It’s feeling like crockpot weather! Whoever invented the slow cooker is a true genius. Take an old shoe, throw in something acidic, add a few vegetables, then put the lid on and leave it alone for h-o-u-r-s. Then voilà! With hardly any effort from you– –you walk in the door at the end of the day, inevitably having forgotten that you put all these ingredients in the crockpot – – pure deliciousness!
Sweater weather, pumpkin spice season, football time~~whatever you call it–it all adds up to find your crockpot, invite a friend over and have a freezer-filling slow cooker meal prep party. A few hours in the kitchen and you’ll have 6 – 8 – 10 prepped meals, ready to go in the slow cooker wherever you don’t feel like cooking. *As long as you remember to take it out of the freezer the night before.
Maybe the old shoe is a stretch, but I have literally cleaned out my refrigerator into a crockpot, thrown in a can of diced tomatoes and a few herbs and spices, delicious. I recently overcooked steak tips–next day I threw them in the crockpot on low with some soy sauce and whatever I had for veggies, delicious. I like to accomplish a whole bunch at once, so sometimes on Sunday afternoons when there’s football on that I don’t really want to watch – – I get my stand-up gallon freezer bags and start chopping.
How is it that crock pots are so magical and can turn anything into a memorable meal? Well, first of all it is the very definition of comfort food. The nice way of explaining why slow cookers do what they do is “moisture retention”. A slow cooker uses a tight lid (resist the urge to open when cooking) that traps steam and liquids. Because the water cannot escape, the meat stews in its own juices and doesn’t dry out. If you want to know more, (but I wish I hadn’t read about) google protein transformation and collagen breakdown.
I love my crockpots. I have several, and it can probably be said that over time I’ve accumulated every size ever made. When we bought our house in 2016, there were things left in the pantry, including 2 slow cookers. No worries, I already had probably three assorted sizes and then my parents (and their crock pots) also moved in. You might enjoy the story I wrote about after hiring a professional organizer to empty and organize my kitchen pantry. I kept every slow cooker–including mine, my mother’s, the ones that came with the house and probably a few others I picked up along the way.
The first thing you need to do is make sure your freezer has plenty of room. No worries, we will use some of those bags of forgotten veggies in our crockpot magic. A chest freezer is ideal, but we’ll work with what you have. You just don’t want to get so far ahead of yourself with your magical crockpot recipes that you have nowhere to put them away. Make room in the freezer, check.
If you’re a super-planner, you can watch for sales on ingredients and stock up ahead of your crock pot magic party.
I’m providing an easy to print list of recipes in this story because I like to do all the chopping and then assemble my freezer bags in sort of a production line. I print out the spreadsheet, cut the columns into individual recipe strips, and I’m off to the races. Or just a mindless afternoon of chopping and preparing future good food.
I write the name of each recipe on the freezer bag in Sharpie before I start adding ingredients. Then I put the specific recipe in front of each freezer bag.
Find your largest bowls, and start chopping. Onions, celery, carrots, and potatoes. As always, you know that I don’t measure too much—just keep chopping.
I like to put the heaviest items and the proteins in first, to help the bag stay in place. Plus, you don’t want to be making honey mustard chicken, and run out of space in the bag before you get to the chicken. The internet tells me that some people use a bag holder to make the process tidier, but I just don’t need one more one-hit-wonder kitchen item.
This is an important part–one that I learned the tough way the first time I enthusiastically jumped into making 10+ gallon bags of crock pot magic. DO NOT just make a bunch of bags of prepped meals and stack them on each other in the freezer. You will realize you’ve made a terrible mistake when you go to take one out of the freezer and you have a very frozen nightmare about a foot tall. Trust me. Once you’ve got them bagged up, put them in a cooler with ice packs and place one bag in the freezer, give it an hour or so, and then put another bag on top.
If you want to come home to a kitchen that smells like home-cooking tomorrow, then take one of your frozen bags out of the freezer tonight, defrost in the refrigerator and put it in the slow cooker in the morning, turn it on low and forget about it. DON’T FORGET to turn the slow cooker on. I’ve done that before–thought about the meal during the day and then gotten home to a defrosted set of ingredients and nothing for dinner. If you did everything right, you’ll remember it the minute you walk through the door.
Pro-tip: The reason I take it out of the freezer the night before? Why not just put it in the crock pot frozen and have it just take a little longer? Try that and let me know how it works. How it will work is you’ll have to cut the freezer bag and then your recipe will be taller and wider than your crock pot and the lid won’t fit on. Learn from my mistakes.
About my recipes–they have been adapted over the years (and not likely updated in the attached recipe helper chart). Swap in what works for your household. Many of my recipes started as popular freezer-meal recipes that I’ve adapted over time. Here’s a photo below of the recipes I’ve used. I typically print the sheet and cut the paper in to vertical strips and put each one in front of the plastic bag. Use the contact form below or contact me and I’ll send you a PDF of this recipe for easier printing.
Don’t like my recipes, or want more? Here are a few sources below for more easy-prep slow cooker recipes. As always, I’d love to hear how you made out, and your favorite recipes.
One Hundred Dollars A Month Slow Cooker Recipes
Vegetarians in your household? Check out The Family Freezer Best Vegetarian Crockpot Freezer Recipes
