach a bath or something and I am fine with that. I didn't add the eggs to the breakfast casserole just because I didn't feel comfortable with that idea. If you try it and it works out well, let me know.

   The total amount I spent on these dinners came to $348.75 for 27 meals that comes to about $13 per dinner. Plus, I am sure Mom and I will have plenty of leftovers each day for our lunches out of these, too. I think that is pretty good for a dinner every day of the week for 4 weeks. When I started making the list, I was going to leave off Saturdays and just make dinners for Sunday- Friday. On the 3rd week I decided to add one for the last 2 Saturdays. So technically it is 7 meals a week for 4 weeks, minus 2 meals.

   Planning well for what you need is key. I ended up with exactly enough of everything. I did have a beef roast left over because I bought them 2 to a package at Sam's and used less than I thought I would. So, I even have a beef roast left over out of that I can throw on sometime when these run out, or use next time. I think I had 2 onions we didn't need, but that's it. Not bad! And we weren't short anything so that is good- obviously.

Here is the list of groceries we bought and prices we paid. I am sure some could scout out cheaper prices or better deals or use coupons, but for me- one fight at a time, haha. Remember, this includes sides such as Brussels sprouts, frozen corn, broccoli, green beans, etc.

Chicken Breast. I bought 3 big bags, frozen at Sam's for $12 a bag, total $36

Artichoke hearts, canned- $3

Sweet Potatoes- $2.50

Ribeye Steaks- $28

Beef Roast $47 for 4 (Used 3 and had 1 left)

Ground Beef- $16 for 2 large packages at SAMs (about 12 pounds total) divided into 3 pounds x 4

Round Steak- $18 for 6 in a package (really could use 3 or 4)

Broccoli, frozen- $6 at SAMs, you get several bags. Had enough for recipes and sides later.

Baby Carrots- $4.00

Mushrooms- 3 packages, $3 each- $9.00

Shredded Cheddar- $14 for 10 bags.

Onions- $0.89 a bag x 2 bags= $1.80

Celery- $1.40 (only used half)

Cabbage- $0.69 each x2= $1.40

Green Bell Peppers- $8 for 16

Red Potatoes- 20 lb bag- $4

Breakfast Sausage- $2 each x2= $4

Chicken Thighs, fresh- $4 per package, 2 packages= $8

Green Beans, canned- $0.39 ea x8= $3.12

Tomato sauce- $1 each x9= $9

Chicken Broth- $2.38 x3= $7.14

Pasta- $2 a box x3= $6

Cheddar Cheese Soup, canned, condensed- $1.77 each x2= $3.54

Diced Tomatoes, canned- $1.39 x3= $3.00

Black Beans- $0.89

Kidney Beans- $0.89

Red Kidney Beans- $0.89

Pinto Beans- $0.89

Enchilada Sauce- $1.89 x2= $3.78

Soy Sauce- $2

Sesame Oil- $6

Steak Sauce- $4

Sour Cream- $3

Chicken Gravy Mix- $1 per packet x 2= $2

Fajita Seasoning- $1 x2= $2

Taco Seasoning- $0.79

Beef Broth- $2 x 2= $4

Egg Noodles- $1.50

Hashbrowns, frozen- $2

Cream of Chicken Soup- $1 each x9= $9

Golden Mushroom Soup- $1.66 x2= $3.32

Fritos- $2 (a medium-sized bag)

Brussels Sprouts- $2

Tortilla Shells- $2

Smoked Sausage- $2 x 2= $4

V-8 juice- $2

Tomato Juice- $2

Worcestershire Sauce- $1

Catalina Dressing- $2

Mustard- $1

Evaporated Milk- $1.69 x2= $3.38

Corn, frozen- $1.50 x7= $10.50

Okra, frozen- $2.50

Fresh Tomatoes- $2.50

Brown Sugar- $1.50

Cube Steak- $6 for 6

Red Bell Peppers- $3

Eggs- $6 for 3 dozen

Zucchini, fresh- $2.73

Green Onion- $0.79

Garlic, fresh- $1.00

Total- $348.75

Divided into 27 meals that is $12.92 per meal.  

Baked Potato Soup

  This is one that I found on pinterest and have seen posted to facebook a lot lately. It sounded good and since it is FREEZING outside it was the perfect time to try this one. Everyone LOVED it. It is the best potato soup I have ever had! It was even better because we had leftover hog jowl from new years day so instead of frying bacon, I just chopped up some of the leftover jowl and used it instead. As a matter of fact as soon as I post this I am going to reheat me a bowl of this for my lunch. Be jealous. :-) 

Baked Potato Soup

2 ½ pounds baby red potatoes, sliced into bite size pieces

1 package bacon

1 onion, diced

¼ bunch celery, diced

8 cups milk

4 cups chicken stock or broth

1 tsp salt

1 tsp seasoned salt

1 tsp black pepper

1 cup salted butter

1 cup flour

½ bunch fresh parsley

1 cup whipping cream

shredded cheddar

fried bacon bits

green onion, diced

Boil potatoes in water, 10 minutes, drain and set aside.

In saute' pan, cook bacon until crisp. Drain bacon fat and place on paper towel to drain more.

Add onion and celery to bacon pan over medium-high heat until celery is tender, about 5 minutes.

To the large pan you boiled potatoes in, add milk, broth, salt and pepper. Cook over medium-high heat until mixture is very hot, about 8 minutes, stirring often, Do not let boil.

In small saucepan heat butter. Add flour and mix well. Cook over medium-low heat until mixture bubbles, stirring 2 to 3 minutes to make a roux.

While constantly stirring soup, add roux slowly until soup is thick and creamy, about 4 minutes. Let simmer for about 30 minutes or until flavors incorporate.

Stir in parsley, reserved potatoes, bacon (reserve some for garnish if desired), celery, onions, and cream.

Garnish with cheese, bacon bits, green onions, or all 3. Serve hot.