Hi I'm Sharla with Freezer Meals 101. Today we are doing fast and easy slow cooker recipes
for the freezer and you have to admit it doesn't get much easier than a Freezer Meal that can go
into your crock pot, so um I did a poll in our Freezer Meals 101 facebook group about what kinds
of videos you were looking for and overwhelmingly the results were fast and easy and slow cooker, so
I did a fast and easy video last week and you can check that out right there just click that
link above if you want to see that I will also put it at the end of this video just so that you can
finish watching this video first you don't have to miss out on that but for this video I combined the
fast and easy concept with the crock pot meals, so you're kind of getting the best of both worlds.
Now today we are making seven recipes and I'm pretty excited about them because I think you're
gonna like them. We are doing baked italian chicken beef curry beef rice casserole chicken
noodle soup casserole oh no are we doing chicken noodle soup or chicken noodle soup casserole
no we are doing chicken noodle soup I do have a chicken noodle soup casserole but we are doing
chicken noodle soup barbecue shredded chicken a Dr Pepper pulled pork that has flavors that
are out of this world um and swedish meatballs, so it's a nice menu with lots of variety and um
we also might add one more recipe if there's time but anyway this is what we're going to start with.
This is what we're going to get to right now uh I will pop in here and there I'm going to do
like overhead filming for these recipes this time because I've had some comments that people prefer
that because they can see more what we're doing but I will pop back in and give you some tips here
and there throughout so let's get started this Dr Pepper pulled pork is so incredibly flavorful
it is a family favorite, so uh we have our pork roast in here you can use shoulder or
butt and we've got a rough chopped onion now when I was looking for Dr Pepper I could not find the
regular size cans, so I got some mini cans and we're supposed to be using two cans of regular,
so we'll either use three or four of the mini cans depending on kind of how it looks and the
rest of the recipe is a little bit of brown sugar a can of chipotle peppers in Adobo sauce that is
probably where a lot of the flavor comes from and of course the Dr Pepper helps to tenderize
the pork which makes it so amazing and then yeah some salt and pepper and let me see if that is it
yeah that's it again this is super super easy to throw together ,but this is gonna be one you are
glad to have on hand it's also one that I like to take camping with us when I bring our slow cooker
camping because it's really great on buns and it just makes one of those hearty camping meals
this next recipe is a beef curry Freezer Meal and it's a nice change it's got some
really nice flavors and it also has got some vegetables in there so you can serve this on rice
or you can make wraps with flour tortillas of course you can use it on its own too we like
to put some cilantro on top if we're serving it on rice so this has your beef stir fry strips
some onion uh it's supposed to have red and yellow pepper I only have red pepper today so that's all
we're using then a can of diced tomatoes some curry paste a tiny bit of sugar and some heavy
cream this is all thrown together and we have yet another amazing family meal to take less stress
off of your next week for this one I like to seal it loosely and really give it a good squish and
toss to combine and then I open it back up get all the extra air out and seal it again our barbecue
shredded chicken is one of our family's favorites what I love about it is well okay I just love the
flavors but we always make a homemade garlic mayo and put that on the buns and then we make coleslaw
you put that on the bun, so honestly this is like restaurant food like it is amazing it
tastes like a real treat and we especially like it in the summer you could bring this camping or
whatever but it's also kind of got that comfort food feel to it so it's good for winter too
anyway this has just a few ingredient well one two three four five five it's another five ingredient
recipe so it has five ingredients we've got our chicken you can use chicken breasts or chicken
thighs we're using chicken breasts today and then you're gonna have finely minced onion
some garlic barbecue sauce whatever your favorite flavor is and a little bit half a cup of apple
cider vinegar and that is really really it so just like that this one is already done.
One tip that I wanted to give you is that before I even got started I printed off all of my recipes,
so that they are totally ready for me to access today and also so that I could um be adding to my
shopping list as I was choosing the recipes now um this makes it so that you're not scurrying
around on the day that you're putting together the meals and wasting time trying to find the recipes
or trying to pull them up on your computer, so I prefer to actually print them out now
if you're somebody that likes to just look at them on your phone or whatever that's fine too,
but for me this is what I prefer um, I do have something very exciting to tell you guys and that
is that we now have a Freezer Meals 101 club and I will put the link down in the description below
and in our club you can access exclusive recipes as well as the recipes that are on our website
and you can create meal plans you can create shopping lists you can change the quantities
so if you're wanting to double all of your recipes it will reflect that on the shopping list and in
the meal plans and then you can print the recipes off from the meal plans and just be completely
ready to go, so I will put a link down below in the description, but that is something that I've
been working on behind the scenes for a very long time and I'm super excited to be able to
finally offer to you to make your life just a little bit easier let's get back to the meals.
We're going to throw together this baked italian chicken it's great because it's got your chicken
and some vegetables in there so if you serve this over pasta or rice you have a complete meal
we've got chicken thighs in here the recipe calls for 12, I've got 12 because we have a giant family
then you've got your italian seasoning a little bit of brown sugar some sliced mushrooms zucchini
onion and pasta sauce now since we prepped all of our ingredients yesterday this is going to be
pretty easy to throw together if you didn't do your prep ahead then this is a meal that takes
a little bit longer because you do have to cut all those vegetables but then on the day you're
cooking it you've got a healthy meal for your kids and you really don't have to do anything
except throw it into the slow cooker for these swedish meatballs I'm actually using just some
frozen pre-cooked meatballs, but if you want to you can go ahead and make homemade meatballs
you can make those as a Freezer Meal on a separate day if you really want
or you can make them up fresh before you add the ingredients to this we are going to do two cans of
cream of mushroom soup some sour cream soy sauce parsley nutmeg and pepper this is going to cook
up really easily in the slow cooker and you can serve it on rice or pasta now when it comes to
crock-pot Freezer Meals one of the things that I get asked about a lot is if you forget to thaw
your Freezer Meal in the morning and you need to put it in the crock pot at noon or if you forget
to thought the night before in the fridge and then um to be able to put it in the crock pot in
the morning before you leave for work what do you do so uh the quick answer for that or what I do
is I just thaw it for 20 minutes in a sink full of room temperature water so just put
some lukewarm water in the sink just enough to cover the Freezer Meal and then just drop
your bag right into that sink full of water and because you've you know your bag is sealed should
be all good and then when it's thawed enough so you can you know you should be able to like
mold it and move it at that point then it will fit into your slow cooker you can turn it on and
go about doing whatever you need for the rest of the day come home and voila dinner is ready it's
pretty awesome when you combine freezer cooking and your slow cooker it's a little bit of magic
especially for busy moms anyway it has saved me a time or two or 10 or 50 over the years, so I hope
that tip helps you for those days when you forget to thaw your meal the night before or early that
morning let's get to our next recipe this next recipe is chicken noodle soup we recently made
it I think in our 136 Freezer Meals we made it and I hadn't made it in like probably two years
and once we had it for the first time after we made it I remembered how much we love it and
my husband was like why don't we have this more often it's like the ultimate in comfort food and
it's perfect for winter super super easy so we're just going to do our chicken breasts on the day
that you cook it you can shred those after they're cooked or cube them and then you're going to add
some egg noodles into this on the day you cook it but other than that everything is going in today
although you can leave your chicken broth out until the day you cook it if you want it to take
up less space in your freezer and then just make a note on the bag if you do that to remind yourself
to add the chicken broth so you're going to add carrots onion garlic thyme bay leaf chicken broth
water parsley salt and pepper now you're supposed to add celery to this but I'm allergic to celery
so we don't ever add celery into anything so we're just going to go ahead and add everything that
this recipe calls for except for the celery beefy rice casserole is really nice because
the rice cooks right in it, so I've gone ahead and put one cup of the kind of rice that we need which
is a long grain converted rice in a medium sized freezer bag and then I'm going to staple that onto
our large bag when we're finished so in the large bag we've got one and a half pounds of
already browned ground beef I did that when we did our prep um then we're gonna add diced tomatoes
chopped onion chopped green pepper salt and chili powder this is super simple but on the
day you make it it's kind of like an all-in-one meal which makes it really nice if you want to
you can top it with cheese or you can serve it with hot sauce you can change
it up lots of different ways which is one of the things i like about this is the versatility
guys another meal seriously you guys that's it it is that easy to be able to put
seven meals in your freezer have at least a week's worth of meals for your whole family but if you
double each of these recipes then you end up with of course 14 or a minimum of two weeks of
meals for your family for us um sometimes we end up with leftovers and then we do this um we call
it a leftover buffet so one night on the weekends we pull out all the leftovers from the week and
set it out on the counter like a buffet people go around and scoop themselves up a plate actually
our kids really like it and they think it's fun and it's a great way to get rid of the leftovers
and have another night where you don't have to cook, so I hope that tip helps you I know that
if you are a busy mom with a large family like me that that will likely be something that becomes
a favorite in your family too and of course with you because it's one less night of cooking thank
you so much for being with me here today while we made these fast and easy slow cooker recipes
I've got lots of other great recipes to share with you so be sure to hit that subscribe button
I'm gonna put a link right there to that fast and easy Freezer Meals video so that you can check out
some more easy recipes a few of those actually at least one of those I can't remember all of
them but at least one of them is also a slow cooker recipe so and then others can be adapted
to the slow cookers but there is there's for sure one that has to be baked in the oven but anyway
check those out because those are great thanks again for joining me and happy cooking.