I use my crockpot all the time. Cabbage rolls, chicken thighs covered in a mix of mushroom soup, bit of sour cream and onion soup mix. Makes a nice gravy. Vegetarian Chili but that might fall under stew which you don't like. Pork roast shredded to make all kinds of tacos, sandwiches. Italian sausage chunks with mixed peppers and onions. I brown them first, slice them and throw everything in the crockpot. Lasagna using zucchini sliced lengthwise.

Broccoli beef, chicken or steak fajitas

My husband and I have the same problems during the week - working long hours and not much time/energy to cook elaborate meals. The other issue I had when looking for crockpot meals was that most of them cook in 6-8 hours which can leave the food dried out or mushy if you're out of the home 10-12 hours.

One of the easiest things for me was getting a crockpot with a timer (it will switch to warm for 4 hours once it's cooked and yes it will still cook somewhat, but not as much). Other than that I mostly cook the meat in the crockpot - a lot of pork loin and chicken. It's easy to make the meat for tacos or a pork loin with any seasoning. My favorite is putting chicken or a pork loin in pot with some seasoning and I use a salad dressing to keep it moist (usually Italian or sun-dried tomato).

Once you have the meat cooked it's easy to grab some frozen veggies and throw them in the microwave. If you have fresh veggies you can buy a microwavable vegetable steamer and that only takes minutes as well. We also have a salad with every meal as well.

Hope this gives you some ideas!

My favorite crock pot meal is super easy and cheap only 2-3 ingredients.

Steak or chicken with mushroom gravy.

Pour one can of Amy's Mushroom Bisque Soup in bottom of crock pot. (Can use Campbell's cream of mushroom).

Place cheap cuts of steak (London broil is perfect), or a few pieces of boneless chicken, on top of soup. Can add rings of onion slices.

Pour another can or two of Amy's Mushroom Bisque Soup on top, salt and pepper, let cook for 8 hours on low.

Place a serving of steak or chicken in bowl, scoop a little of the mushroom gravy on top, salt and pepper.

Sometimes, after cooked, I separate meat and gravy and thicken gravy by whisking in a little flour.

https://www.yummyhealthyeasy.com/easy-crock-pot-cream-cheese-chicken/

Absolute Favorite! Easy Crock Pot Cream Cheese Chicken Chilli

I swap out frozen corn for canned, organic and no salt black beans for regular canned beans and Rotel Tomatoes (and some generics) have low salt/no salt tomatoes. I always use Neufatchel Cheese instead of regular cream cheese. Add 1 teaspoon Nutmeg to a double recipe. Seriously - NOT a diet -- Diet Food. Freezes well.

Lynzdee18 wrote: »

I’m not trying to upset this thread, but I find my Instant Pot is more efficient at saving me cooking prep time. My husband complained that the slow cooker made everything taste stewed.

My favourite is to take a clump of frozen stew beef or chicken breast or thighs , or a small frozen beef roast and turn it into tender servable meat in under 30 minutes from the freezer by just adding broth and or water and seasonings to the pot with the frozen meat on a trivet. Sometimes I just shred the meat. Other times, I add liquids, beans, veg etc and make chilies and stews. I can serve meals in unde an hour.

You can take any "slow cooker recipe" and use it in the instant pot. I've done it many times and it turns out great. The only real difference is it gets done way faster.

This is the best - I eat it for lunch all week - this batch makes 7 two-cup servings at 300 calories each:

4 pounds of drained canned cut green beans (64 oz)
16 slices of bacon
2 sweet potatoes
1 cup diced onion
3 cups chicken stock

Put the green beans in the crock pot. Cut the bacon into bite-size squares and fry until crisp. Put the bacon into the crock pot. Add the diced onion to the bacon pan and cook the onion until soft. Pour the onion AND the bacon grease into the crock pot. Add the sweet potatoes. Add the chicken stock and stir until well blended. Cook on LOW for 6 hours. Delicious! I add a tablespoon of butter when I heat it up for lunch, but 2T of sour cream is nice too.