Slow Cooker Cheat Sheet | 117

We are in the thick of slow cooker season! For most of you it’s smack dab in the middle of winter with colder temps and a desire for easy set it and forget it comfort foods. In this episode, I walk you through my slow cooker cheat sheet and talk about how I developed and tested these things to make these recipes even easier. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi everybody. I'm Kelsey Nixon and this is Kitchen Prescription,
the podcast you listen to when you don't know what
to make for dinner. Today's episode one hundred and seventeen
Slow Cooker cheat Sheet. I am fresh off a warm
weather vacation to Hawaii, smack dab in the middle of winter,
and if I'm being honest, I don't have much to
complain about since I live in southern California, but I

(00:26):
know so many of you are dealing with snow and
super low temps right now, and I'm sorry. We spent
the last week in Maui with my parents, siblings and
all of their kids, and we had the time of
our lives. It really was such a blast, with the
highlights being perfect weather. I am talking like seventy six

(00:47):
in sunny, no rain, like it just was perfect. But
the other huge highlight was whale watching. And I have
never been to Hawaii during whale season, but my goodness,
the only word I can think of for it was
like it was spectacular. We did like an official whale
watching tour that just exceeded all of our expectations. We're

(01:08):
on this big boat and it had like the nets
that you sat on and we got to see like
not just one whale, like we're talking pods of whales,
five six whales swimming together, you know, doing their blowhole
thing and coming in and out of the water. It
just was incredible. It was so amazing. I can't wait.

(01:31):
It feels like this bucket list thing, but I can't
wait to do it again. It was. It was really cool.
And not only was the whale watching tour itself really neat.
The thing that I think blew my mind the most
is even just being on the beach. If you were
on the beach looking out into the ocean, it does
not take more than a few minutes to see whales spouting,

(01:53):
whales breaching, like they are everywhere, even to the extent
that as we were driving to the airport on our
last day, you know, my husband's driving, my kids are
in the car casually looking out the window, and we
saw the most epic will breach out of the water,
as if it was a moment from Free Willie. And
it's like here we are just driving on the road

(02:16):
and witnessing the these whales. So if you don't have
that on your bucket list, I highly recommend it. It was
really really cool with all that whale talk. We have
officially re entered into reality and we're making the most
of it. Kids are back at school, my husband Robbie,
and I are back at work. And one of the

(02:36):
craziest things is we attempted to start our re entry
was on our flight back home. I found myself being like, Okay,
I know there's no food in the house because we
were gone for a whole week, and so I logged
into Recipe Club to take a look at the weekly
meal plan. This was Saturday, and I literally ordered my
groceries using her one click grocery shopping from over at

(02:59):
the pace fake ocean. I was like mid flight Hawaii
to La, ordering my groceries to be delivered to my
house within minutes after I got home. I'm like, helln sane?
Is that that? That feels like the Jetsons. I cannot
believe that we live in a world where you can
order your groceries from the sky in the middle of

(03:22):
an ocean and you can make a plan for what
you're gonna feed your family that week, just like total
pintry moment. Anyways, we're back home. I'm leaning on some
slow cooker recipes to make things easy this week, and
using my slow cooker cheat sheet to use up some
shredded chicken I made an advance for easy dinners and
we're gonna chat more about this slow cooker cheat sheet today,
but first let's get into a few recipe ideas you

(03:44):
could throw on your meal plan for this upcoming week. First,
it's the second most popular recipe and Recipe Club and
I don't know a few more months it might just
be the most popular. But you know, I should call
this Greatest Hits Week. It's funny as I planned this,
I'm like looking at this list and these are very
popular recipes for making this speak So number two Indian

(04:05):
buttered chicken. That is more and more of you are
making it and love it so much. It really does
just include a handful of ingredients, but it tastes like
it's been simmering all day and it is so delicious,
so full of flavor, such a hit with kids, great
served over rice, like it's got the protein in there.
It's just a really great recipe. So if you're in

(04:27):
Recipee Club and you haven't made it, you must make it.
If you're not in recipe Club, use that code try
me for a dollar to spend first month poking around,
And if you're gonna make anything, make this Indian butter chicken.
And another recipe on my list for this week is
my baked CD. If it feels like I've been making
it often, I maybe have. The honest truth is my

(04:49):
family just loves it. And whenever I am not in
the mood to make decisions and I say what do
you guys want for dinner this week, they still always
say baked CD. So in the winter month especially, we
probably have it at least once a month, maybe sometimes
twice a month. So Indian buttered chickens on our list
for this week. Famous Big Zd's on this list for

(05:10):
the week, and also my slow cooker white chicken chili,
which is like embarrassingly easy. You basically just throw everything
into the slow cooker and let it do its thing,
or if that's how you want to approach it, set
it and forget it great. Or you can also throw
it into an instant pot and we have directions for
that where it happens quicker. But I probably prefer this

(05:31):
low coal conversion just a little bit, as it allows
you to develop more of those flavors all right. There
are three recipe ideas for the week. You can find
and print them all in Recipe Club individually or in
our weekly meal plan that has an easy to follow
shopping list that's broken down by recipe. You guys all know.
The Recipe Club is a resource that I created that
allows you to access family tested, quick and simple recipes

(05:54):
on the Internet without being bombarded with banner ads, long
blog posts, or drawn out stories. Not to be really frustrating,
as I was looking for recipes every week, so I
have very intentionally created a space where I try and
make that process easier. So if you're interested in checking
it out, and like I said, if you are going
to check it out, I highly recommend starting with the

(06:15):
baked ZD in the Indian butter Chicken. You can use
the code try me at checkout for our monthly membership
and try the first month for just a dollar and
see if you like it. Print out the recipes that
look exciting to you. If it doesn't seem like the
system's a good fit for you, no big deal, I'll cancel.
But my guess is you are going to love it.
You're going to love the community, You're going to love

(06:37):
the simple dinner system it provides and stick around. All right,
let's jump into the back half of the podcast and
discuss how my slow cooker cheat sheet is saving me
in my kitchen. Right now, we are in the thick
of slow cooker season, if that's even an official season,

(06:58):
it is in my house. For most of you, it's
smacked ub in the middle of winter with colder temps
and that desire for easy, set it and forget it
comfort foods. And I get a lot of requests for
slow cooker recipes and Recipe Club one thing we do
every month is we ask our members what types of
recipes they're wanting, and always during those fall and winter months,

(07:19):
we get so many requests form more slow cooker recipes,
so many that I decided to really dedicate an entire
month in February to adding more slow cooker recipes new
recipes to our library. So with the launch of these
new recipes this past month, I also wanted to put
together a cheat sheet that I had found myself longing for.

(07:42):
I love a cheat sheet. We have probably ten fifteen
different cheat sheets in Recipe Club, just quick, one page
reference guides that make your life easier in the kitchen.
But what I really wanted for this one is not
only did I want a quick reference guide for converting
slow cooker to instant pop recipes, but I also wanted
a one pager that included how I could batch cook

(08:03):
a few shredded proteins that I could easily incorporate into
weeknight dinners or meals lunch as well. Coming off January,
where my focus had been to be more protein aware,
I'm not necessarily counting my protein my grandm's of protein
every day, but I am trying to get more protein
in myself and my family. I'm just always looking for

(08:24):
any chance that I can toss in a handful of
shredded chicken, pork, or beef to dinner so that we
can kind of amp up that protein. And so this
for me, felt like the easiest way to do that.
So I set out to work on this magical cheat
sheet that I had wanted, and I wanted it to
include one side with my favorite batch proteins that could

(08:45):
be made in advanced and like I said, use throughout
the week for lunches or dinners, and then I wanted
the other side to contain a simple conversion chart. So
that you could easily convert any slow cooker recipe to
instant pot and vice versa. So I want to walk
you through the cheat sheet a little and talk about
how I developed and tested these things and most importantly,

(09:07):
the easy lunches and dinners that these bulk proteins can
turn into. So as it goes with a lot of
the recipes and resources in Recipe Club, I am likely
like a lot of you. I am an overwhelmed mom,
overwhelmed with lots of really wonderful things, but overwhelmed regardless.

(09:28):
I'm a working mom. I've got multiple kids. I've got
a daughter who I guess she's inching out of toddler.
I mean she's four. I've got a four year old,
I've got an eight year old. I've got a twelve
year old. So we've got a little bit of toddler,
a little bit of preteen. We've got everyone in different stages,
going a ton of different directions. And as we all know,
protein has been this big buzzword for the past couple

(09:49):
of years, and it really is so great. It's so
great to contribute to a more balanced diet in our homes.
It fills our kids up, it fills us up, It
helped with building muscle, it just it in any Honestly,
it helps me move away from just feeding my kids
straight carbs. But it's hard. I have found it to

(10:11):
be very hard to get protein in that is not
like the same form of protein over and over again.
So that's why I wanted this batch protein sheet because
I for a long time I would get a rotisserie
chicken every week in my grocery order, and to be honest,
most weeks I still do that because it's actually just

(10:31):
so cheap. For five bucks if you're a costco shopper,
I get between three and four cups of shredded chicken
that is a delicious, and I can just use it
in all sorts of different things. But I've also started
buying chicken in bulk a bit more chicken breasts, and
so if that's the case, I wanted a stellar recipe

(10:54):
that I could either toss in the instant pot or
the slow cooker, take two to three pounds of boneless,
skin less chicken breasts or thighs, give it a bunch
of seasonings, and then have it on hand to turn
it into quick meals. So I knew that I wanted
to focus on three proteins that my family would eat
most often. Chicken definitely the most but you can only
have so much chicken before it gets a little boring.

(11:16):
But like one cup of shredded protein has thirty five
grams of protein, or one cup of shredded chicken has
thirty five grams of protein. That is so much. That
is so much that should not be that hard to do.
Shredded pork is the other one. We do a lot
of that for tacos and Mexican food and stuff like that,
and then shredded beef. So I went through and it

(11:38):
was really important to me that I tested these in
both my slow cooker and my instant pot, because I
think people feel passionately about one or the other. What's
interesting is if I'm making a full recipe, I probably
prefer the slow cooker, but if I'm doing something like this,
I prefer my instant pot. So we've got you covered
on the cheat sheet for both options. So I use

(12:01):
really I don't want to use theor generic because that's
going to make it not sound flavoraful, but really accessible
spices in all of these recipes. For example, the shredded
chicken has some garlic, salt, paprika, onion powder, a little broth.
The shredded pork has lemon pepper, garlic powder, onion powder,
and the shredded beef has a little bit of chili powder.

(12:24):
So just a teeny bit of heat, some garlic powder,
and then a little bit of worcestersure sauce. That's kind
of the secret ingredient in shredded beef. That just makes
it taste like a bit more beefy, like it has
a little bit more depth of flavor. But I tested
those going back and forth because I didn't want anything
to have too much influence, like I didn't want to
put cumin in any of these, or coriander, because I

(12:47):
didn't want the whole thing to be you have to
be used for one type of cuisine. So the shredded
chicken could be used in Italian recipes, it could be
used in Mexican recipes. It could be used just to
top a basic salad for lune. Same thing with the
pork and the beef. So with this on the sheet,
you're going to see the three shredded chicken, pork, and beef,

(13:10):
and then underneath it you're going to see four recipes
for each of those that you could easily incorporate these
shredded proteins in from recipe Club. So, for example, the
shredded chicken, this would be great if you're going to
make the apple cheddar green bowls, a really popular salad
and Recipee Club so delicious, and this would be perfect

(13:31):
for that. If you're wanting something heardier, more comfort food,
like the broccoli cheddar bake is perfect for this shredded chicken.
The chicken and orzo soup is a great soup option,
or maybe you are wanting something that's super kid friendly,
the baked chicken tiketos. I did this last week with
this exact recipe, huge hit. I doubled the recipe. I

(13:52):
froze half of them because it is my son's absolute
favorite after school snack is to come home and take
one of those baked chicken tiktos and toss it in
the micro So those are some examples of what we're
suggesting for this shredded chicken. For the shredded pork, we
have a shredded pork peta recipe in Recipee Club. It's
got a really delicious yogurt sauce that just takes those

(14:12):
over the top so good barbecue pork sandwiches, taking that
shredded pork, tossing it with your favorite barbecue sauce, putting
it on some sliders, our carnate as pork bowls, which
is essentially like a burrito bowl, and then the Bondi
pork sandwiches, which uses some more adventurous spices, But what
you're really doing is doing that through some pickled veggies

(14:35):
and a sauce, and then you're putting it on a
delicious roll and really making a super flavorful dinner with
like the huge, you know, cheater step of having your
pork already done. Then for the beef, we've got shredded
beef tacos where if you've got it in you to
make those pickled onions and a fresh batch of guac
will be so delicious. Philly cheese steaks we're gonna sat

(14:58):
tee off some peppers and onions and add some melted
cheese on top of that, are skillet beef enchiladas and
our standard beef pot roast, where you're going to make
a very simple gravy that's gonna be starved over mashed
potatoes with peas and rolls Super Delicious. So you'll find
at the bottom of the sheet these directions for slow cooker.

(15:20):
Combine all the listed ingredients and you're slow cooker. Cook
on low, chicken for six hours, beef and pork for
eight hours. Shred and toss with juices. When you are
storing any of these shredded proteins, I do recommend that
you store them with the juices. So you're going to
want to transfer them, let them fully cool so that
you're all good on storing it in a way that's

(15:41):
going to be healthy, but keep the juices in there.
It'll help maintain some of that moisteness. Instant pot it's
a little bit different, right, you're going to combine all
of the ingredients in the instant pot, you're going to cover,
you set that valve to ceiling. You're going to pressure
cook on high for the time suggested on the backside
of the cheat sheet. So he went through and made
sure for chicken, beef, pork, we have those generic suggested

(16:06):
cooking times. It's usually in fact, let's get into it.
For chicken, it's so short, it's usually six six minutes,
ten minutes. If you want to be safe, but six
minutes of active cooking and then a ten minute release
natural release before doing a quick release. Beef is a
little bit longer. Beef is twenty minutes per pounds, So

(16:28):
if you're doing thirty excuse me, if you're doing three pounds,
which a lot of like the standard roast you buy
at the grocery store are, that'll cook for about an hour,
but that's way shorter than the eight hours it would
take in the slow cooker. Pork is it doesn't take
that long. It's really only gonna take about forty five minutes.
So we've got all of those references on the back side,

(16:52):
but same thing you're gonna want to toss with the
juices and store with the juices to really keep that
meets super super tender. On the backside, you're also going
to see, like for everything in chicken, we have it
broken down to breast thighs, a whole chicken. We've got fish,
we've got soup, vegetarian dishes, all of these different things
that you can see. If something typically takes two hours

(17:15):
in a slow cooker like rice, it's only going to
take you eight to fifteen minutes in the instant pot.
Or if you are going to do meat balls in
a slow cooker that might take you four to six hours,
it's only going to take ten to fifteen minutes in
the instant pot. And it's funny. As my husband was
helping me design this, he was like, well, why would
never be just cook everything in the instant pot. But

(17:37):
it kind of depends on your lifestyle. Like, if you're
a working parent, you may want something you can put
in the slow cooker and just work away all day
for eight hours and have done by the time you
get home. If that's not the way you want to work,
and it's four o'clock and you're like, shoot, I got
to put something together for dinner, the instant pot's your
best friend. So the one thing to keep in mind

(18:00):
if you're not an instant pot user is there are
some unknowns with the time, meaning you got to wait
for it to come to pressure, and you don't know
exactly how long that's gonna take. It's usually a couple
of minutes. And you're also gonna have to wait for
it to naturally release some of that pressure. And so
even though it says on our cheet sheets six minutes
for chicken breast in the instant pot, you're gonna have

(18:22):
some time before and after. It's still gonna be way
shorter than the slow cooker. But that's just something to
keep in mind. So if you are feeling like this
would be helpful to you, I want you to have it.
I want you to have it. Whether it's getting the
shredded proteins that you can keep on hand, I will
if i'm I usually do one of these a week,
the chicken, pork or beef, and then I just incorporate it. Honestly,

(18:45):
I'm using it most often for lunches for myself and
for my kids. Like if I'm making a quesadilla for
my kids, I throw some of that shredded chicken there
no one even knows, and I've just added thirty five
grands of protein to help them stay full, to prevent
them from snacking on crap for the rest of the day.
I want you to have this. So it's in recipe Club.
If you join recipeak Club with that trimey code for

(19:06):
the monthly membership, you not only get access to all
of our recipes and our weekly meal plans, you get
access to all of the cheat sheets an awesome area
called my kitchen where I have gone through every cabinet, drawer,
everything in my kitchen to show you the tools that
I use that incare life easier. We have holiday menus
in there. There's a lot in there, So it's definitely

(19:27):
worth the one dollar to just give it a go
for one week. All right, Slow cooker cheat sheet that
was my baby last month. I spent so much time
on it and I'm hoping that it's going to be
a great resource to a lot of you. All Right,
let's finish with the weekly gimme five. As you know,
these are five things that made my life easier or
more enjoyable this week. And we're going to just continue
this conversation with the shredded proteins because I did this

(19:52):
where I went and invested in a few more storage containers.
I'm laughing about because I feel like I talk about
how obsessed I am with my particular type of storage container.
You guys know that I feel like anyone over the
age of thirty deserves to have matching storage containers. The mismatched,

(20:14):
you know, can never find the lid to this bottom.
You're better than that. You deserve better than that. So
pick one brand for me, it is rubber Maid Brilliance,
where they will all stack, the lids will all be cohesive,
and it just looks nice and it's organized. Rubber Maid
Brilliance initially came out with a really hard BPA free plastic,

(20:35):
and that is what most of my storage containers have been.
A year or two after they initially launched, they launched
with glass, but they only had glass containers in a
few different sizes. Recently, they launched their eight cup glass
storage container, and that is exactly the size I need
for one of these shredded protein recipes. So, just like

(20:57):
everyone's trying to do their best and clean up their
kits a little bit, I am trying to use less
like plastic storage baggies, and so I thought, since I'm
doing this often i'm making a big batch of shredded protein,
I want some storage containers that are literally reserved just
for this. What's great about the glass ones is if

(21:18):
I am gonna use everything that's in there, I can
just pop it in the oven, I can pop it
in the microwave easily. And I would like to eventually
swap out most of my storage containers to this glass variety.
It's just a bit cleaner, and that's something I'm trying
to do this year. So that's on my list. Glad
I finally bought those. It's like twelve bucks per container,

(21:41):
but I think it's worth it. I mean, you literally
could bacon them if you wanted to. I wouldn't, but
they're really really great and durable. Okay, Next, I, as
you guys know, I was in Hawaii and about eighteen
months ago, I stopped drinking diet coke daily from my house. Now,
I did not go cold turkey. I am not. I

(22:03):
will still get diet coke when I go out to
a restaurant and I enjoy it, but I am not
having it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner like I was.
But when I'm on vacation, all bets are off. And
so in Hawaii, I went hard on the diet coke
and it felt great. I just I mean, it's hilarious
to think it's not like I'm, you know, going on

(22:25):
an alcohol binge like I had diet coke. But it
was so good. But I am coming back and realizing
that those cravings for diet coke are tacking up wards,
and so I needed to arm myself with all this
stuff I drink at home. That makes it so I
don't crave diet coke. And I'm a big fan of
Better Days, Better Greens. I use those. Those do have

(22:45):
some caffeine, and then you can buy them with caffeine
or without caffeine. But I do have one of those
in the morning to kind of help jump start my day.
I use one of their hormone products, Better Hormones and
the delicious Pineapple Coconut Flavor. And then when I'm not
doing that, I have one of those a day, one
Better Greens and one Better Hormones, and then other than that,

(23:07):
I just can't do straight water. I know it's embarrassing.
I should be able to, but when I'm not doing that,
I am adding a little true lemon strawberry lemonade packet
into my water. And what it is is it's crystallized
lemon and strawberry and it is so good. It's actually

(23:28):
something that I was given at a Favorite Things party.
It is not too sweet, it does not taste like
fake sugar. It does not have any sugar in it.
It is just like adding a fresh squeeze of lemon
into your water. And as if you have folded in
some fresh strawberries. I love it. I love it. In fact,
I look forward to getting back to it because I

(23:48):
didn't bring any with me to Hawaii. So that's on
my list. We have some guests coming this week, my
mother's coming, which is so exciting, and one of the
things we needed for a long time is to refresh
our guest towels. I'm actually embarrassed, like they're scratchy. I
mean they're only a couple years old, but they have
been they have been used, and so I have had

(24:12):
these Turkish cotton towels in my Amazon cart for literally
months because I've had a couple of people suggest them.
They've got like forty thousand reviews, they're not that expensive,
and I finally just ordered them because I have guests coming.
Number four on my list is my favorite pens. I
am obsessed with the Muji zero point three eight pen.

(24:34):
I've used it for a couple of years now. I
love it so much that I'm actually a person now
who uses a pen until it dies. I love it.
I love them in black, my husband likes them in blue.
And it was time to reorder. And who knew that
I would feel so passionately about a very specific pen,
but they're the best, and I think there's kind of
like a cult following out there. You mentioned that you're

(24:55):
a Muji pen lover, and people are like, ah, yes,
I know what you're talking about. And then finally, finally, finally,
I feel like you guys know, I've had a couple
of vacations planned, which is not like me. Usually I
am such a homebody and prefer to stay home. But
nothing says I just turned forty, like buying a swimsuit

(25:17):
that has built in shapewear. I know, but I kept
getting ads for this brand called Stylist st y l
e st and it literally was created by moms like me,
over mommed moms, working moms who've got kids who want
to be comfortable at the pool. But I like one
of their ads literally said sucking and sucks. I was like, ooh,

(25:39):
I resonate with that. And so there are these great
classic bathing suits one pieces, two pieces, and I just
have a little bit of shape. We're built in, and
my sister had bought one spoort in Hawaii, and they're expensive.
It's more of an investment, but I genuinely believe it's
a suit I'm going to have for the next ten years.
And I came home. I was like, forget about it,

(26:01):
I'm buying it. I'm buying it. I also bought because
it's a pretty classic shape. I bought it in red
because I love the color red. And I thought, Okay,
it's a classic shape. I'm gonna buy it in a
fun color. But it is on its way to me,
and I'm really excited. I it's one of those purchases
I've thought about for like the past six months and
just hesitated because it's an investment. But I did it.

(26:22):
I bought myself a swimsuit with some shapewear, and I
am a middle aged woman and I feel great about it.
All right, that's it for today. You guys, make sure
you subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss
an episode. As you know, this podcast is meant to
be a quick twenty to thirty minute listen while you
map out your own meals for the week. I always
like listening to a podcast when I personally meal plan.

(26:43):
It's been part of my own system for as long
as I can remember, so I really try and put
out a good fit for that. Thank you so much
for listening today. I'm so glad you're here. Until next time,
happy cooking. I'm Kelsey and I look forward to chatting
with you all next do base. The stasisting still listen