Welcome back to the final week of Freezer to Crockpot cooking - Soups Week! The beauty of these soups is that you can customize to your taste. If you don’t like a vegetable, leave it out and put more of something else in. Adjust the seasonings to your liking! Don't forget to serve these with my homemade beer bread as well as a nice salad on the side!
Over the last 8 weeks, you have had the chance to fill your freezer with meals that are ready to go in to your slow cooker! These are perfect for those days when you know that you are going to be running around with the kids, shuttling them to practices, Scouts, religious school or just don't feel like thinking about what to make for dinner that night!
You have had a few days to get everything on the shopping list for the week, so now it is time to put everything together!
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 – Just a few steps of prep work for these soups:
- Peel and chop 3 carrots into coins
- Dice 4 stalks of celery
- Chop stew meat into smaller bite sized pieces. Trim any excess fat
- Chop chicken in to bite-size pieces
- Dice onion
- Dice bell pepper
- Brown ground beef, drain
- Brown ground pork, drain
Step 2 – Get Your Bags Ready! - You will need a sharpie, 4 gallon freezer safe bags, and 3 quart size freezer bags. We will write cooking instructions on bag before filling and they are as follows:
Beef Vegetable Soup
- Pour contents of bag into crockpot
- Cook on low for 6 hours
- Add contents of bag #2 and #3
- Cook an additional hour
Chicken Noodle Soup
- Pour Contents of bag into crockpot
- Cook on low 5-6 hours
- Add contents of bag #2
- Cook an additional hour
Black Bean Taco Soup
- Pour contents of bag into crockpot
- Cook on low 2-3 hours
Brunswick Stew
- Pour contents of bag into crockpot
- Cook on low 8-10 hours
Step 3 – Fill Your Bags! - Ok now you know the drill.. let’s fill those bags for the freezer, but feel free to keep one out and toss it into your crockpot for dinner.
** note- you do not need to freeze the noodles or bags of frozen vegetables separately. The only reason I do so is to assure that they are set aside for that particular recipe. I would hate to have to run to the grocery store the day I throw a slow cooker meal in because I was missing something simple.**
Beef Vegetable Soup
Bag #1 - Gallon Size
- 1 pound stew meat
- 2 cups beef broth
- 2 cups water
- 14 oz. tomato sauce
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 tsp. salt
- ½ tsp. pepper
Bag #2
- Bag of frozen mixed vegetables
Bag #3
- 1 ½ cups ditalini noodles
Chicken Noodle Soup
Bag 1 - Gallon size
- 3 large chicken breasts
- all chopped carrots
- ½ of chopped celery
- 2 cups water
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- ⅓ of chopped onions
- 1 tsp. salt
- ½ tsp. pepper
Bag #2
- Egg Noodles
Black Bean Taco Soup
- 1 can black beans (rinsed and drained)
- 1 bag frozen corn
- ⅔ lb. ground beef
- 1 8 oz. can Rotel diced tomatoes, mild
- 1 28 oz. can stewed tomatoes
- ⅓ of chopped onions
- ½ of chopped bell pepper
- ½ tsp.cumin
- ¾ tsp. chili powder
- 1 tsp. salt
- ½ tsp. pepper
Brunswick Stew
- ⅓ lb. ground beef
- ⅓ lb. ground pork
- 2 large chicken breasts, chopped
- ⅓ of chopped onions
- ½ chopped bell pepper
- ½ of chopped celery
- 1 can of cream corn
- 18 oz. bottle of barbeque sauce
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 2 cups water
- 2 Tsp. sugar
And that is it! You now have 4 hearty soups, ready to go in the freezer and just pull out and dump in the crockpot whenever you are ready! Don't forget to serve these with my homemade beer bread as well as a nice salad on the side!
Thanks for following me along with this Freezer to Crockpot cooking series! I hope it gave you some new ideas for homemade meals with as few processed ingredients as possible. I would love to hear how you liked these recipes!
Need more slow cooker recipes that are great for freezer cooking? See all of the other weeks in this series:
Kim
Thank you for this series. I haven't made any yet because it's been a rough summer dealing with other things, but I did arrange it all into a 37 page file that I intend to print and put in a little binder or something. You did excellent work, thank you so much!
Jessica
Hi,
I made all of these yesterday and had a few questions:
How much water/liquid do you add to the Taco Soup to make it a soup? Is the beef vegetable soup 14 ounces of tomato paste or sauce? The shopping list for this week calls for 28 ounces of stewed tomatoes...what recipe do these go in? Sorry, I am not much of a cook and was unsure on these items.
Thanks!
Mindi Cherry
HI Jessica! Thanks for catching those! Here are the corrections that I made to the post:
The stewed tomatoes go in the Black Bean Taco soup. The liquid from the tomatoes (both Stewed and Ro-tel) as well as the moisture in the frozen corn are what creates the "soupy part"
For the beef vegetable, it should have read tomato sauce, not paste