Cha-Ching on a Shoestring™

Living Large on a Limited Budget

Five Fast and Simple Freezer Chicken Meals with Just Five Ingredients or Less!

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Freezer meals are kind of like a secret weapon. Or a super power. 🙂 Especially crockpot freezer meals. I love having dinner done before I walk out the door!

I recently discovered chicken thighs, which have made my meals even better. I’m not sure how I have lived this long without knowing about their amazing potential to be a fast and delicious meal with so little prep.

And of course, they are budget friendly! Costco sells chicken thighs in easy tear apart packages for just $0.99 per pound. The boneless thighs (which I prefer) are $1.99 per lb. which is a great price. I like how they are in individual packages (about 1 1/2 lbs in each package). I love cooking with these in the slow cooker. They always turn out very tender. When I bring a package home, I divide up the thighs and freeze for a simple crockpot meals on those days  I’m too busy to cook!

Not all of the recipes I use are written as freezer meals, but I just adapt them. I put all the ingredients along with the chicken in a freezer bag, label them, and then freeze flat. To cook them, I take the bag out of the freezer for about an hour before I want to start cooking them, or run the bag under warm water.  You could also take it out the night before and put it in the refrigerator. Then cook for 3 – 4 hours on high or 4- 6 on low, depending on your crockpot.

Here are five of my favorite recipes:

  1. French Chicken: My kids love this recipe because it is a slightly sweet from the cranberry sauce. It’s impressive enough for guests, but also great for any night of the week!  I like to serve this dish over rice and with a side salad. (Get the recipe HERE.)

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2. Worlds Best Chicken: I questioned the name of this chicken when I first stumbled upon it, but it truly is the best! The chicken is great by itself, with some veggies, or chopped up on top of a salad. (Get the recipe HERE.)

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3. Honey Garlic Chicken: A delicious, thick, sticky glaze on moist chicken makes this recipe a crowd pleaser! I love to serve with basmati rice or quinoa and steamed or roasted vegetables. Yum! (Get the recipe HERE.)

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4. The Best Barbecue Crockpot Chicken: It is great to have a reliable barbeque chicken recipe for the crockpot. This one is so simple and I think the perfect balance of sweet and savory. Homemade mac and cheese and a salad make for a great Sunday lunch! The original recipe uses chicken breasts, but the thighs work great. (Get the recipe HERE.)
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5. Italian Cream Cheese Chicken: This is a simple Italian meal that you can serve with your favorite pasta! Crusty Italian bread and salad and dinner is done!  (Get the recipe HERE.)

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 So, next time you are at Costco or see a great deal on chicken thighs, come home and instead of just putting them in the freezer, make these five simple meals to have on hand when you are too busy to cook!
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Incredibly Easy and Delicious Triple Layer Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cookie Bars

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Easy Triple Layer Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cookie Bars

I’m happy to be sharing another post from my friend Elizabeth. She is a truly gifted hostess and is sharing one of her secrets to keeping things simple when it comes to dessert. I can’t wait to give these a try!

When Kaley asked if I had any simple dessert recipes to share, I immediately thought of these deliciously easy Triple Layer Cookie Bars that I have made over and over through the years. My friend passed on the recipe after she brought them to a camping trip years ago and we all loved them!  They have come in handy so many times when I need a quick dessert or snack.

I love that, with only six ingredients, these cookie bars are so easy that I can even ask one of my older kids to make them for me.

My little kids love to help with this recipe too. The first layer is crushed graham crackers. I put the graham crackers in a ziploc bag and then the kids love to use a rolling pin to smash them into crumbs.

I always buy the ingredients at ALDI, which also makes this a dessert on the cheap.  At only $0.15 per serving, I can afford to whip these up any time!

This recipe makes about 3 dozen bars. Enjoy! 

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Easy Triple Layer Cookie Bars

Ingredients

  • 1 stick of butter ($0.63)
  • 1 sleeve of Graham Crackers ($0.43), smashed into crumbs (see above for method I use)
  • 7 oz flaked coconut ($0.65)
  • 1 can of sweetened condensed milk ($1.39)
  • 11 oz bag of milk chocolate or semi sweet chocolate chips ($1.79)
  • 1/2 cup of peanut butter ($0.37)
  • (Total Cost $5.26 or $0.15 per serving)

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350. Place stick of butter in a 9 x 13 pan and place in the oven to melt. When the butter is melted, stir in the crushed graham crackers. Pat down with a spoon or your hands to make an even layer.
  2. Sprinkle coconut evenly on top of graham crackers. Drizzle sweetened condensed milk over the coconut in an even layer. Bake in oven for about 20 minutes or until lightly browned.
  3. Meanwhile, stir chocolate chips and peanut butter in a saucepan to melt.
  4. Remove bars from oven and pour melted chocolate mixture evenly over the top while the bars are still warm.
  5. Allow to cool in the refrigerator. Cut into bars and serve.
https://chachingonashoestring.com/2016/03/16/incredibly-easy-and-delicious-triple-layer-peanut-butter-and-chocolate-cookie-bars/

 

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How I Made Valentines Without Spending Any Money

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I’m delighted to invite my friend Elizabeth to the blog today to share how she made Valentines on the cheap this year (you may remember her from this popular post).

She is a creative and thrifty Mom of 6 who makes it look much easier than it should be. This post is a perfect example of her frugal super powers!

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After working three days straight, I was down to the wire for classroom Valentines for my three elementary school children. My youngest was sleeping and I didn’t want to run to the store, so I decided to try to work with what I already had. Here’s what I came up with!

I found this great printable on Pinterest (of course!) for my fifth grader. I thought the hashtag was super cute and I had a few bags of M&M’s stashed in the freezer that I could divide up into sandwich bags. I printed them out, he signed his name and we stapled them to the bag. Done!

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Two things I like to have on hand are chocolate chips and popcorn kernels. I love to make popcorn for a frugal and healthy snack. To make it a Valentine treat, I simply melted semi-sweet chocolate chips and drizzled it over the warm popcorn. I popped it into the fridge to harden and then divided into snack bags for my second grader’s classmates.

I had cute little treat bags I bought on clearance last year at Target for pennies. I tucked the snack bags into the treat bags and we added a cute Owl tag, which was also a free printable. Done and done!

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Another easy and quick frugal treat is the three ingredient Marshmallow Crispy bars. Crispy Rice cereal, mini marshmallows and butter and you are good to go! I had a small amount of mini chocolate chips that I added to the bars to make them even more yummy. I packaged a bar in each little treat bag and added a sticker tag for each of my kindergartners classmates.

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I found a cute printable for the teachers as well. Whenever Amazon has a sale on Burt’s Bees chapstick, I stock up and use them for small gifts because I’m always seeing printables for chapstick with a holiday theme. I put together three of these in no time with scrapbook paper and scotch tape.

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Last but not least, my second grader needed to decorate a bag to collect her Valentine treats. Her teacher sent home a plain white bag. I found a picture of an owl themed Valentine box, but I thought it would work perfectly for the bag too. We used construction paper and glue we already had to decorate the bag. My oldest daughter helped with this and I love how it turned out!

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I was thrilled that within about an hour I had made three different valentines for three different kids, a quick teacher valentine and a valentine treat bag without spending any money!