As a person who cooked professionally for over a decade, I love a good meal that I can make at home that takes the least amount of effort. There is something to be said for making something you love into a career, and after all this time, I have spent many, many evenings just eating a bowl of cereal because I just don't want to cook that much anymore.

But these dump dinners are great because they don't make a ton of mess, they come together really quickly, and a lot of these things you can freeze and then have in the freezer for later.

1) Crockpot Salsa Verde Chicken

Salsa Verde is a great idea for this. You could also do it with enchilada sauce or a salsa Roja. There are so many different ways that you can braise a chicken breast.

You could also throw in a bunch of garlic or some thin-sliced onion. Bell pepper would be great.

I just think this is a really versatile recipe, and you could make a ton of it ahead and freeze it, and it's something that can go on top of a lot of different things.

2) Slow Cooker Chicken Alfredo

I would not add the pasta to this. If you have the chicken and the Alfredo sauce, that's great. I'm just keeping the pasta separate because if you wanna be able to keep this as leftovers, reheating it is gonna be a little bit of an issue, especially once you add pasta to a hot sauce.

It's gonna keep cooking, and it's gonna get soft and gummy if you don't eat it immediately. So if you're just making this to eat right now, that's great, but I'm always thinking about ways to make a bunch of stuff and then save some for later, and if you wanna be able to save this for later, keep those two things separate.

3) Dump-and-Bake Chicken Parmesan

I think that this recipe would be a little better if you thaw out the chicken breast first, and the chicken breast can be thawed out pretty quickly if you just put them in a container and cover it with water in the sink, because it's not really big pieces of meat. They'll thaw out pretty quickly, maybe an hour or two at the most. Because I see here that it's just to take frozen chicken and put it straight into the oven with some sauce on top, and I feel like that could probably work out; by the time it's 165 in the middle, it's gonna be a bit overcooked.

And the breadcrumbs, I think you would have a better time toasting those in the oven separately if you just have an extra sheet pan and toast those in the oven. You're gonna get a better crisp than if you just put the red drum straight on top of the chicken with all of the moisture. You'll still get a nice, you'll get an OK texture if you just put it straight on the tomato sauce, but I wouldn't call it crisp.

4) Crockpot Chicken and Stuffing

The chicken is gonna need to be thawed before you season it, because if you have a solid frozen piece of chicken, you're not gonna be able to season it directly with garlic powder and all the other things, cause it's just gonna fall off. But if you thaw the chicken, then you can season it.

5) Slow Cooker Chicken Pot Pie

Here you can use cream of mushroom or cream of broccoli, but I guess any kind of cream soup would work. So, just use your favorite. You could also put a layer of puff pastry once it's been shredded and stirred together.

You could make dumplings, which are quite easy; it's just flour, milk, and baking powder, and you drop them in while the soup is boiling, and they cook really quickly. It's a crowd favorite. I've made that plenty of times, and I do have people request it a lot.

It's basically just a chicken soup with some biscuits mixed in, dumped into it while the soup is boiling. It's very good, very filling, and really great for a cold, cold evening dinner

6) Dump-and-Bake Chicken Enchilada Casserole

You could just take the frozen chicken and the enchilada sauce, do that in a slow cooker, then shred it, and then do the layered enchilada sauce, black beans, corn, and tortillas in a baking dish.

Cover tightly with foil, bake until it gets hot, and then take off the foil to let the cheese on top melt. You can put some cilantro on there. But honestly, you can't go wrong with this.

You could do fried refried beans instead of black beans. But I would just do the shredded chicken before you build it; otherwise, you're just making a giant mess.

7) Crockpot BBQ Chicken

If you're just putting barbecue sauce and a splash of vinegar, you're gonna need a little bit of water to get this going; otherwise, it could potentially burn. But if you add the water, it will eventually cook away, so you're not just watering down your barbecue sauce. You're just giving it enough moisture so that the chicken can cook and then be shredded.

But this is another great one for making ahead and freezing it. You could also just make this ahead without the barbecue sauce, so it's like a neutral flavor that can be mixed in with sauces before you turn it into your enchiladas or whatever.

8) Slow Cooker Chicken Teriyaki

I think with this one too, you're gonna wanna add a little bit of water because teriyaki sauce can be quite strong if it is reduced. I know that frozen chicken is gonna release a little bit of water, but it really depends on what kind of frozen chicken you have because some of it will release a lot of water and some of it, if it's something you bought from the farmers market, probably won't.

So I would just add a little bit of water, and then you can cook it back down so it is not watery, just enough to get the chicken going and to not turn your crockpot into a sticky, burnt mess. But you can stir in a cornstarch slurry if you want, or if you have time, you can just cook it back down to the consistency that you want.

9) Dump-and-Bake Chicken Broccoli Rice Casserole

This one here looks good. You could also do this with cauliflower; that would be quite nice, or a mixture of cauliflower and broccoli. Some fresh herbs or some dried herbs would deepen the flavor.

10) Crockpot Chicken Taco Soup

You could do a diced tomato in here, a diced fresh tomato if you want, but since you're cooking it in a slow cooker, it would be totally acceptable to just use a can of fire-roasted tomatoes or just a can of sweet tomatoes. Because otherwise you're just dicing up a bunch of tomatoes, and it's not exactly adding a ton of extra stuff because you're cooking it down.

I think also this would benefit from a squeeze of lime. A squeeze of lime directly into the soup after you take it off the heat would also be good, and you probably are gonna need a little sprinkle of brown sugar to bring out these flavors.

11) Slow Cooker Chicken Marsala

You can thicken the sauce if it's not cooked down enough with the cornstarch slurry. Also, this would be great with some nice bread on the side for soaking up the gravy.

12) Dump-and-Bake Chicken Fajita Casserole

You could make it a casserole if you took those ingredients and put them in a dish, then shredded them with some tortillas, cheese, and beans, kind of like an enchilada casserole.

13) Crockpot Lemon Garlic Chicken

The lemon and the garlic will be great. I would finish it off with a little bit more lemon because the flavor is gonna change as it cooks. You can also add some lemon zest at the end.

14) Slow Cooker Chicken and Dumplings

Yes, this is chicken and dumplings. I've never made it with the refrigerated biscuit dough, but I imagine that would be great. You can also put the whole thing in the oven so that the tops of the dumplings can get a little bit of browning, which is also nice.

15) Dump-and-Bake Buffalo Chicken Casserole

This one says to add buffalo sauce and ranch seasoning into the baking dish. I would go with just the buffalo sauce and avoid putting the buffalo sauce and the ranch seasoning together.

I would say that if you already have cooked rice, you don't need to make this a casserole per se. You can cook the frozen chicken breast in the buffalo sauce and then just serve it over the rice, because otherwise you're gonna end up with overcooked rice.

16) Crockpot Chicken Cacciatore

Here, I would say you're totally fine to just put in a can of stewed tomatoes, because otherwise you're just icing tomatoes to cook them into oblivion anyway.

If you do want to add diced tomatoes, I would add them toward the end. Use the stewed tomatoes like a can of stewed tomatoes, and then add the diced fresh tomatoes at the end so they're not just cooking away. And you can add dried or fresh rosemary or oregano to that.

17) Slow Cooker Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta

Here, again, I would keep the chicken and the pasta separate unless you're planning on eating all of it that night, but having some cooked pasta around that you keep in the fridge is a really good way to just have a starch that you can use later. And I like to just toss mine with a little bit of olive oil, and then I usually put it in a Ziploc bag, or you can put it in a Tupperware container.

18) Dump-and-Bake Chicken Florentine

I suppose it doesn't really matter what kind of cream soup you use, but cream of chicken or cream of mushroom would be good.

Keep reading

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