11 Clean Meals for $40

  With baby on the way (and I totally think he's coming SOON, even though my due date isn't for a month, he feels ready, and I have always thought my due date was off!) I decided its time to stock the freezer with easy peasy freezer meals! I'm doing this post in two different ways. one with ALL of the recipes, so you can copy my grocery list and take it, and then I am also going to post each recipe separate, because, some people may not like specific things!

To make the 3 recipes, it cost me roughly $40 (I had some things on hand at home, like some frozen veggies, and I bought a couple things, like ice cream, while shopping. plus depending on brand/store/coupons/sales/season prices change. so expect to pay around $40 for these!

All of these recipes were found under "clean eating" and while I don't know a ton about "clean eating" I was under the impression that "clean eating" meant the



re was no canned anything, which these recipes do have, however, they do not have any processed foods! So bare minimum they are much CLEANER!

so lets begin! 

Mexican Chicken Chili

3 cups shredded or chopped chicken

2 cans black beans

1 can pinto beans

2-4 Chopped zucchini 

5 cups chicken broth

2 cups chunky salsa

1 8oz can of tomato sauce

dump all the ingredients into a large bowl and mix.  separate into individual servings, in a zip lock bag (I was able to make three meals, for me and my husband, but we are both big eaters, so you will just have to figure out what works best for you!) and freeze

when ready to eat, toss it into the crock pot for 7-8 hours on low.

Rustic Slow Cooker Chicken Stew

1.5 lbs boneless chicken

1 medium onion- wedged

2 cups baby carrots

1 T. Lawry's seasoned salt

2t. Parsley Flakes

1/2t. Ground Pepper

1.5 Lbs Red Skinned potatoes

ADD LATER

3 T. corn Starch

1/2 cup of milk

this one takes a little extra work, in order to freeze potatoes you should blanch them first (bring water to a roaring boil, dump them in for 3-5 minutes, and then dunk them in ice water for about 10 minutes) 

after your potatoes are blanched combine all ingredients in a large bowl (you will wonder where the "stew" part is, because its a dry mixture. but that comes when you add the milk and corn starch later (I hope!).  I was able to make Three servings out of this recipe.  which means when it comes time to cook I will add 3 T of milk, and 1 T of corn starch.  you will have to do the math to decide how to split your corn starch and milk to your serving sizes! 

cook on low for 6-8 hours

Clean Eating Minestrone 

  1 large red onion

4 cloves of garlic

1 small bunch of chives

1 med bunch of basil

3 bay leaves

1- 15 oz cans tomato sauce

1-28 oz can stewed tomatoes

2- 32 oz veggie broth

6 large carrots

1 lbs Zucchini 

1 small egg plant

2- 15oz can of Kidney beans

1 lbs frozen peas

1 lbs Frozen corn

1 container of mushrooms

5 large celery stocks

chop all the veggies.  In the largest bowl you can find (seriously, like a storage bin might be needed, it makes a TON)  dump all of your ingredients together.  and put into individual serving size bags (I was able to make 5 large servings). and freeze.

when ready to serve, cook on low for 6-8 hours in the crock pot. 

feel free to add rice, or chicken, or noodles, or what ever else you please, but add more broth! I added rice to one serving, and it ended up being more of a hot dish, than a soup! haha