Dump dinners use raw ingredients and seasonings in freezer bags, ready to thaw or freeze straight into the slow cooker. I like to do this in winter and have a whole freezer drawer with pre-cooked veg ready for making winter soups: things like carrot, celery, and onion, all chopped and cooked in one go. If you freeze these flat in bags, it's amazing what you can fit into your freezer.

My slow cooker tends to sit in the cupboard until winter. That's when I use it the most for making soups and stews. Having ingredients like these already prepared in the freezer that you can just dump into the slow cooker is such a time-saver and great for weeknight cooking.

ONE LIST

Five simple dinners. One grocery list.

No recipe hunting, no messy shopping notes, no complicated chef projects. Just family dinners that fit real weeks.

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The Strategy: Why We Break the Month into Bite-Sized Pieces

Breaking up the monthly meal prep into daily bite-sized tasks is so much easier than one long session. I like to think of it as a balance of managing my energy levels and also taking joy from the cooking process.

It also helps to reduce decision fatigue when you spread the tasks out. I like to plan up to 3 days ahead maximum. I have figured that out over the years. It's important to incorporate flexibility, as family life can be unpredictable, and your plans can always change at the last minute.

Step 1: Planning Overlapping Ingredients

A great strategy for making dump dinners using the slow cooker is to base your recipes around the same proteins and ingredients. This helps to make your shopping easier, reduce wastage, and also save you some money and time. This is why I love the slow cooker so much, as it does most of the work for you.

Bulk buying your ingredients also works if you plan ahead. When I'm trying to stretch an ingredient or stretch my budget, I always tend to opt for rotisserie chicken. I shred it, then I freeze it, and you can add it to just about anything.

Another ingredient I always have in the cupboard is canned beans. They go into a lot of my preplanned meals. I also like to make sure I always have things like onions and garlic so that I can always make something.

Crock-Pot 6 Quart Programmable Slow Cooker

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Step 2: The Assembly Line Method for Dump Dinners

Using an assembly-line style strategy for making your dump dinners is a great way to efficiently batch prep. You can chop the ingredients separately, then line up your bags and add the components in stages, rather than trying to make one recipe from start to finish. It is much more efficient this way, and you end up with a cleaner workspace with less mess.

Your kitchen will feel much calmer and not as overwhelming when you do it this way. I'm a big believer in mise en place, and once you learn to incorporate that into your cooking, it becomes far less stressful.

Ziploc Gallon Freezer Bags, 66 Count

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Paced Prep Schedule

Pacing your prep schedule over 4 days is great for breaking up the amount of cooking you need to do and stops you from being overwhelmed by doing it all at once. You can spread it across a week or 2 weekends, depending on what you have going on in your life.

1. You can plan and do the shopping.
2. You can chop the vegetables and label the bags.
3. Days 3 to 4 are simply assembly.

That's a great thing about using overlapping ingredients. Don't forget to label your freezer bags, though, with cooking instructions and dates to ensure everything stays fresh. Always freeze the bags flat in the freezer. This saves space and helps the contents thaw quicker.

I have quite a small kitchen, so when I do this it can look a bit messy, but once you get into the rhythm, it's actually quite fulfilling. My biggest tip would be to label the bags. I am terrible at not labeling things, so I end up having to throw them out.

Step 3: Labeling and Freezing for Easy Weeknights

Labeling and freezing your batch-cooked meals are so important. You can even label the bags before filling and freeze them flat, which saves space and helps the ingredients thaw faster. You can even stack them upright like a book. In the freezer, it's much easier to label the bags before you fill them, not after.

When you stack the bags upright like books, it's amazing how much you can get into your freezer. I used to just add the labels after filling and try to write on the full bag, only to realize that I couldn't even read what I had written.

I love packaging and freezing soups this way. Once they are frozen flat, they are solid, and you can get so many portions of soup into your freezer. It really is quite amazing. I like to put the date on my label, then write how many days it will be good once it's thawed. That way I know when to throw it out.

Serving Up Grace Along with Dinner

Don't think of meal prep as perfectionism but as practical grace. Even if you prep a few freezer meals in advance, the time that it saves you and that you get back can be astonishing.

I like to thaw my dumped dinners overnight in the fridge rather than cooking them from frozen. Cooking frozen meat in the slow cooker runs the risk of unsafe temperatures, so I prefer to do it this way.

Think of it like this: if you have five prepped dinners in the freezer, then you have five nights off from cooking, which can be huge when you are busy with life. You get something quick and easy, but also something nutritious and homemade. You resist the temptation to get takeout when it's 6:00 at night, and you are tired and hungry.

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