In a shameless plea for help, I wanted to ask you for your most favorite crock pot dishes. I’m in the process of revising my 6 week meal rotation and I need to up the ante with crockpot dishes and bean dishes. My problem: the last 10 or so recipes we’ve tried have all failed miserably. I need your tried-and-true favorites…
And since I don’t like to ask without giving something myself, I’m sharing one of our favorites! Living here in the southwest, Mexican food is a staple in our home. Once a week I’m either making re-fried beans, black beans with rice {+ avocado and cilantro heaped up top}, Machaca {Wow! that I posted almost 6 years ago.} or Chipotle Pulled Pork.
I serve our Chipotle Pulled Pork over a bed of brown rice or quinoa. We either wrap it up in burritos with a bit of cheese, diced fresh spinach and Mexican Flag Salad {Recipe below too. See how generous I am today. I’m desperate friends!}
Chipotle Pulled Pork Recipe
- 1 (3 pound) boneless pork loin roast, cut into 2 inch pieces (I adjust the rest of the ingredients if the roast is larger.)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 (4 ounce) cans diced green chile peppers
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- Diced Chipotle Chile Peppers in adobo sauce. I split a 7 oz can into three portions and freeze the other two for future pulled pork dishes!
- 3 1/4 cups water, divided
- 1 1/2 cups uncooked long grain brown rice or quinoa (my husband prefers rice)
- 1/4 cup lime or lemon juice
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
- Place the roast in a slow cooker, and season with salt. Place green chile peppers and garlic on top of roast. Pour in the chipotle peppers and sauce and 1/2 cup water.
- Cover, and cook 7 hours on Low. (Increase time if a larger roast. approx 8-9 hours for a 4-5 lb roast)
- In a pot, bring remaining 2 3/4 cups water and rice to a boil. Mix in the lime juice and cilantro. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 20 minutes.
- Open lid. Remove fat. It should easily pull apart from the meat with a fork. Use two forks to shred. Return pork to the slow cooker, and allow to sit 15 minutes to absorb some of the liquid. Serve over the cooked rice.
Notes:
If you live in the southwest, you should have no problem finding chipotle peppers in your grocery store. If you are hankering for a taste of the southwest in another part of the country, you can order online! This one that I link to is gluten-free!
As a variation, I’ve also served the meat over a bed of lettuce, topped with Mexican Flag Salad!
The beauty of this dish is that it provides lots of LEFTOVERS!!! It can be used in the next couple of days or easily frozen for another dinner at a later date!
MEXICAN FLAG SALAD
My sister made this once and I’ve adjusted it and now serve it every time we have Mexican food. It is a great way to up the veggie intake!
I don’t have exact measurements, but here is the gist of this super easy salad!
- 1 tomato, diced
- 1/2-1 red pepper, diced
- 1 avocado, diced
- 1/4-1/2 c chopped cilantro leaves
- 1-3 green onions (or a sweet white onion if you want to keep with the Mexican flag colors)
- 1-2 tbs olive oil
- 1-1.5 Tbs lime or lemon juice
- salt and pepper to taste
I add these all together in a bowl and gently toss.
Since you said one of your favorites is Chipotle Pulled Pork I’m going to assume your kids will eat spicy food. Mine love this one, we have 2-3 a month and they request it even more. It’s not too spicy because of the added ranch dressing.
Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Wraps
2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts
½ tsp salt
¾ cup buffalo wing sauce
¾ cup ranch dressing
8 flour tortillas
3 cups shredded lettuce
1. In 1 ½ quart slow cooker, place chicken; sprinkle with salt.
2. Cover; cook on low 6-7 hours.
3. With slotted spoon, remove chicken from slow cooker and place on cutting board; discard liquid in slow cooker, mix buffalo wing sauce and ¼ cup of the ranch dressing. With 2 forks, shred chicken. Return chicken to slow cooker; stir gently to mix with sauce.
4. To serve, spread each tortilla with 1 tablespoon remaining ranch dressing; top each with about ½ cup chicken mixture and about 1/3 cup lettuce. Roll up tortilla; secure with toothpicks.
Buffalo Wing Sauce
1 cup Frank’s Red Hot Sauce
1 cup butter/melted
2 tbsp vinegar (optional)
For Garlic Wings, add 3 teaspoon of garlic powder
Oh Angela, this looks so very yummy. We’ll definitely give this one a try!
Love the idea of planning crock pot dinners! We’re getting ready for our first year of homeschooling and we’re definitely incorporating this into our meal planning!
I know it’s incredibly simple but we love pulled bbq chicken sandwiches or burritos. I put 4 or 5 frozen chicken breasts (from Costco) in the crock pot with about 1/2 a jar of bbq sauce and cook on high for the first hour and about 4 or 5 hours more until it shreds easily. We add more bbq sauce at the end if it needs it and serve it with tortillas and cheese or on a whole wheat bun.
Love this. I tend to make things too complicated. My hubby loves BBQ. I’ll be searching for a sauce that will work for my daughter too with all of her food sensitivities and give this a whirl.
Simple is exactly what I need! Thanks so much!
Heather, this dish is wonderful! All 5 of my boys LOVED it, and you know how difficult it can be to have everyone like something! 🙂 It’s definitely a keeper!
Oh Tara, I’m so glad they liked it. It’s been a sure-fire boy pleaser over here. Thanks for the update!
We really enjoy chicken and dumplings in the crockpot. I do not measure when I cook…I just make up stuff as I go. 🙂
In a nutshell:
-3 boneless, skinless organic chicken breast (can be frozen)
-approximately 1 carton (maybe even half) of Pacific Foods Organic Chicken Broth (use only this brand–it has the best flavor unless you make homemade)
– carrots and celery (add as much as you’d like) chopped up or diced
-sea salt and fresh ground pepper per your liking
Cook for about 4 hours on high
For my dumplings, I make mine from a scratch biscuit dough recipe. I use my food processor to “cut in” the butter.
-2 Cups of all purpose unbleached flour (I like King Arthur)
– 1/4 tsp baking soda
– 1 TB of baking aluminum-free baking powder
– 1 tsp sea salt
– 6 TB of very cold, unsalted butter (I love Kerrygold)
-3/4 C of either raw milk or rice milk (can use buttermilk)
In a food processor or a stand mixer, place in all dry ingredients and mix. Cut in butter. Lastly, add in milk. Mix until a ball forms.
You will simply break off balls of dough and place on top of chicken in crockpot. Make sure that you don’t have too much liquid in crockpot, or the dumplings will not cook properly! Cook through for about 20 minutes or until dumplings have a cooked through appearance.
Email me if you have questions! This is a really yummy recipe!
I’m cooking dinner for a few friends tomorrow night. I might include these dishes in the menu. Thanks for sharing your recipes!
I’m making my menu for next week right now so I added this! It looks great!
Our favorite crock pot dish is Italian Cream Cheese Chicken from Heavenly Homemakers. http://heavenlyhomemakers.com/healthy-crock-pot-recipe-italian-cream-cheese-chicken
Also, are you familiar with Stacy makes cents? Her book Crock On is awesome! I’ve made lots of her recipes and there were only a couple that we didn’t care for.
I’ve found with the crockpot that some things combine really well and some need to be cooked separately and added later. For example, with beef stew, I put everything in except the potatoes, do those separately in another crockpot and combine at the end. Beans can be done in a very small crockpot in a few hours (or 5-6 depending on the beans and crockpot) then added to soups/stews/chili in another crockpot later. Yes, I have three crockpots! And some days I have them all on at once. The things I use the crockpot for the most are chili (veggie or meat–I can send you the recipes I use if you want), vegetable soup (I often cook this in the crockpot, then puree the whole thing when it’s done, then add cooked barley and chickpeas, and the kids gobble it up without knowing they are eating vegetables), chicken soup (add cooked chicken at the end), BBQ chicken or taco chicken (frozen chicken breasts can cook in the crockpot on low in just a few hours in BBQ sauce–very easy! Or frozen chicken breast plus a jar of salsa or taco sauce, cook for a few hours then shred when done, add black beans and you have a great filling for burritos.) I even do baked potatoes and they are wonderful! Here are good instructions, although my two big crockpots cook them at very different speeds, one takes just 3-4 hours and one takes about 7: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/01/crockpot-baked-potatoes_28.html
If you want more specific recipes for any of these, please let me know!
This isn’t a crockpot recipe, but it’s one of our favorites. After you cook the lentils, use them in burritos or tacos, or anywhere else you would use beans or meat in a mexican dish. The only difference is that I personally don’t prefer them with cheese (which worked out great when I found out I was allergic to dairy anyway!).
Lentil Taco Filling
1 cup chopped onion
1 garlic clove
1 cup dry lentils
1 Tbls Chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp oregano
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
Saute onion and garlic till tender in a splash of oil. Add lentils and spices; cook and stir 1 minute. Add broth, and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer 25-30 minutes or until lentils are tender. Add more water as necessary. Mash lentils slightly if desired. Serve!
six weeks is a very looong rotation! good work.
we love chile verde in the crock pot…similar recipe: pork roast with quartered tomatillos and a bit of water, onion, garlic, cumin, and peppers if you want heat.
i’ve started to cook beans in the crock pot this summer to avoid heating up the kitchen. wonderful with a touch of bacon fat added at the end!
also, you mentioned machaca…we use beef from a roast cooked in the crock pot earlier in the week.
i’m looking through Make It Fast, Cook It Slow in preparation for the fall.
Six weeks is a long time, but I found we have some recipes that I like to repeat every 3 weeks or so and others that we need to space out further than once a month. The 6 weeks worked really well until I fell of the bandwagon. Life is too busy for me right now to get hung up spending time on meal planning though and yet healthy, frugal eating is very important to me…
I’m excited to try these, Heather! Especially the salad!!! I don’t make a lot of crockpot recipes. I know I should, but I just don’t. Your 6 week rotation is intriguing. Have you blogged about it before? I plan a weeks worth of meals and stretch the food to two weeks. The second week is usually a fun challenge to see if I can come up with ideas with the food that I have! How often do you shop?