50 Slow Cooker Dinners: Cheap Crock Pot Meals for the Whole Family

The slow cooker is the hardest working appliance in my kitchen, and the one that has saved us the most money. A tough, cheap cut of beef goes in at 8 in the morning and comes out fall-apart tender by dinner. A bag of dried beans turns into a pot of something that tastes like you tried. Nobody has to stand at the stove at 5:30 when everyone is tired and hungry.

The problem is that most slow cooker recipes online are built around expensive cuts, cans of this and packets of that, and a lot of ingredients you will use once. You end up spending more than the takeout you were trying to avoid.

I wrote this cookbook to fix that. It has 50 slow cooker dinners, and every single one is priced out in plain words so you can see exactly what a dinner costs before you buy a thing. Most of them land between $1 and $2.50 per serving.

What is inside

• 50 dinners: beef and pork mains, pot roasts, chilis, chicken dinners, soups, stews, beans and lentils, vegetarian meals and pasta sauces
• the cost per serving and the approximate total on every recipe
• ingredient lists with real quantities, no mystery items
• a short numbered method with times and temperatures
• one specific money-saving tip on every recipe
• a 53 page PDF in letter size that prints cleanly and works on a phone or tablet

Nothing needs wine, beer or a specialty shop. If you can find it in a regular grocery store, you can cook it.

Three dinners from the book

• Shredded Beef Tacos: $1.85 per serving
• Cheesy Taco Chili: $1.30 per serving
• Slow Cooker Red Beans and Rice: $0.85 per serving

The red beans and rice is the one I make when the budget is truly tight. It feeds eight people for about seven dollars and the leftovers are better the next day.

Why the cost per serving matters

When you can see that a dinner costs about a dollar and a quarter per serving, you start making different decisions at the store. You stop buying the pricey cut because it looked nice, and you start noticing that thighs cost half of breasts, that a family pack of ground beef split into bags is cheaper than the small tray, and that dried beans beat canned by a wide margin. Each recipe has a tip like that, specific to the dish, so by page 50 you will be shopping differently.

How to use it

Pick two or three dinners for the week, shop from the ingredient lists, and set the cooker before you leave the house. Brown the meat first when you have ten extra minutes, because it adds flavor, but skip it when you do not and the dinner will still be good. Keep the lid closed as much as you can, and cook on low whenever possible.

The book is an instant PDF download, yours to print and keep.

If you also want the dessert book, the Slow Cooker + Desserts bundle puts both together for $9.97.