Welcome back to Freezer To Crockpot Cooking - Chicken Week! You had a few days to get everything on the freezer cooking shopping list, so now it is time to assemble everything and get it in the freezer!
See all of the other weeks in this series:
Don't forget: the shopping list for this week was designed to make 4 meals. If you doubled or tripled the shopping list to make even more meals (or larger meals), you will need to adjust these instructions for the increased quantity of food that you are making
Step 1 - Prep your ingredients:
- Dice 1 cup of celery
- Slice 1 cup of carrots into coins
- Slice all 3 peppers into strips
- Slice 1 onion into strips
- Dice 1 onion
- Cube half of the chicken
Step 2: Write out the instructions - You will then want to write cooking directions on your bag prior to filling them - don’t try writing on a lumpy bag. At the bottom of the bag I write additional ingredients, such as fresh items that cannot be frozen or if I need to add some additional frozen veggies. By doing this, a quick check of my stock of crockpot meals will let me know if a trip to the store is in order.
The directions to write on your bag are as follows for each recipe.
Chicken Pot Pie
- Spray crockpot with non-stick cooking spray
- Dump entire bag into crockpot
- Cook on low 3-4 hours
- Remove chicken from crockpot, shred with forks
- Put chicken back into crockpot along with frozen peas (if desired)
- Add ½ cup of milk and cook an additional 30 minutes or until heated through
- Bake canned biscuits according to package directions, slice in half and top individual bowls of pot pie.
Additional Ingredients: 1/2 cup milk (or heavy cream), canned biscuits, small bag of frozen peas (if desired)
Chicken Fajitas
- Spray crockpot with non-stick cooking spray
- Dump entire bag into crockpot
- Cook on low for 4-5 hours
- Remove chicken from crockpot, shred with forks
- Place chicken back into crockpot
- Cook additional 20 minutes and serve.
Additional Ingredients: tortillas, sour cream, lettuce, cheese, or whatever fresh toppings you like
Chicken Broccoli Rice Casserole
- Spray crockpot with non-stick cooking spray
- Pour contents of bag 1 and bag 2 into crockpot
- Cook on low for 4-6 hours
- Add bag #3 (broccoli) in last hour of cooking
- Serve with a salad
Additional Ingredients: Salad
Chicken Alfredo
- Spray crockpot with non-stick cooking spray
- Pour contents of bag 1 into crockpot
- Cook on low for 4 hours
- Add contents of bag #2
- Cook an additional 30 minutes
- Serve over cooked fettuccine pasta with a salad on the side
Additional Ingredients: 1 Box Fettuccini Noodles, salad
Step 3 - Fill Your Bags - The next step is to assemble your ingredients into bags, ending with chicken on the top of each one. When you pour ingredients into the crockpot, meats should always be on the bottom for best cooking results.
You will need 4 gallon freezer bags, and 3 quart freezer bags. Here is what goes into each bag:
Pot Pie
- Half of the cubed chicken breasts
- 1 cup diced onion
- 1 cup carrot coins
- 1 cup celery
- 1-2 cups any of the following; peas, carrots, corn, green beans (or if you will be using frozen veggies for these, you can just add them in the last 30-40 minutes of cooking)
- 1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
- 1 can full of chicken broth
- 1 ½ tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. pepper
Chicken Fajitas
- 3-4 chicken breasts
- 3 bell peppers cut into strips
- ½ cup chicken broth
- 1 onion, cut into strips
- 1 Tbsp. Lemon Juice
- 1 ½ tsp. cumin
- 1 tsp. chili powder
- ½ tsp. salt
Chicken Broccoli Rice Casserole
Bag #1- gallon bag
- 3-4 chicken breasts
- 1 can condensed cream of broccoli soup
- 1 can of chicken broth (fill the can from the condensed soup with the chicken broth from the box you bought in the shopping list)
- 1 ½ cups shredded cheese
- 1 tsp. salt
- ½ tsp. pepper
Bag #2-quart freezer bag
- 1 ½ cups uncooked rice
Bag #3-quart freezer bag
- 2 cups frozen broccoli florets
Chicken Alfredo
Bag #1-gallon Freezer Bag
- half of the cubed chicken breasts
- 1 can chicken broth
- 1 tsp. dried oregano
- 1 tsp. dried rosemary
Bag #2- quart freezer bag
- 1-10 oz. cans condensed cream of chicken soup
- 1 8 oz. block of cream cheese
- ½ cup grated parmesan cheese
And that's it! You now have 4 meals, ready to go from freezer to crockpot. You can even make it easier on yourself by freezing the tortillas along with the fajita bag.
I would love to hear from you to see how your prep day went!
Need more slow cooker recipes that are great for freezer cooking? See all of the other weeks in this series:
This may be a stupid question but do you have to let the bags thaw before putting them in the crock pot? Or are you putting everything in there frozen? Also, I know normal cooking times are typically 4 hrs on high, and double the time on low, just want to make sure it's really 3-4 or 4-5 hrs on low, not high (for the pot pie and fajita recipes respectively). Thanks!
Hi Tanya!
Defrosting them is not necessary this week, but will be for some recipes in the upcoming weeks (and defrosting them will be part of the instructions that you write on the bag).
As for cook times, it is going to depend on the size & power of your crockpot. Remember - these bags, as I am giving them to you, only contain about 4 chicken breasts each and for 2 of the recipes, the chicken is cubed. If you put the contents of those bags in to a 6 qt. crockpot (which is what most people seem to buy, in my experience), they will easily be done in 4 hours on low. If you are using a smaller 4 qt. crockpot, it might take an extra hour. Additionally, if you are making the bags in larger portions (i.e. to serve 6 instead of 4), you will need to increase your cook time a little bit
one meal that I make often is 4-5 chicken breasts (frozen solid) + 1 bottle of italian dressing, then shred the chicken and serve over rice. When I do those in my 6 qt, they are cooked and tender enough to shred in about 4 hours. When I do it in my 4 qt, it usually takes about 5-5.5 hours.
Hope this helps!
Most crockpot directions say to use thawed foods as frozen may cause crock to crack.
I'm a few days late to the party but so excited that I found this link. My MIL will be having surgery next month and she approved each of these recipes to serve her & her Momma while she is recuperating. I now have 5 meals prepped & ready to go. Thank you so much!!
Hi,
Shopped and prepared everything last night. Worked out okay, except that the list has an extra can condensed soup--think we only use three--and none of the recipes listed garlic and was unsure where to put it. Proof is in the pudding--will test them out next week!
Forgot to add that you don't really mean to take out the cubed chicken in the pot pies and shred, do you?
I am new to this freezer to crockpot cooking. I just put a Teriyaki Chicken recipe together and the chicken was put in the bag raw. Just found your site and was wondering if the chicken in the chicken fajitas is put in the bag raw?
yep - all the chicken goes in to the bag/freezer raw!
Hi, I am wondering if you would be able to give me permission to use some of you recipes at a church activity I am doing this coming week? I would love to share some of your recipes because I think they are great. If you could email me that would be awesome! [email protected]
This may be a stupid question, but are all bags put in the freezer... In the case where there are 2 or 3 bags. Wasn't sure about freezing the cream soup and cream cheese. Thanks!
Cream Cheese and Cream Soup can easily be frozen, as long as you don't plan to eat them "pure". Actually - cream soup is usually fine. Cream Cheese on the other hand, tends to get "grainy" when you freeze it. This makes it just fine for cooking/melting in recipes - not so good for spreading on a bagel!
Oh - and for the "bags" question - when there are multiple bags for each recipe, just label each bag "#1 of #3" (or whatever applies) and keep all the bags close to each other. That way, when you pull out 1 bag, it will prompt you to look for the other bags!