A couple months ago I shared a fellow blogger’s From Your Freezer To Your Family: Slow Cooker Freezer Recipes eCookbook and I am not going to lie…many of you went a little crazy over this book! In reality, the concept behind this e-cookbook is a great idea. You spend one afternoon chopping, assembling and freezing “meal packs,” and then on any given day you pop one into your slow cooker and voila! – dinner is done.
Many of you had questions about how this method of cooking works exactly, so today I invited the author, Stephanie, to share all of the details with us so you can create your own “Freezer to Slow Cooker” recipes at home. Or better yet you could just pick up a copy of her book if you’d rather someone else do all the work for you!
Guest post by Stephanie Brandt Cornais
Hiya! My name is Stephanie and I am the Founder of MamaAndBabyLove.com. I am dedicated to helping women heal, nourish and love themselves so they can nourish and love their families and live their best life.
I have been on a personal journey to learn how to be healthy and cook for over ten years now, and it’s been a loooong and arduous process. I used to watch The Food Network and get inspired to get off the couch and try a recipe, but the end result was usually something my dog wouldn’t even eat. Then about six years ago I bought a slow cooker and it changed. my. life.
Later when my daughter was born, time was of the essence so I therefore needed a really efficient way to make lots of slow cooker meals at one time. So I combined my old love of slow cooking and my new love of freezer cooking into something that was incredibly time saving, manageable and most importantly, healthy.
In about 2 hours or less, I chop all my meat and vegetables and put them in Ziploc freezer bags. Then I add my spice combinations and mix it up a bit. I get all the air out of the bag and lay it flat like a brick so that it doesn’t take up a lot of space in my freezer. Then the morning I want a home cooked, healthy meal, I take a bag out of my freezer and dump it into my slow cooker, totally frozen. By dinner time I have a real, healthy and nourishing meal awaiting my family and me.
This way of cooking solved my problem of scrambling in the early evening to figure out what healthy, homemade meal I would serve my family. It frees up time so that I can enjoy my afternoons and evenings with my family. So instead of muttering to myself in the kitchen with resentment coming out of my ears, I am chilling with my family, most likely with a glass of red wine in hand and giving myself a little pat on the back – because the made from scratch meal I just put on the table took hardly any effort at all.
Here are some of my favorite slow cooker freezer recipes. You can find many more in my cookbook, From Your Freezer To Your Family.
*Note this recipe makes two complete meals/bags
- 2 pork roasts, left whole
- 12 ounce package fresh cranberries or 2 jars (cans have BPA in them) of whole cranberries
- 1 cup peeled and sliced (or minced) fresh ginger
- 2 tablespoons rapadura sugar (or honey or maple syrup)
- 2 tablespoons of quick cooking tapioca (or some other thickening agent like whole-wheat flour or arrowroot powder)
- Label 2 one-gallon freezer bags.
- After chopping, evenly divide all ingredients into the two bags and lay flat in the freezer.
- Day of cooking: Pull one bag from the freezer and lay it on the counter for several minutes to slightly thaw. Peel away the bag, dump the contents into your slow cooker along with ½ cup of filtered water, and cook on low for 4 to 6 hours, or until fully cooked.
Remember each slow cooker is different, so the first time you make a recipe, really watch it closely so you don’t over or under cook the dish.
- Serve with broccoli sautéed in butter. I cook frozen broccoli this way – no need to thaw, just dump frozen broccoli into a hot pan with hot butter and it is delicious.
*Note this recipe makes two complete meals/bags
- 3 medium unpeeled sweet potatoes cut into ½ inch pieces (about 2 cups)
- 2 large green peppers cut into strips or cubes (about 2 cups)
- 1 large red pepper cut into strips or cubes (about 1 cup)
- 2 zucchini chopped into circles 1 inch thick (about 2 cups)
- 2 cups chopped onion (1 inch pieces)
- 2 tablespoon quick cooking tapioca (or some other thickening agent like whole-wheat flour or arrowroot powder)
- 2 pounds chicken thighs or drumsticks (kept whole)
- 2 – 15oz jars of plain tomato sauce (cans will work but may be lined with BPA)
- 4 tablespoons rapadura sugar (or honey or maple syrup)
- 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
- 2 tablespoon ground yellow mustard
- 2 cloves garlic, finely minced (about 2 tablespoons)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Label 2 one-gallon freezer bags.
- After chopping, divide everything into the two bags. Shake them up, seal, and lay flat in the freezer.
- Day of cooking: Pull one bag from the freezer and lay it on the counter for several minutes to slightly thaw. Peel away the bag, dump the contents into your slow cooker, and cook on high for 4 to 6 hours or on low 6-8 hours, depending on your specific slow cooker.
- Serve with a salad and a grain like brown rice (if you eat grains).
*Note this recipe makes two complete meals/bags
- 2 sweet potatoes, cut into 1 inch cubes (I scrub them good, but leave the skins on)
- 1 bunch of scallions
- 2 cups of orange juice (fresh juice is best, organic pasteurized juice is fine too)
- 1 tablespoon of rapadura sugar (or honey or maple syrup)
- 2 tablespoons of soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons of arrowroot powder (or whole-wheat flour)
- 2 tablespoons of minced garlic (fresh is best, but not having to cut up garlic is so nice!)
- 3 to 4 pounds of chuck roast (or any other kind of roast), chopped into cubes or two pieces
- 2 cups of beef broth (I use homemade stock)
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- Label 2 one-gallon freezer bags.
- After chopping, divide everything evenly into the two bags. Shake them up, seal, and lay flat in the freezer.
- Day of cooking: Pull one bag from the freezer and lay it on the counter for several minutes to slightly thaw. Peel away the bag and dump the contents into your slow cooker and cook on low for 8 hours or on high for 4 hours.
- Serve with fresh salad and homemade sourdough bread, if you have it.
I hope you enjoyed learning about this cooking method. My cookbook further answers any questions you would need to know about how to get started and how the assembly process works. I also have a FAQ page and sometimes host a free Slow Cooker Freezer Recipes Webinar where you can learn all about my tried and true tips and secrets and have an opportunity to ask me your questions directly. I am also really good about answering all questions on the blog or the M+BL Facebook page, so if you ever need help, just shoot me a question and I am happy to answer!
Stephanie Brandt Cornais is the Founder and Creative Director of Mama and Baby Love, a real food, natural parenting and lifestyle blog. She is the author of From Your Freezer To Your Family, Slow Cooker Freezer Recipes, The Mama and Baby Love Guide to a Conscious Childbearing Year and Grain-Free/Gluten-Free Baking-A Healthy Baking Cookbook for Mama’s Who Don’t Know How To Bake. You can also find her on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram.
My family wasn’t crazy about this recipe, but they don’t like sweet potatoes, so I could only expect so much
I LOVE sweet potatoes, and thought this was a decent recipe, but I’d probably stick with other beef stews I like better. Even being a sweet potato lover, I thought it needed some variety in the veggies.
I’ve read that you’re not supposed to put any kind of potatoes in the fridge or freezer because it turns the starch into sugar… Is this correct?
Hi Lorena. I found this article which should answer your question: http://extension.psu.edu/food/safety/food-preservation/news/2012/potatoes-fresh-and-frozen. ~Amy
[...] 100 Days of Real Food – This blogger shares the same passion for cutting processed foods. This list of recipes is a bit different: you assemble “freezer packs” of food to dump into your slow cooker. Anyone who’s ever used a slow cooker/crock pot knows, it’s probably even easier than stove or microwave thawing of pre-cooked meals. Soooo excited to try these! [...]