Chicken Crockpot Freezer Meals: Fill & Download for Free

I love doing meat in sauce in the slow cooker because it’s a great way to tenderize tough cuts and create fork-tender dinners. A few super-easy ideas are a pound of chicken, cut up, mixed with salsa and cooked on low for 4–6 hours. Use it in tacos or burritos with all your favorite toppings. Or you might try a roast with broth, seasonings and peppers/onions. Serve it as fajitas or with salad. I also just recently saw a big roundup of freezer meals at Pinch of Yum, some crockpot, some not, and they looked amazing.

As a former working mom and as a retired empty-nester, there’s one thing I do whenever I cook a meal — I always double the batch.This allows me to have one meal tonight and one tucked in the freezer. Basically, I only have to cook 15 days in a month — actually less if I factor in a few nights of fast-food carry-outs.Whether I am making oatmeal, rice, boiling potatoes to mash or making batches of stews, soups and spaghetti — double it. Eat some now; freeze the rest.When I worked, I would spend one Saturday morning browning a five-pound package of ground beef. In one crockpot, I’d make a large batch of chili; in another crockpot I would make meat sauce for spaghetti. I’d save a few cups and turn that into taco meat.By the end of the day, I had produced the workings for a variety of meals.We didn’t just have chili, spaghetti or tacos. Using the chili, I could add some rice and roll it into a tortilla to cook into a chimichanga. The spaghetti sauce could be poured over a frozen bag of stuffed shells or turned into lasagna. The taco meat could be turned into nachos. I have even poured a cup of chili over an omelette and got rave reviews for the “Mexican omelette.”And that spaghetti that I’d boil before ladling on the sauce? I’d make a huge batch of pasta and do what the restaurants do: I’d freeze mounds of cooked pasta. (There will be people who will “gasp” at this idea but I actually learned this from someone who worked in an Italian kitchen.)On days when I needed something quick, all I had to do was soak the frozen pasta in hot water for two minutes, toss it in the microwave for a few more …no waiting for the water to boil, no pot to clean. Even when I boil up some macaroni for mac n’ cheese, I also make extra. I can always add some macaroni to chili and turn that into chili-mac. Or, I can use the frozen macaroni later to make a quick macaroni salad by simply adding some mayo, cheese, veggies and/or tuna or chicken.Hope the above helps. It’s not easy working all day and then coming home to face another work shift. You deserve a break, too. Learn to plan your meals in advance. Fall in love with your crockpot. Pick up an extra crockpot at a thrift store. Stock the pantry and always…always…double the batch!Blessings to you!

I'm single, so I'm rarely going to make a single serving of homemade soup, beans, or stew. When I make a Crockpot full of soup, I immediately fill a few single-serving containers and put them into the freezer. This means I don't need to have 7–8 meals of soup in a row. Instead, I have 2–3 meals over a few days. Then over the next few weeks, whenever I'm in the mood for delicious homemade soup, I have it … instead of sodium-laden stuff from a can.Most people I know deliberately make extra food at night or on weekends to take for lunches, so that they don't have to shell out hard-earned money for an over-priced lunch in a restaurant. That is being a good steward of both your money and your food.One of my favorite things to do is buy a hot rotisserie chicken at the store and eat it with a yam or other veggies and a salad that night. Over the next day or so, I might make sandwiches, chicken stir-fry, a casserole, Waldorf chicken salad, or chicken pot pie with the leftovers. The same can be done with Sunday's ham, a pork roast, or a brisket cooked in a Crockpot. All of these meats can be used to make other delicious dinners and lunches through the week. If you properly store your meat, it should last 3–4 days, at least; that can be a big savings on the family food bill. Smart folks know the value of leftovers, and very few of us consider ourselves to be pitied for eating them.