Planning Crockpot Meals

I love crockpot cooking, but the one thing I struggled with for quite some time, is that I simply wouldn’t think about it ahead of time. Around 3pm it would occur to me that a particular meal would have been perfect for crockpot cooking. Unfortunately by then it was usually to late. Over the years I’ve gotten more and more into meal planning, and at least one dish each week comes from my crockpot. But you don’t have to plan every meal ahead of time to take advantage of crockpot cooking. Here are a few of my best tips to plan your crockpot meals.

Declare A Crockpot Day

Decide on one day of the week and make it “crockpot day”. In other words you will know that on Wednesday for example you will always make a crockpot meal. Getting out the crockpot in the morning on that particular day and getting dinner started in the slowcooker will quickly become second habit and you don’t have to worry about forgetting to plan ahead anymore.

Note To Self

After you get back from the store with a particular roast or whatever else you decided you want to cook in the crockpot, write yourself a note as a reminder. The writing down part itself will help you remember (similar to how you know most of what you need to buy after you write a shopping list, even if you leave it sitting on the kitchen table – and yes, I’ve done that plenty of times). I also still stick the note on my fridge … just in case.

Postpone

If everything else fails and you forgot to put your ingredients in the crock pot, consider postponing the meal until the next day. Of course that only works if you have something else you can prepare the conventional way instead. Just take a look around your fridge and pantry and then decide.

I hope you will start to make your slowcooker one of your favorite kitchen appliances. You just can’t beat the ease of use and all the time you’re saving because you don’t have to stand around the stove stirring pots. I invite you to take a look at my newest ebook – Crockpot Cooking Made Simple. It’s full of recipes, but also plenty of tips for choosing and caring for a slowcooker and my favorite – how to convert recipes into crockpot versions.