With summer wrapping up and the back to school rush beginning, there’s no better time to get the dinner time chaos under control. Give this Slow Cooker Freezer cooking plan a try and have 9 meals ready and waiting!
I really wanted to try to get dinner time more under control and I know for me, having prepared meals (homemade and store bought) in the freezer really help me out. While store bought foods, (think frozen pizza, perogies…etc.) are okay with me once in a while, I love to have homemade meals on the table most nights.
I’ve been seeing freezer cooking posts all over Pinterest lately and knew I had to jump on that band wagon. Freezer cooking is a great solution to my problem and I haven’t intentionally stocked my freezer with meals since before my daughter was born.
Another one of my favourite things is using the slow cooker. I love the ease of just throwing things into the slow cooker, turning it on, then coming back at dinner time to dish up! Sure makes that 5pm toddler crazy time more bearable. 🙂
So, with those two things in mind, I created a plan for 9 slow cooker freezer meals that I’d love to share with you all!
The plan consists of some of our tried and true favourite family meals. Here are the meals you will be making if you so wish to join in:
- Peanut Chicken
- Beef Roast and Carrots
- Chicken Tortilla soup
- Honey Garlic Chicken
- Meatballs
- Chicken Vegetable Curry
- Beef Stew
- Baked Beans
- Chicken Broccoli Alfredo
I hope you’ll enjoy them just as much as we do! (It’s actually 10 meals because the size I roll meatballs makes that recipe enough for two meals)
Click here to download the grocery list, recipes and labels.
All told, everything cost me under $100. The cost could be much less since I didn’t purchase any of the meat on sale. I also purchased everything from the Real Canadian Superstore for the sake of time. I think you’ll have many of the ingredients on hand already which also makes the costs go down.
Since nothing in this freezer cooking plan has to be cooked beforehand, I think the best use of your time would be to chop the veggies and meat first. Then for any recipe that requires a sauce, mix those up. Finally, throw all the veggies and meat into a freezer bag and pour the sauces over top! Simple as that!
As for the labels included in the plan, simply cut them out, then place them on the freezer bags and use clear packing tape to cover.
Click here to download the grocery list, recipes and labels.
So what do you think? Will you be trying this out? What are your favourite freezer meals?
How many servings in your meals?
Thank you for this – so helpful and easy to use with the grocery list and no obscure ingredients. The prep definitely took me longer than an hour, but I’m looking forward to testing out these meals!
Thank you for posting this! I was able to spend around $70 to purchase everything…because I already had some of the ingredients., so that was win #1. It took me about 3 hours to put it all together but that was okay and then I had very minimal dishes to do…which never happens when I make 9 meals!
Finally a list where all the recipes look good! But…I cannot find which recipe uses the zucchini? It’s on the grocery list, but I couldn’t find it in a recipe. Forgive me if I’m missing something. 🙂
So sorry! Another reader pointed this out as well so you’re not seeing things! The zucchini is for the Chicken curry meal. Hope you enjoy the recipes!
Thanks so much for this!! I just made your chicken tortilla soup and we all loved it! I noticed one thing as I was prepping some of the other meals….. the curry recipe calls for a sweet potato but one isn’t listed on the grocery list. Just wanted to mention that. Looking forward to trying some of the other recipes
Thank you for all the fabulous recipes! I spent about $140 and doubled all of them. Some I was able to put into one bag (garlic chicken, baked beans and peanut chicken) and will use those during extra crazy weeks when I need more leftovers. The rest I split into two bags (one recipe each bag). This should keep a stocked for a while! Like another commenter said, though, it took me 3.5 hours, but it’s time well spent!! Thank you!
These freezer meals look great! It must have taken you quite some time to put it all together! Hope you enjoyed every one of them. I will certainly try some, if not all of these too! Aren’t slow cookers amazing! Thanks for all your hard work and thought put into these great meals!
Thought this was a great idea for my son and daughter-in-law who are both teachers and starting the year off with a one year in tow! I bought the groceries I needed – and spent $97.25, I came straight home and started assembling. It took me 3.5 hours from start to finish, so not sure how you you did it “in about an hour!” They are going to be very grateful, I think, to have 10 suppers in their freezer.
This is fantastic. Thank you for all of your hard work.
May I ask what size slow cooker do you use?
And would I double the ingredients if my slow cooker is bigger?
I use a Cuisinart 3.5 quart slow cooker. I have a bigger one (5 or 6 quart?) that I don’t like as much because it cooks really hot. I think if you slow cooker typically cooks hot, you may want to double some of the recipes. Hope that helps!