My boyfriend recently gave me a crock pot, and I was really excited because I wanted one...and now I have no idea what to do with it. I know Pinterest is full of recipe ideas, but sometimes I think what I find on there is rather impractical for someone who works 14 hours a day. I have never experimented with meal prep in advance, and wanted to ask real people if it is worth the time and effort. I am open to ideas about non-crock pot meals as well.
What I do is when it comes to meal prepping crock pot meals is get recipes that are like recipes but different tasting, meaning they share a lot of the same ingredients give or take a few but are different tasting. This helps me one save money but makes preparing them so much faster because you are only working with a certain amount of ingredients and not a huge amount of food. Mark all your bags before you fill them and find some time (even if it is only an hour or two) to prepare them, or if you want to just make a crockpot recipe the day of do that and prep an extra bag of the recipe for a later date. That would save time later and would work if you don't have a lot of free time now.
Pardon me if this is a silly question, but are you prepping all ingredients in a bag that is frozen to be cooked later and then adding them in to the crockpot to be cooked as the day goes by? Or are they cooked first and then frozen? I promise I do actually know how to cook, but this is a new genre of it to me! Thank you for your patience!
It depends what it is, and the recipes, most of the time though most recipes is everything is raw and frozen and goes in at the crock pot at the same time. I always cook my ground beef first for any recipe, and I usually bake my chicken first because I buy whole chickens and bake them at the beginning of the month then shred/cube the chicken and make stock with the bones but some recipes call for frozen chicken breast (for the meal prepping, it cooks in the crock pot). It really depends on the recipe they should tell you whether the meat needs to precooked or not and also what you feel comfortable with. Veggies don't have to be pre-cook but most crock pot meals you just dump everything in the morning and it all cooks throughout the day. Hope that answered your question, let me know if you have anymore, I am really into meal prepping and planning I do it every month
I don't prep meals with crock pots, I don't like waiting for my food. And I know that you can use them while your out during the day and come home to ready food later, but it's just not my thing. Maybe if I had a big family with a wife and 3 or 4 kids, then I'd make use of it. I prep food, but what I mean by that is I get my lunch ready the night before when I go to work. I don't like waiting like I said.
I understand your concern about the ingredients because I also had that laziness when it comes to preparing the ingredients like slicing the onions and crushing the ginger or garlic. Fortunately, we have a house maid now who can do the job for me. But what I do with the food before was to cook it in advance and place in the refrigerator. The microwave oven is very convenient when it comes to re-heating any kind of food except those baked or broiled. It is better to cook in advance than to store the prepared ingredients.
I am a fan of one-pot cooking. Throw everything into one pot and make a meal. So far, I have been able to make chicken rice. My mother taught me how to do that. Now I am experimenting with various types of porridge and noodles. As for prepping the ingredients, I don't have the need to do that. I prefer to cut the vegetables fresh just before cooking. About the only thing I prepare beforehand is the meat. What I do is make a thick soup. I cook over a slow fire until there is very little water left. Then I let it cool down, put it in a plastic container and put it in the fridge. When I need it, I just ladle out what I need and put the rest back inside the fridge. This way, it lasts for about a week, without any change in taste or texture. Lately I found that it's easy to buy meat in the form of meatballs, all kinds of meatballs, like fish and beef and chicken. These are kept in the freezer section and, being meatballs, are easily taken out for cooking in just the quantity I need.
Thank you all for your answers. I suppose it will just need to be a little trial and error. It is just my boyfriend and I and he is not big on leftovers. We both work, and while I freelance I do have a lot of time off, when I do work it is usually a 14 hour day, so the slow cooker is going to be a blessing once I figure it all out. I might cook a basic item like a seasoned chicken with rice, and change up the vegetables and sides that go with it. Does anyone else do this? What about prepping meals in advance on a Sunday and freezing them to heat up during the day?
I think its a good idea to prep meal in advance on Sunday for the rest of the week, I make a big pan of meatballs and sauce, or other meals like burritos at the beginning of the week, or month and put them into containers ( one portion) and freeze them for fast lunches throughout the week. I have done this with bigger meals as well like lasagnas, casseroles. etc. Works great!
I tried it this week with chicken fajita meat and have been able to use it in actual fajitas, with chicken and rice, on sandwiches, etc. I enjoy that I do not have to cook every single day, and it is fun trying to come up with different ways to present the same item. I cannot tell if my boyfriend is tired of eating chicken every night, though, so next week I will try multiple proteins.
You can actually choose to meal prep on your rest day. I found a good YouTube channel called BakingMadGymAddict and the creator specifically said that it's best to meal prep in a day where you can do all the prepping without any interruption so she does it on Sunday mornings. She included grocery lists, how best to prepare your food, even the containers she uses for prepping. Why not check it out? You can learn a lot of good stuff from that channel.
You can cook a great variety of things in a crock pot if you're creative enough. My mom used to dump chicken, potatoes, and vegetables into the pot and let it cook on low while she cleaned on Sunday. I personally like to cook a huge batch of chicken thighs and drums with some onions and seasonings, and that's basically my protein for the week. Then I freeze the broth in an ice cube tray and store it in the freezer for later. The chicken is then deboned and stored in a ziplock bag or a tupperware. Then you can dump it in an egg omelet, put it on a sandwich or salad, or dump it in a stir fry. Mostly though, its great for slow cooking. You can also make rice if you don't have a rice maker.
Seasoned chicken with rice? Sound like one of the first recipes I learned for one-pot cooking. In my recipe, the chicken is cooked together with the rice. To make it taste different every time, I would change the sauce used for dipping. The normal sauce is ginger juice, soya sauce and sliced chilli. I have tried soya sauce with chilli and garlic plus onions all sliced. The later sauce I normally eat with fried rice but it makes chicken rice taste different, too.
14 hours a day? Wow, what you do for a living? Anyway, What about prepping Chicken and Potatoes With Mustard Vinaigrette? Is a tasty meal on plate, salad can be prepared and refrigerated for up to 3 days, thus you can make enough in a go to save more time next day .Log In
Chicken and potatoes? I haven't tried that yet. I like both chicken and potatoes. Now to look for mustard. Thank you for sharing the recipe @davos .
You can do so much with a crock pot! I really like the meals that you throw in at night and then you have breakfast waiting for you in the morning. Things like breakfast oatmeal or french toast in the crock pot. I also love cooking tougher meats in the crock pot because they are usually cheaper cuts and after they are cooking all day they are super tender and tasty.
@davos, I am a costume designer and a wardrobe stylist for commercials, the occassional theatrical gig and mostly for independent films. I will have periods where I am not working followed by huge booms of project after project. Even days where I am not on set I work those hours, thus the desire to find easy to cook meals that are not going to make my size expand. Thank you for sharing that recipe. Must give it a go! I had not thought to try oatmeal in there, @steph84! Do you use regular oats or steel cut oats?
I absolutely love my crockpot. It's so useful mid week when everyone's schedules are crazy and it's not easy to make food. You can also practically cook anything in the crock pot and there are so many great recipes online. I usually try to plan out what exactly Im making and on which nights so I have leftovers for the next day or two. Also for 'stickier' recipes such as chicken with BBQ sauce I usually use a crock pot insert. It makes the clean up time so much quicker.
I don't use a crock pot. That runs on electricity, doesn't it? The electricity tariff is rather high in my city. So I use a gas stove and a solid steel pot. There's a lot which can be done with a solid steel pot. I finish only a tank of gas once every few months. Each new tank costs me about $5. It's a very economical alternative to electric cooking pots.
Oh, neat. I haven't tried any of the breakfast ideas, but they sound good. I definitely advocate using the Crockpot for cheaper cuts of meat. You'll save a lot of money, and you'll save time letting dinner cook while you do other things. The long, slow, cooking does wonders for otherwise tough meats. Most of those cuts are flavorful, but they tend to be tough if not prepared well. A nice marinade and a day in the Crockpot is a good plan. You can throw in something like a pork roast and make it into many meals as well. Grab one on sale, season, cook on low all day. Serve with mashed potatoes and gravy. The next day, use up the gravy, add veggies and some of the meat for pork stew. The following day, shred some meat and add barbecue sauce for sandwiches. You can make pork tacos or something if you still have any left. Lots of possibilities for quick, easy, cheap, meals.
