4 Recipes and 10 Healthy Freezer Meals for the Crockpot

So I recently decided to help my mom put together some freezer meals for my brother and I decided I would share them on the blog because it was a very successful endeavor!

First of all, I decided to make them all healthy, low-fat, and inexpensive so I used my four favorite chicken crock-pot recipes. AND THESE REALLY ARE FAVORITES in my family!  I make them a LOT and my kids are PICKY!!

Second, I bought all the ingredients at the same time to get a good idea of what it might cost-which ended up being about $65 (including the zip-lock bags to store them in.)  This also included having a few extra ingredients left over to use in future meals (the next time would cost way less- maybe even less than $50!)

Third, I did this all one Saturday morning to find out how much time it would take and it really wasn't bad!  About 1 hour shopping and just over an hour putting them all together to make 10 meals is great!

Here is another thing about my recipes- YOU CAN'T MESS THEM UP.  You can throw in whatever sounds good and you can add more chicken, less chicken, more sauce, less sauce, more seasoning, less seasoning, and they will still taste good!  Adjust these however you like and to your own taste!  We often add jalapenos to a lot of these recipes to spice them up.  My sister doubles the seasoning in the Italian chicken and I double the seasoning in the fajitas.  If you don't like beans that much you can use very little in the chili or if you want more I have added even black beans and kidney beans before...you get the point.

Here are the recipes:

Crock-pot Italian Chicken

1-3 Chicken breasts

1 package cream cheese

1 packet Good Seasons Italian seasoning

1 can cream of chicken

1/2-1 cup milk

Cook on low 6-8 hours or high 3-5

Shred chicken, serve on top of rice or noodles.

Chicken Fajitas

1-3 chicken breasts

1-2 onions (sliced)

1-2 peppers (green, yellow, or red- sliced)

1 can diced tomatoes or Rotel

1 Tbsp Ground Cumin

1 Tbsp Chili Powder

salt and pepper

Throw everything in the crockpot and cook low 6-8 or high 3-5 hours

OR cut up everything and cook on a pan in the oven 425 for 25 mins.

Shred chicken (if done in crockpot) Serve on tortillas with toppings of choice 

(we prefer sour cream and avacado)

Chicken Chili

1-4 chicken breasts

1-3 cans cream of chicken

1-3 cans chili beans or Ranch Style beans

1 can green chilis (or jalapenos if you like spice)

1-2 cans chicken stock (2 cups water and chicken bouillon cubes)

1-3 cans diced tomatoes (or cut up your own tomatoes)

Cook on low 6-8 hours, high 3-4

Serve with tortilla chips, sour cream, and cheese if you like, or just eat plain

Salsa Chicken

1-3 chicken breasts

1-2 cans black beans

1-2 cups of corn (I prefer frozen)

1-3 cups salsa

Cook on low 6-8 hours, high 3-4

Serve on top of rice, tortillas, or make it soupy 

(add chicken stock or more salsa/tomato sauce)and eat like taco soup

Here are all the meals (2 of each and 2 not pictured) 

Double bag the chili or wait til cooking to add the chicken stock.  Lay flat to freeze for stacking convenience. Take meal out of freezer and place in fridge the night before so it is easy to get out of bag.  You can also defrost in microwave the morning of cooking to get it into the crock-pot.

Here are the sides and some of the extra ingredients left over:

The spices can be used LOTS of times for the fajitas and there are 4 packets in the Italian seasoning box so you have 2 more meals left.  The chicken bouillon is about 2/3 full but I recommend buying the HUGE container at Costco and using them every time you need chicken stock- saves TONS of money.  I also would suggest buying regular brown rice instead of instant to save money (this was just bought for convenience and saving time for my brother since he doesn't have a rice cooker.)   You will also have salsa left over.

WANT TO SAVE EVEN MORE MONEY?  Make your own cream of chicken!  Here is the recipe I use.  On top of that, I would also buy most of these things at COSTCO and you could probably save yourself another 20% or so.  I am guessing if you bought everything you could there you could make about 25+ meals to have in your freezer and each one should only cost you about $4 instead of $6.  Don't have a Costco membership?  Buy them on sale!  NONE of these items were on sale at Walmart when I bought them so you could easily save a LOT if you waited for sales and bought a bunch.

NOW GO GET SHOPPING! ;)