12-Can Slow Cooker Taco Soup

Recently I needed several soup cans for a project and what better way to get those cans than to make this tasty soup?! I know there are a million versions of this recipe, but now there are a million and one because I am going to share mine with you! This recipe is really great because it is easy, you can customize it to fit your tastes, and it is delicious. In fact, my husband told me that this is his favorite dinner that I make! My kids love it too! So, there you go- husband and kid approved!

12-Can Slow Cooker Taco Soup

Ingredients

2 cans pinto beans

2 cans black beans

2 cans kidney beans

2 cans navy beans

2 cans corn

2 cans diced tomatoes

2 packets taco seasoning

2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts

*optional* your favorite taco toppings- avocados, sour cream, cheese, green onions, olives, etc.

tortilla chips

Directions

Put chicken breasts in the bottom of a slow cooker. Pour all canned ingredients over chicken breasts (including liquid from the cans). Sprinkle taco seasoning on top. Give everything a good stir to incorporate the taco seasoning. Cook on high about 4 hours or on low about 6 hours or until chicken is cooked through. Once chicken is cooked, remove and shred and then return to slow cooker. Stir the shredded chicken into the soup. Serve with your favorite taco toppings and tortilla chips.

*note* this recipe should be made in a 6 quart slow cooker or larger. If you are using a smaller slow cooker, cut the recipe in half and adjust cooking time as needed.

And there you have it! It's that easy! And if you don't like one of the ingredients, leave it out or substitute something else! You can substitute ground beef for the chicken or leave it out for a vegetarian option! You can also substitute your favorite salsa for the diced tomatoes. This is such a yummy soup! It's great for busy school nights and perfect on those chilly fall evenings!

Have you made a version of this 12-Can Slow Cooker Taco Soup? What's in your recipe?

Pantry Meals: Dinnertime Lifesavers Part 2

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I love my freezer meals. (You can read more about them here.) Now I want to tell you about something equally as amazing- pantry meals. Pantry meals are just like freezer meals in that they are prepared ahead of time, but instead of keeping them in your freezer you keep them in your pantry. Our family loves them. When I made my last batch of freezer meals I also made almost 40 pantry meals to have on hand for quick and easy dinners. Many of the pantry meals I made are homemade versions of Hamburger Helper. My kids love them because they are things they like such as Cheeseburger Helper or Lasagna Helper and I love them because they are easy and convenient like Hamburger Helper, but they don't have any of the preservatives that you find in the real Hamburger Helper from the store.

The pantry meals are so easy to put together. Many of my recipes had "seasoning packets" that I combined into a small zip-top bag and then a grain that I measured out into a larger bag. I just put the small bag in the big bag with the grain and store it in the pantry. It's that easy. Many of the meals also call for fresh or canned ingredients that I already keep on hand in our pantry or fridge and add on the day I cook the meal. Other pantry meals are even easier to put together like the Lentil and Barley Stew (pictured above, recipe below). For these you can just combine all the ingredients into a single zip-top bag and store them in the pantry- so simple!

The Hamburger Helper-like pantry meals are a little bit more time consuming to cook than our freezer meals (maybe 30 minutes from start to finish), but you can also find recipes like the Lentil and Barley Stew where you dump everything in the slow cooker and you are done! 

If you are a little hesitant about trying freezer meals, pantry meals are a good place to start in the world of make-ahead meals. The ingredients are cheap and many of them you probably already have on hand! They are also really, really simple to put together- even more so than freezer meals.

Here are the recipes we have tried. My family has seriously loved them all:

Cheeseburger Macaroni Helper and Taco Helper

Chili Mac, Lasagna, Potato Stroganoff, and Cheese Jambalaya

And in case you can't read it off the picture, here is the recipe for Lentil and Barley Stew (recipe adapted from momsneedtoknow.com):

Dry Ingredients (add to large zip-top bag):

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

1/2 tsp. cumin

1/2 tsp. oregano

1/2 tsp. parsley flakes

3/4 cup uncooked barley

3/4 cup uncooked lentils

Fresh Ingredients (add on day of cooking)

2 cups vegetable broth

1 cup water

3 cloves crushed garlic

Instructions:

Spray slow cooker with non-stick cooking spray.

Pour contents of bag into slow cooker.

Add water, broth, and garlic.

Cook on low for 8-10 hours.

Have you ever tried pantry meals? How about freezer meals? Do you consider them dinnertime lifesavers as well?

Freezer Meals: Dinnertime "Lifesavers"

For our Relief Society Activity a couple of weeks ago, I was asked to give a short presentation on how I do freezer meals. Everything I have learned has been through searching Pinterest and the Internet, so I am in no way an expert, but I will share what I have learned.

{a snapshot of some of our freezer meals and my squashed bread}

How I Got Started:

After my fourth baby was born, my in-laws came to stay with us for a week and my mother-in-law made a bunch of freezer meals for us. After they left, I was really trying to ration out the meals so that they would last us for a long time. One particularly busy and tiresome week, I ended up using many of the meals several days in a row. They really made life so much easier and I wanted to be able to use them every night. I had read on Pinterest about people making 30 or 40 meals in one day, freezing them, and using them over a long period of time. I thought if they could do it, so could I!

What I Did:

The first thing I did was search for recipes that I thought would work well for our family and that I thought would be easy to prepare. Basically what I looked for was "dump" slow cooker meals that would hold up well in the freezer. I wanted to be able to just dump all the ingredients into a bag, freeze it, and then dump the bag into the slow cooker when the time came. I didn't want to do any additional prep if I didn't have to. I found several recipes on Pinterest and by Googling them. I have done this two times and both times I came up with 14-15 recipes I wanted to double so that I would have 28-30 meals ready for a month or more. 

Next, I took all my recipes and made a grocery list. I wrote down the ingredients and then just added a tally each time an ingredient was called for.

Next, was shopping. It ends up being a pretty large list so I like to go to the store on days/times it won't be busy so that people don't get in my way. :)

Next, I put all the recipes into a Word document, shrunk them down, and printed them out. I taped a recipe on each bag by completely covering it with clear packing tape so it didn't get wet. Many people just have a list of recipes that they refer to, but I thought it was easier to have a recipe taped directly to the bag so I didn't get confused or forget anything. Also, the recipe is handy so on the day you cook the meal the instructions are right there.

Next, I started filling the bags. I started by chopping all the veggies. After they were chopped, I added things to the bags in this order: veggies, canned foods, seasonings, meat. Then I zipped them up and froze them.

The chopping and filling process usually takes me 4-5 hours for 28-30 meals, but I am kind of a slow poke and often get distracted by my kids, etc. so I think if you are really focused it would probably take less time. 

Why I Do It:

So the number one reason I have done this and will continue to do freezer meals is that it makes dinner so, so easy. I love it! I just did a batch of meals on Saturday and I can't even tell you how nice it was not to have to worry about dinner for Monday night. I didn't even realize the amount of stress I would usually put into trying to come up with something for dinner, not to mention then having to prepare it- ugh. It felt so good to know what we were having and then to take literally one minute to dump it in the slow cooker and dinner was done!

Another reason is that it saves money. When I am checking out at the grocery store it seems like a lot of money, but when you break it down it is very affordable AND you don't have to go to the grocery store for  a while! Planning ahead saves so much money because you aren't making impulse purchases and you aren't getting take out because you have nothing in the house to make dinner.

Finally, it is healthier. I really try to find recipes with lots of veggies and lean meats and of course anything would probably be healthier than take out and fast food. 

Conclusion:

So there you have it! I love, love, love freezer meals! I can't even describe how happy it makes me not to have to worry about what's for dinner and how really, really happy it makes me to only spend a minute on it each day. I would strongly encourage anyone who is busy with children, a job, school, etc. to take some time one Saturday to make a bunch of freezer meals that will last you for a long time.

Recipes:

Here are several recipes that we have tried and really liked:

Buffalo Chicken

Cilantro Lime Chicken

Green Chile Pork Stew (we ate it as tacos)

Island Chicken

Beef / Chicken Fajitas

Wild Rice and Chicken

Potato Soup

Layered Enchilada Casserole (this isn't a "dump" recipe, but it was still really easy and tasty!)

Bean Stew, Meat Stew, Chicken Tortilla Soup

And you know I love handouts! Here is what I gave the Relief Society sisters after my presentation- a little baggie (to represent a freezer meal bag) with a tag that said, "Freezer Meals: Dinnertime 'Lifesavers' - Dinner's in the {Freezer} Bag!" Of course I included some real LifeSavers and a couple of our favorite freezer meal recipes.

Freezer meals really are "lifesavers"!

FYI the cute recipe card templates can be found here. You just choose a template, type in your recipe, and print them off!

Update: If you like freezer meals, check out my new post on pantry meals here!