Freezer Meal Dump Recipes

Not only is this southern style ground beef casserole an all-in-one dish, it’s also a freezer meal so this is about as easy as dinner gets! It includes ground beef and vegetables and if you want, you can top it with cheese.I love a good all-in-one casserole. As a busy mom, it’s so nice for supper to be as easy as possible. One dish means less dishes! And I’m all about making clean-up as fast as possible.

Southern Style Ground Beef Casserole Recipe:

• 1 lb. browned ground beef
• 1/2 cup onion, chopped
• 3/4 cup green pepper, chopped
• 15 oz. can kernel corn, drained
• 14 oz. can tomato sauce
• 1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce*
• 1 tsp. chili powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• optional: shredded cheese (cheddar or tex mex)

*Use gluten free Worcestershire sauce if you want to make this gluten free.

Assembly Instructions:

1. Brown ground beef. Cool slightly and then add to a large resealable freezer bag.
2. Add the chopped onion, diced green pepper, corn, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and seasonings.
3. Remove excess air, seal, and freeze.
4. If you want to serve with cheese, place shredded cheese in a medium freezer bag, seal, and staple above the seal to the larger bag.

Stovetop Cooking Instructions:

1. Thaw.
2. Heat in pan until desired temperature is reached.cook on low in crock pot for 3-5 hours.
3. If you want, you can top with shredded cheese before serving.

Crock Pot Cooking Instructions:

1. Thaw.
2. Cook on low in Crock Pot for 3-5 hours.
3. If desired, top with cheese before serving.

If you want, you can set out salsa, hot sauce, Thai Sweet Chili sauce, or ketchup. Some of us like to eat this plain while others (ahem…my kids!) like to slather it in the sauce of their choosing.

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Southern Style Ground Beef Casserole

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: American

Keyword: casserole

Ingredients

• 1 lb. ground beef browned
• 1/2 cup onion chopped
• 3/4 cup green pepper chopped
• 15 oz. can kernel corn drained
• 14 oz. can tomato sauce
• 1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp. chili powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper
• optional: shredded cheese cheddar or tex mex

Instructions

Assembly Instructions:

1. Brown ground beef. Cool slightly and then add to a large resealable freezer bag.
2. Add the chopped onion, diced green pepper, corn, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and seasonings.
3. Remove excess air, seal, and freeze.
4. If you want to serve with cheese, place shredded cheese in a medium freezer bag, seal, and staple above the seal to the larger bag.

Stovetop Cooking Instructions:

1. Thaw.
2. Heat in pan until desired temperature is reached.cook on low in crock pot for 3-5 hours.
3. If you want, you can top with shredded cheese before serving.

Crock Pot Cooking Instructions:

1. Thaw.
2. Cook on low in Crock Pot for 3-5 hours.
3. If desired, top with cheese before serving.

Check out some of our other make ahead casseroles:

Chicken Cordon Bleu Slow Cooker Casserole

Stuffed Pepper Casserole

Beefy Rice Casserole

You won’t believe how easy this crock pot Chicken Cacciatore is! It has only 5 ingredients but it tastes so fresh and delicious. You can make it ahead as a freezer meal. Combining a freezer meal with the crock pot is a match made in heaven. Save time and money. Win-win!

Our family likes Italian flavours. I often make a different version of chicken cacciatore when I’m making my freezer meals, but that one is a bit more involved. It requires cubing the chicken and has more ingredients. When I’m in a hurry or wanting to make as many meals as possible as quickly as possible, I opt for this easy crock pot chicken cacciatore recipe instead.

Chicken Cacciatore is traditionally served over pasta, but it can also be served over rice or polenta if you prefer or if you are on a keto or low carb diet.

Why is it called Chicken Cacciatore?

I have to admit that it is a unique name for a dish. The word “cacciatore” means hunter in Italian and apparently, it was hunters who first made this. It was likely made not with chicken in those early years, but with rabbit or other wild game they caught. This was back in the Renaissance so other meat would have been more commonly available.

Chicken cacciatore is sometimes mixed up with chicken parmesan. The easiest way to be able to tell the difference is that cheese is involved where chicken parmesan is referenced, whereas with cacciatore, there is no cheese.

Easy Crock Pot Chicken Cacciatore Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 3-5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 24 oz. jar spaghetti sauce
• 1 zucchini, coarsely chopped
• 3/4 cup onion, chopped
• 1 Tbsp. Italian seasoning

Assembly instructions:

1. Place the chicken breasts in a large, resealable freezer bag.
2. Dump the other ingredients in the bag.
3. Remove excess air from the bag and seal. Freeze flat.

Cooking instructions:

1. Thaw.
2. Dump bag contents into the slow cooker.
3. Cook on low for 4-6 hours. Ensure that chicken is cooked through before serving.
4. Serve over your choice of pasta noodles. We usually use penne or rotini, but a long noodle is fine too.

You can throw this together so quickly that you might as well make more than one at a time. Just prop the bags open by folding the top over and setting them open on the counter. Line the bags up and then add the chicken to each one before dumping in the rest of the ingredients. This chicken dump recipe couldn’t be easier!

There is a lot of versatility with this recipe because you can use your choice of pasta sauce, swap out the chicken breasts for chicken thighs, and serve it on your favourite type of pasta.

This is such a family friendly dish. Between being able to make it ahead and just pull it out of the freezer and the fact that it cooks in the crock pot, it’s truly a stress free dinner. When we’re in a rush, we just keep this in the slow cooker and have the kids load a bit of pasta on their plate and then scoop the cacciatore right from the crock pot. You can can use whatever variety of pasta sauce you prefer. Experiment and see which you like best. We usually just go for a simple basil, but it’s also good with a pasta sauce with mushrooms or the spicy or chunky vegetables. Give a few of them a try and let me know which you liked best.

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Easy Crock Pot Chicken Cacciatore

Prep Time

5 mins

 

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Italian

Keyword: chicken, chicken cacciatore

Ingredients

• 3-5 chicken breasts boneless, skinless
• 24 oz. jar spaghetti sauce
• 1 zucchini coarsely chopped
• 3/4 cup onion chopped
• 1 Tbsp. Italian seasoning

Instructions

Assembly instructions:

1. Place the chicken breasts in a large, resealable freezer bag.
2. Dump the other ingredients in the bag.
3. Remove excess air from the bag and seal. Freeze flat.

Cooking instructions:

1. Thaw.
2. Dump bag contents into the slow cooker.

3. Cook on low for 4-6 hours. Ensure that chicken is cooked through before serving.

4. Serve over your choice of pasta noodles.

You might also like these easy freezer meals:

Homemade Hamburger Helper

Chicken and Broccoli Alfredo Bake

Easy Chicken Marsala

This hearty taco chili combines the flavours of Mexican-American food with classic chili. It’s an easy dump recipe that can go from the freezer to the Crock Pot. This is a very non-traditional chili however, in that it does not have any beans in it.

So if you are not a fan of beans, but love the flavours of chili, this is the one for you!The nice warm feeling from a bowl of chili is such a nice lunch or dinner to curl up with in winter or fall.

This is already a budget friendly meal, but there are ways that you can make this even more affordable. If you want to stretch this recipe further, you can use the taco chili as a topping on baked potatoes, stuffed inside green and red peppers, or add a tetrapak of beef broth to turn it into taco chili soup.

Taco Chili Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. ground beef, browned
• 1 onion, chopped
• 15 oz. can kernel corn, drained
• 8 oz. can tomato sauce
• 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
• 4 oz. can green chilies
• 1 Tbsp. chili powder
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
• 1/4 tsp. paprika
• 1 tsp. cumin
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper

Assembly instructions:

1. Prep by browning the ground beef until it is no longer pink and chopping the onion.
2. Place the cooked beef, chopped onion, and all other ingredients in a large resealable freezer bag. Remove the excess air, seal, and freeze.

Slow cooker instructions:

1. Thaw.
2. Cook in the Crock Pot on low for 3-5 hours.
3. Optional: Top with shredded cheese, tortilla chips, chopped green onions, cilantro, and/or sliced avocado.

Stovetop instructions:

1. Thaw.
2. Heat on the stovetop on medium-low heat until heated through, stirring occasionally.
3. Optional: Top with shredded cheese, tortilla chips, chopped green onions, cilantro, and/or sliced avocado.

Check out some other tasty make ahead chili recipes:

Thick and Chunky Hearty Chili

Instant Pot White Chicken Chili

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Taco Chili Freezer Meal Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 lb. ground beef browned
• 1 onion chopped
• 15 oz. can kernel corn drained
• 8 oz. can tomato sauce
• 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
• 4 oz. can green chilies
• 1 Tbsp. chili powder
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• 1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
• 1/4 tsp. paprika
• 1 tsp. cumin
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper

Instructions

Assembly instructions:

1. Prep by browning the ground beef until it is no longer pink and chopping the onion.
2. Place the cooked beef, chopped onion, and all other ingredients in a large resealable freezer bag. Remove the excess air, seal, and freeze.

Slow cooker instructions:

1. Thaw.
2. Cook in the Crock Pot on low for 3-5 hours.
3. Optional: Top with shredded cheese, tortilla chips, chopped green onions, cilantro, and/or sliced avocado.

Stovetop instructions:

1. Thaw.
2. Heat on the stovetop on medium-low heat until heated through, stirring occasionally.
3. Optional: Top with shredded cheese, tortilla chips, chopped green onions, cilantro, and/or sliced avocado.