Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Simple Slow Cooker Party Potatoes

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Twas the day before Easter and my friend Chandra and I were discussing our Easter Dinner menus. She mentioned that she was making Party Potatoes, which we all know is a delicious, creamy, and cheesy potato dish.

While I knew exactly what Chandra was talking about, it occurred to me that when I was growing up, my family always called this dish “Funeral Potatoes.” Same recipe, same deliciousness, but incredibly different label. Party Potatoes and Funeral Potatoes are one in the same? Yes, indeed.

Chandra and I decided that people in the north (where her family is from) must like parties better. And that people in the south (where my family is from) need to let go and live a little. Bless our hearts.

Indeed, my family had Funeral Potatoes on all the most exciting celebration days: Easter, Christmas, and Birthdays. “Happy Easter, He is Risen!!!! Please pass the Funeral Potatoes.” What is wrong with me that I never realized what we were saying?

It is worth noting that Death By Chocolate was also a family favorite. I requested it at one of my Bridal Parties before Matt and I got married. “I’m going to marry the man of my dreams! I want Death by Chocolate please!”

Well, now you know the truth about my family history. We really knew how to party.

I have decided that it’s time to break the cycle. No more Funeral Potatoes. From now on, we will eat Party Potatoes!! Woohoooo, I LOVE PARTY POTATOES!!!!!”

Though what will I do the next time I’m at a funeral and they serve Party Potatoes? This is a conundrum.

Simple Slow Cooker Party Potatoes

You’ll notice that I’ve taken this popular potato dish recipe and tweaked it to include all real food ingredients (so we can avoid the MSG in canned soup). You’ll also notice that I found a way to make this dish in a slow cooker. I found this to be a helpful trick for the times I’m out of the house and need the potatoes to be ready to eat when we get home. It’s also nice to use the slow cooker method as it frees up oven space.

Not to worry though. I’ve included instructions for oven baking as well. As you can see, I’ve done all that I can to meet all of your funeral and party planning needs.

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Simple Slow Cooker Party Potatoes
 
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Serves: 6-10
Ingredients
  • 24 ounces frozen hashbrowns or cut potatoes
  • 3 Tablespoons dry minced onion
  • 1-2 teaspoons sea salt, to taste
  • 16 ounces sour cream
  • 1 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 16 ounces shredded Colby jack or cheddar cheese
Instructions
  1. Mix all ingredients together and spread evening in a slow cooker or 9x13 inch baking dish.
  2. Slow Cooker Instructions: Cook on low for 5-6 hours or on high for 3-4 hours.
  3. Oven Instructions: Cover and bake in a 350 degree oven for one hour.

 

Survey time: What did you call this potato recipe when you were growing up?

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Simple Crock Pot Salsa Shredded Beef (2 Ingredients!)

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Ready to cook dinner while you’re sleeping? This Simple Crock Pot Salsa Shredded Beef idea is genius!

My Simple Overnight Melt-in-Your-Mouth Beef Roast has become a staple around here. So one night I thought, “Why can’t I try the same idea but use salsa instead of bbq sauce? Then we can have Mexi-Wraps for lunch tomorrow?

I love it when good ideas turn out amazing results! But I love it even more that this recipe is so easy your two year old can make it. My favorite is that this cooks while we’re sleeping so we can wake up and have a good meal ready to serve later in the day. Or if you prefer, start this cooking in your crock pot first thing in the morning and have an awesome meal ready at the end of the day.

Now, some have cautioned against putting frozen meat in a crock pot. I have no hesitation about this, and I think we all know I’m terrible about ever remembering to thaw meat. So if given the chance, I will put frozen meat into my crock pot because this saves brain power. Coffee can only do so much.

The work involved in making this Simple Salsa Shredded Beef includes none other than:

  1. Putting a frozen roast in a crock pot.
  2. Dumping on a jar of salsa.
  3. Letting it cook all night or all day.

Praise God, Glory Hallelujah.

After cooking for 10-12 hours, this meat has become so flavorful and tender it practically falls apart before you even come near it with a fork. Shred it quickly, cry a joyful tear over how marvelous your meal is going to be, and serve this to your family with a smile. After all, you didn’t have to work hard to make this. So you still have energy to smile. What a gift.

Use this Simple Salsa Shredded Beef as Mexi-Wraps in tortillas with taco/burrito fixin’s. Use it to make Simple Spanish Rice Bowls. Toss it into a Taco Salad. Eat it directly out of the crock pot. Who can help it?

Simple Crock Pot Salsa Shredded Beef

Simple Crock Pot Salsa Shredded Beef (2 Ingredients!)
 
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Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
  • 3-4 pound beef or lamb roast
  • 16-ounces salsa
Instructions
  1. Place frozen or thawed roast into a crock pot.
  2. Pour salsa over the top.
  3. Cook in a crock pot on low for 10-12 hours if frozen. If thawed, cook for 8-10 hours on low.
  4. Shred meat and serve.

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Simple Crock Pot Applesauce BBQ Chicken (on a Simple Budget)

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My favorite meals to make are the meals I can dump into the crock pot and forget about until dinner time. This Simple Crock Pot Applesauce BBQ Chicken is one of those meals. It turns out juicy, flavorful chicken with no effort!

bbq applesauce chicken11

While I like cooking my chicken in the crock pot, I’ve started always cooking my rice in my Instant Pot. What did I ever do without my Instant Pot!?

bbq applesauce chicken12

Grab out some greens, steam a veggie, and this meal is perfection on a plate with very little effort!

Simple Crock Pot Applesauce BBQ Chicken

Simple Crock Pot Applesauce BBQ Chicken
 
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Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
  • 2 pounds boneless chicken thighs or breasts
  • ⅔ cup natural applesauce
  • ⅔ cup BBQ sauce
  • Sea salt to taste
  • Chili powder to taste
Instructions
  1. Place chicken pieces at the bottom of a crock pot.
  2. Sprinkle salt and chili powder over chicken.
  3. Drizzle on applesauce and bbq sauce.
  4. Cover and cook on low for 5 hours.
  5. Serve over rice or potatoes.

Simple Crock Pot Applesauce BBQ Chicken

Catch the running list of Simple Meals on a Simple Budget here.

Simple Recipes on a Simple Budget

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Simple Crock Pot Cranberry Apple Cider

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It is a fact that the first time I made this Cranberry Apple Cider, a young boy visiting our home looked into the crock pot, saw the floating cranberries, and asked, “Are those berries poisonous?”

cranberry cider33

Hey. It was a fair question. He’s been taught well. Never eat berries without first asking what they are and checking to be sure that they are safe to eat. Smart kid, that one.

I assured him that the berries floating in my cider were merely cranberries, but my proclamation meant nothing at all to him. So he stood waiting for me to answer his actual question, “Are those berries poisonous?”

cranberry cider22

I’ll admit that for at least two seconds, my mind started heading down the path of possible answers I could but should not give. “We’re not really sure, but we decided to try them and see what happened.” Or maybe, “Yes, but they were so pretty we decided it didn’t matter.”

But only a terrible hostess would scare visiting children, so even though this kid is a regular guest in our home and knows we specialize in sarcasm, I ignored the untrue answers threatening to come out of my mouth and told him, “Yes. But only if you chew them up and swallow them. If they’re just floating in your cup, they won’t hurt you.”

I kid, I kid.

I actually didn’t have to say anything at all because while I was quietly saying, “Nope, they’re just cranberries. Not even a little bit poisonous.” My almost 13-year old was sharing his own scary remarks about how his mom sometimes, but not always, puts poisonous berries in the cider so the family never knows which batch is safe, then ended with, “So. You want to try some?”

cranberry cider11

It’s so much fun to be a guest at our house. You should definitely come drink cider with us sometime. If you dare. Mooh-ha-ha.

Well now that we got all the sarcasm out of the way (a Christmas miracle), let’s get on with the niceties about this recipe.

This Simple Crock Pot Cranberry Apple Cider actually smells like Christmas. Yes, if you’ve ever wondered what Christmas smells like, this is your answer. It also looks like Christmas because what is more festive looking than (potentially poisonous) red berries, oranges, and cinnamon sticks in a crock pot? So pretty!

The best news is that this may be the simplest recipe you can make during the holiday season. Put ingredients into crock pot. Turn on crock pot. Let the smell of Christmas fill your home.

Simple Crock Pot Cranberry Apple Cider

Simple Crock Pot Cranberry Apple Cider
 
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Serves: 8-10
Ingredients
  • 64 ounces unsweetened apple juice
  • 1-2 whole oranges, sliced
  • 16-ounces fresh cranberries
  • 3-5 cinnamon sticks
Instructions
  1. Place all ingredients into a slow cooker.
  2. Heat on low for 3-4 hours.
  3. Serve and enjoy!

TIP: After you make the first round of cider, save the cinnamon sticks, oranges, and cranberries to reuse in another batch of hot cider.

Simple Crock Pot Cranberry Apple Cider

This cider is fun to leave in a crock pot for several hours during the day so that at all times the house smells wonderful and at any time a cup can be refilled!

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The Simplest Crock Pot White Chicken Chili

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Who would like another recipe that only takes an effortless 5 minutes to prepare? What about a recipe that allows you to forget to thaw your meat ahead of time? A recipe that tastes amazing and is a crowd pleaser? Okeedokee! Let the excitement over this Crock Pot White Chicken Chili commence!

white chicken chili11

This is one of those recipes in which you quickly place ingredients into a pot then walk away and let it make dinner for you. Is this a perfect recipe for a busy holiday season? Oh yes. Let’s enjoy our holiday season while our crock pot cooks dinner for us, shall we?

white chicken chili22

Call this White Chicken Chili, or actually, let’s just call it A Night Off. This is one of those rare times we can simply open cans of prepared food and dump them into a pot. We can feel great knowing that it’s all still real food and it’s still healthy and nourishing for our families!

The Simplest White Chicken Chili

The Simplest White Chicken Chili
 
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Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
  • 1-2 pounds boneless Chicken thighs or breasts
  • 2 15-ounce cans Black Beans (drained)
  • 2 10-ounce cans Rotel (Diced Tomatoes and Green Chiles)
  • 2 cups Frozen Corn
  • 3 Tablespoons Ranch Dressing Mix*
  • 1 Tablespoon Chili Powder
  • 2 8-ounce packages Cream Cheese
Instructions
  1. Place chicken (frozen or thawed) in the bottom of a crock pot.
  2. Add beans, Rotel, corn, and seasonings over the chicken and stir.
  3. Place cream cheese on top of the mixture.
  4. Cook on low for 7-8 hours or on high for 3-4 hours.
  5. Remove chicken and shred, then stir it back into the soup.

*Here’s my Homemade Ranch Seasoning recipe.

Complete this meal by pulling salad fixin’s out of the fridge and washing some fresh fruit.

The Simplest Crock Pot White Chicken Chili

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Simple Chili Mac (Instructions for Instant Pot, Crock Pot, or Stovetop)

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This Simple Chili Mac is the reason you should make a double batch of chili. Leftover chili (or purchased canned chili) makes this recipe take about 5 minutes to throw together.

chili mac5

Also? How did I ever live without an Instant Pot? I know, I know. So many of you told me I would love it for the amount of time and effort it saves, but I could not handle thinking about learning how to use a new appliance. Good grief. There was nothing to learn. Okay, there was a little bit more than nothing to learn. There was about ten minutes of learning involved.

But now I’m like, “Here, Instant Pot. I give you my leftover chili and my dry pasta. Please make our lunch.”

chili mac6

And then it does. Like a boss. Except I’m the boss because I told it what to make.

chili mac4

If you don’t have an Instant Pot, you can still make this as simple as possible in your crock pot or your stove top.

Have I told you how much I love NOT cooking pasta before adding it to casserole dishes? Truly, any recipe that allows me to dump dry pasta into sauce and walk away is golden.

Simple Chili Mac

Simple Chili Mac (Instructions for Instant Pot, Crock Pot, or Stovetop)
 
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Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
  • 48-ounces prepared Chili
  • 8-ounces whole grain pasta, any variety, uncooked
  • Sea salt to taste
  • 1 cup water
  • 3 cups shredded cheese
Instructions
  1. Stir chili, uncooked pasta, water and salt into Instant Pot, Crock Pot, or large cooking pot.
  2. Instant Pot: Cook at high pressure for 6 minutes.
  3. Crock Pot: Cook on low for 4 hours or hi for 2.5 hours.
  4. Stove Top: Cook on low heat, covered, stirring every few minutes until pasta is tender.
  5. Top casserole with cheese and allow it to melt before serving.

Simple Chili Mac - for Instant Pot, Crock Pot, or Stovetop

Here’s our Easy Chili Recipe! Using leftover chili for this Chili Mac recipe makes it extra simple!

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Simple Lasagna Casserole (Instructions for Instant Pot or Crock Pot!)

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This Simple Lasagna Casserole makes it possible for me to offer this proclamation: If life gets any easier, we will all have to find new hobbies. 

lasagna casserole1

Just kidding. No doubt we all have plenty to fill our days. It’s just that all these Simple Meals take so little time and energy to prepare, we are all shocking ourselves with how quickly we can put a delicious, real food meal on the table!

Prep time for this Simple Lasagna Casserole recipe takes a tiny 5 minutes. Cook time in the Instant Pot takes another 5 minutes. Good grief, I barely have time to get out salad fixings, plates, and forks before my Instant Pot beeps to tell me that dinner is ready.

On the other hand, sometimes it’s nice to start dinner ahead of time, leave, and come back to it a few hours later. That’s where the Crock Pot comes in. I can start this casserole cooking in my crock pot (which also takes only 5 minutes of effort), walk away, do a load of laundry, answer a dozen emails, leave the house, scream for my boys at a soccer game, and come home to a ready-made dinner.

lasagna casserole2

NOTE: One of the tricks to making this meal so fast and easy to put together is having Cooked Hamburger Meat already prepared and ready to stir into this dish. If you have an Instant Pot, I highly recommend cooking it this way to get ahead on your hamburger. If you don’t have an Instant Pot, I still recommend cooking hamburger meat ahead of time on the stove-top, then freezing it in meal size portions to make dinner prep easier!

Cook Time Options for Simple Lasagna Casserole

Instant Pot: 5 minutes
Crock Pot: 3-4 hours

Simple Lasagna Casserole (Instructions for Instant Pot and Crock Pot!)
 
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Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
  • 16-ounces UNCOOKED whole grain pasta, any shape
  • 1 pound cooked hamburger meat
  • 50-ounces spaghetti sauce
  • 1 cup water
  • 16-ounces cottage cheese
  • Sea salt to taste
  • 2 cups shredded cheese (your favorite)
Instructions
  1. Stir uncooked pasta, spaghetti sauce, water, cooked meat, sea salt, and cottage cheese in a crock pot or instant pot. Cook as follows:
  2. Crock Pot: Cook on low for 3-4 hours.
  3. Instant Pot: Cook on Manual at high pressure for 5 minutes.
  4. Once time is up for either Crock Pot or Instant Pot, stir mixture and top with cheese, covering dish so the cheese will melt.
  5. Serve!

Simple Lasagna Casserole for Instant Pot or Crock Pot

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Simple Crock Pot Creamy Stew Meat (with Rice, Potatoes, or Pasta)

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Did you know that life is terribly unfair? It’s not fair that we let our youngest son go to camp by himself at age 11 but we made his brothers wait until they were 12. It’s not fair that one boy got more ice cream than his brothers. And it’s not fair that our entire family had to smell this Stew Meat cooking all day but couldn’t eat it until the evening came.

Torture. Smelling this meat cooking all day is torture, I tell you.

Slow cooker stew meat

Honestly, it doesn’t look like much in the picture. But the flavor of this meat is incredible because of the simple seasonings you sprinkle on. The crock pot does the work of cooking this slow and low so that the meat becomes tender and juicy. Then you add cream at the end to finish it off to perfection.

Having Ranch Dressing Mix and Onion Soup Mix on hand makes putting this meal into the crock pot very quick. As you probably expected, I didn’t thaw my stew meat ahead of time. I just pulled it from the freezer and put it directly into the crock pot. Easy, easy, easy!

Crock Pot Creamy Stew Meat

Simple Crock Pot Creamy Stew Meat (with Rice or Pasta)
 
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Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
  • 2-3 pounds beef stew meat
  • 3 Tablespoons Ranch Dressing Mix
  • 2 Tablespoons Onion Soup Mix
  • ½ cup water
  • ½ cup butter
  • 2 cups heavy whipping cream
Instructions
  1. In a crock pot, stir together stew meat, seasoning mixes, and water.
  2. Put a stick of butter on top.
  3. Place lid on crock pot and cook on low for 6-7 hours.
  4. Add cream and heat for another 10 minutes.
  5. Serve over rice or pasta

Simple Crock Pot Creamy Stew Meat

We really loved this stew meat over steamed brown rice. But it would be equally wonderful served over mashed or baked potatoes, or even whole grain pasta!

Keep in mind that if you do make mashed potatoes to go with this meat, you must make them in the simplest way possible! (I suppose this would require that you have two crock pots though. Hmm…)

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Simple Hawaiian Beef Roast (5 Minute Prep!)

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I first attempted this Simple Hawaiian Beef Roast recipe about a month ago on a busy night in which I was feeding out of town guests who had come to watch our youngest son, Malachi, perform in our local Children’s Theater production.

hawaiian roast beef

Malachi is the first of all our kids to choose to be involved in theater. It is a gross understatement to say that before this summer, I knew nothing about being a theater mom.

I kept calling the costumes “uniforms” because I have been a sports mom for so many, many years. But more difficult than this is the fact that I volunteered to help create said costumes. What in the world was I thinking?

Well, I’ll tell you what I was thinking. I was thinking that since all parents needed to be involved in some way with helping to pull off a huge 50-kid theater production, volunteering to help with costumes would be a better choice for me than volunteering to put on stage make-up. No way, no how should I be allowed to attempt to paint a child’s face.

I showed up to the first costume meeting where about 10 talented moms joined to talk to the director about all the costume needs. For two entire hours, everyone sat and discussed costumes – in German. Thoroughly lost while hearing all the words I didn’t understand, I eventually asked the director a question. He kindly said, and I quote, “Blah, blah, blah, stuff, stuff, blah. Does that make sense?” [DEER IN HEADLIGHTS]

I wanted to exit back stage left. Please someone tell me where I can sign up to bake cookies!!! Deliver me from trying to understand how to put together uniforms! I mean costumes.

As it turned out, the other moms did a marvelous job creating fabulously impressive costumes. The make-up moms transformed kids’ faces so that they actually looked like daisies and rabbits and mice.

Malachi's play 1

In the meantime, I used my talent to write actors’ names on Wal-mart bags with a sharpie so we could keep track of each character’s gloves, socks, and shoes. Rock on.

When all was said and done, I had so much fun meeting theater parents and kids from our community that I would join the costume committee again next year if I’m “needed.” I might even remember to stop calling them “uniforms.”

malachi's play 2

So this roast recipe. It’s so simple you can throw it into the crock pot to cook all day without exerting any effort. You can set out plates and direct your guests to help themselves to the roast as you head out the door to go help 30 sweet girl actors between the ages of 7-17 don their hedgehog, cook, queen, and daisy costumes as you pretend with all your might that you actually know what you’re doing.

Simple Hawaiian Beef Roast

Simple Hawaiian Beef Roast (5 Minute Prep!)
 
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Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
  • 3-4 pound beef roast (frozen or thawed!)
  • 1 cup barbecue sauce
  • 20-ounce can of pineapple, drained (or 2 cups fresh or frozen pineapple)
Instructions
  1. Place roast in crock pot.
  2. Pour barbecue sauce over the top.
  3. Add pineapple.
  4. Cook on low for 10 hours if roast is frozen and 8 hours is roast is thawed.

Simple Hawaiian Beef Roast

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Simple Crock Pot Taco Pasta

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After experimenting with the Simple 3-Cheese Crock Pot Pasta and discovering that we can dump uncooked pasta into a crock pot, then walk away and come back to a finished meal a few hours later, I’ve been on a mission to see what other varieties of pasta our crock pots can cook for us.

Not that cooking pasta is difficult, but if we can even skip that step in our real food culinary endeavors, we can consider all of life a vacation. The conversation can go something like this:

Person: What do you do all day?
You and Me: I spend a lot of time not cooking pasta.

We can expand the conversation by explaining that we also spend a lot of our time not thawing meat, and an additional portion of our day not soaking beans. We have become experts at all the kitchen tasks we don’t do while still managing to put amazing, real food meals on the table.

This Simple Meals life is beautiful, isn’t it?!

The Simple 3-Cheese Crock Pot Pasta really saved my neck one day recently when I had only three hours to make a meal for a table full of last minute company. I grabbed a package of pasta and two jars of sauce from my pantry, dumped it all in the crock pot and did not go back into the kitchen until time to serve the cooked meal along with some fresh fruit and fresh greens from our garden.

The Simple Crock Pot Pizza Casserole would have worked just as nicely. And today I will show you how to turn this Simple Skillet Taco Pasta recipe into an effortless crock pot recipe.

crock pot taco pasta1

The first time I made this was a day I had to have one kid out the door by 8:00, another kid and my husband out the door by 8:50, myself out the door by 10:00, and lunch on the table for my entire family plus a house guest by 12:30. I had some leftover taco meat in the fridge, so I dumped it into the crock pot with a package of dry pasta, stirred in two jars of salsa, and added some water. I sprinkled in some sea salt and left the house.

When I came home at 12:15, I stirred the delicious smelling meal, spread on some shredded cheese, and let the food sit while I got out grapes and salad. Lunch was served within minutes of me not being home to cook. I am so grateful for recipes like this!

Crock Pot Taco Pasta

If you don’t want to wait 2-3 hours for this casserole to cook itself in the crock pot, simply follow this Simple Skillet Taco Pasta version instead. It’ll be ready in about 20 minutes from start to finish. But for the I don’t have one minute to spare days...

Simple Crock Pot Taco Pasta

Simple Crock Pot Taco Pasta
 
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Serves: 6-8
Ingredients
  • 1 pound ground taco meat (cooked)
  • 16-ounces whole grain pasta (uncooked)
  • 32-ounces salsa
  • 2 cups water
  • ½ teaspoon sea salt
  • 2 cups shredded cheese
Instructions
  1. Stir all ingredients into a crock pot.
  2. Cook on low for 4 hours.
  3. Stir mixture.
  4. Top with cheese and let sit for 5-10 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Simple Crock Pot Taco Pasta

Obviously it helps to make this recipe easier if you have some leftover meat all cooked and ready to go. I love using seasoned hamburger meat, but leftover Shredded Ranch Chicken would work great too. Any time I’m making seasoned meat, I always make extra so I can use leftovers in salads or meals like this!

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Do you have any other great ideas for me as for sauces to cook pasta in the crock pot?

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