Easy Weeknight Crockpot Dinners

5 Easy Weeknight Crockpot Dinners for your Family

What’s for dinner, mom? Try these ideas for Quick & Easy Crockpot Dinners for a family.

Some weeks I get a plan together based on the groceries we bought on sale and some weeks I send my friend a picture of my menu board with one night filled out #nailingit.

Parenting is hard enough. When you add in jobs, traveling, extracurricular activities, ministry, caring for sick loved ones, whatever the case may be, coming up with a dinner plan the night of usually just results in cereal. Our kids love “pick your own dinner nights.” We do usually plan that once a week.

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We are starting our second week of remote learning. Getting into our groove. We are remote learning 3rd grade (Special Ed), 5th grade, and 8th grade. Life looks much different than it did at the beginning of this year for so many of us.

School may have changed, jobs may have changed, church may have changed. So much change. Those changes can be unsettling.

My guess is that if you clicked on this post you are in the middle of some changes (like us) and are looking for some simplicity in your life when it comes to providing your family with a simple, nutritious, meal after a long day.  

I have come up with 5 simple meals that we enjoy, that only take a few ingredients, and are naturally gluten and dairy free. You can make changes as you desire to meet your family’s needs.

Pulled Pork

We all enjoy pork. In the past it hasn’t always agreed with my stomach but lately it seems to be something we can all eat. We enjoy getting a big pork roast and cooking it in the crockpot on low all day.  

We keep it simple:

-pork roast
-kosher salt
-pepper
-brown sugar
-little bit of chili powder, paprika, and garlic
-fresh basil, oregano, and chives (or whatever you have on hand)

Put just enough water to cover the bottom of the crockpot and let that roast cook on low all day. Before you eat, pull it apart, and let the juice soak in.

We serve ours on buns, tortilla chips, and some of us eat it plain on the plate with our favorite dipping sauce!

Beef/Chicken And Broccoli

I love Chinese food! So much. It just doesn’t always love me. Any chance I get to add some ginger and coconut aminos to a meat and veggie recipe, I almost always take it.

I love to make stir fry meals in my big skillet but sometimes it’s nice to get it in the crockpot first thing in the morning and not have to worry about it the rest of the day.

-sliced beef or chicken
-sliced red onion
-ginger (I recently tried a ginger paste from Aldi )
-coconut aminos or soy sauce 
-a couple bags of broccoli
-1/4 cup of water
-a couple Tablespoons of flour (we use arrowroot powder)
-salt and pepper
-garlic

The great thing about this recipe is that you can easily adapt it for your family. Are you soy free? Go for the coconut aminos. Do you prefer less meat and more veggies? Do 2 chicken breasts and 3 bags of broccoli. Use as much ginger and garlic as you like. The arrowroot powder helps to thicken the sauce but can be changed out for whatever you normally use to thicken sauces and gravy. 

This meal is also delicious on rice!

Chicken Tacos/Nachos

This meal is so simple and versatile. When we make this in the crockpot we use the same recipe for a couple different meals. We enjoy it on shells for chicken tacos and we have put it on tortilla chips to build our own nacho plate. 

-3 or 4 chicken breasts
-can of diced tomatoes and chilis (drained)
-a cup of corn (we just toss in frozen corn)
-cumin
-garlic
-salt and pepper

We cook it on low all day long with a little bit of water in the bottom of the crockpot. Shortly before eating we shred it and serve it with a slotted spoon. 

Toppings such as sour cream, cheese, salsa, onion, avocado, and ranch dressing are usually our choices on shells or on tortilla chips.

Whole Chicken, Potatoes, Carrots

I love to cook whole chickens. Which is funny because we have 12 pet chickens. We love to cook our (store bought) chicken with lots of veggies in the crockpot and pull out that complete meal at the end of the day. It’s all there. 

We get whatever chicken is on sale. The boys enjoy yellow potatoes and we usually add onion, carrots, and celery. This meal is great because it usually provides another day of lunches for us, too or we use any leftover chicken to make chicken salad for another meal.

-whole chicken (cleaned out)
-drizzled with olive oil
-yellow potatoes
-carrots
-sliced onion
-celery
-salt and pepper
-garlic
-any fresh or dry herbs (we like oregano/sage/basil/chives)
-I usually like to put more olive oil over the entire meal along with a little bit of coconut vinegar or apple cider vinegar.

With this, I like to start out the meal on “high” in the crockpot for a couple hours if I am home and then turn it back down to low for the majority of the day.

Balsamic Apricot Chicken

I remember eating this meal growing up. I loved the smell and taste of the balsamic vinegar and apricot jelly on the chicken. It gave it a tangy flavor and didn’t dry out the meat. 

Super. Easy.

-Chicken breasts
-balsamic vinegar (drizzled on top)
-apricot jelly (a spoonful on each piece)

We cook this meal on low throughout the day. This is so good and it takes about 1 minute to prepare. Just add some fruit and veggies when you serve and you are good to go. We usually get what is on sale or what we can use from our garden. 

Quick & Easy Crockpot Dinners

My hope is that these Quick & Easy Crockpot Dinners will help lighten the load for you as you do life with the ones you love!

What other simple meals do you have for us? We would love to hear them! Please share in the comments!

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Quick & Easy Crockpot Dinners

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