 Hey guys, welcome back to Six Sister Stuff. Today we are making eight freezer meals in just one hour. So I'm Kristen, and I'm Camille, and today we are sharing some freezer meals that are near and dear to my heart. These are actually the very first freezer meals that we posted on our blog, really. Back in 2012, and I was pregnant with my third baby. She was actually, I was like 38, 39 weeks pregnant, ready to be done. And I thought, well, maybe I will get ahead and make some freezer meals that we can make for dinners. And if you Google freezer meals or you look on Pinterest, there is a whole slew of freezer meals. And many of them are like huge cast rolls and spend 10 hours prepping your entire month. And I thought, I have one hour. So I put these together and timed myself. And it took me one hour from start to finish. So simple ingredients, literally simple recipe. And these are dump and goes that you can put in your Instant Pot or Slow Cooker, some are one or the other. But just really simple things that you can stack in your freezer so they're not gonna take a lot of room either. Right, so if you guys are ready, let's get cooking. So the first recipe we're gonna make are these barbecue spare ribs. Now you might have seen these before because we make them a lot. They are our tried and true favorite freezer meal. Yeah, my favorite freezer meal, right. So we'll just jump into it. So you're gonna get these country style spare ribs. I'm gonna use some claws here. You can get them boneless or bone in, whatever you prefer. And if you want to the grocery store, these go on sale all the time. And they're really inexpensive. This is a great recipe to double as well. Because you can do it for so cheap and if you're making it, you might as well make two. So usually, I know you use like anywhere from like two to four pounds. This is actually six pounds. What? But I like it because that will feed us for two meals. Oh yeah, for sure. Exactly. Okay, so the next thing we're gonna do is one and a half cups of ketchup. And I'm just gonna kind of eyeball it. But this is gonna be the base of your sauce. Yeah, and you really can't go wrong with the ketchup in this recipe. Add as much or as little as you want. Exactly. On top of that, we're just gonna add one half cup of white vinegar. Now I know that sounds weird, but it makes it taste so good. What you're doing is kind of making a homemade barbecue sauce. So then we're gonna do some brown sugar. This is a half cup brown sugar. You wanna do equal parts brown sugar and vinegar. Then this is a half teaspoon of liquid smoke. I love liquid smoke sometimes to even do a full teaspoon because it just gives it that extra flavor. It does, it really adds like a depth to these that if you don't use it, it won't be quite the same. Okay, so then we're gonna do one and a half tablespoons of old base seasoning. This is a recipe that our mom has made for years and that's always what she's used. However, if you don't have that on hand, season salt works just as great. So you can use that too. There we go. Okay, so if you're gonna cook it in your Instant Pot, I would add either a half a cup now or a half a cup right before you cook. You just need a little more water in there. If you're gonna use it in your slow cooker, you can just close it up right now. So you can mix this around a little bit, squeeze it. So if you're cooking in your Instant Pot, it's gonna cook for 30 minutes. Now slow cooker, I go a little bit longer, how about you? Yeah, I prefer the low and slow. Do six to eight hours on low, three to four hours on high. Yeah, simple and easy. Okay, let's move on to the next one. Okay, our next freezer meal is one of my very favorites. It's also my go-to meal when I need something fast and I don't have a dinner plan. This is our black bean taco soup. So you're gonna start with a pound of ground beef or ground turkey or ground chicken or shredded chicken. This is the only recipe where you do need to pre-cook the beef. Just because it's not going to completely cook and crumble like you need it to. It will have a weird texture if you don't. It'll be like a meatloaf. Yeah, so let's do that ahead of time and then just add it in. Nice. I was gonna add a bag of frozen corn. So they asked for like about a cup, but I like corn. So we're gonna add. Add as much as you want. If you don't have a bag of frozen corn, a can of corn works great too. Okay, and then because it's a black bean taco soup, we've got a can of black beans that are rinsed and drained. Nice. So go ahead and dump those in. All right, then just one can of tomato sauce. Now this is what, 15 ounces? Yeah, so big can. Big can. And then we've got a can of green chilies. So these don't add heat. You'll look on here is this mild. I buy the mild can. Yes, because obviously we want this to be kid friendly, but they do add a lot of flavor. So don't skip this. If you want heat, go ahead and add jalapenos. Like a can of jalapenos. That would be good. Yeah, but not necessarily. Definitely has a kick, but yes, okay. Okay, next one is, so the recipe calls for stewed tomatoes, but my kids don't necessarily love stewed tomatoes. So we're going to do diced tomatoes today instead. So just two cans of diced tomatoes. You're going to leave the juice in there because it's a soup, we want a little bit of liquid. Yep. Yeah, I've always used stewed tomatoes in this. And then one time my husband was like, hey, these are such big tomatoes. Can you use a smaller tomato? I was like, oh my gosh, I didn't even think of that. Yes, you can. You can do whatever you want. And then the last thing is just a chopped onion. So if you want to save time as you're prepping these meals, you can actually buy pre-diced onion. All right, and then of course we do need some taco seasoning to make this taco soup. So this is just one packet. You can use homemade taco seasoning or to keep it simple, I just stuff in a packet. Nice, love it, love it. Okay, so that's it. Now, if you are going to do this in your instant pot, basically all you have to do is heat it up. You just want to heat it through. The meat's already cooked. So it's just five minutes in your slow cooker because it's already cooked. Really, it's only gonna be like two to three hours on high. You could do it on low for like five to six, or if you want to, throw this in a big stock pot on your stove top and just heat it up. It'll take maybe 30, 45 minutes. Yeah, just want to make sure those onions are cooked so they're not hard. And now it's it. You are doing it in instant pot. You might need a little bit more liquid just because it's a thick soup. So I throw half a cup to cup of either broth or water and it will still taste great. Okay, done with this one. There you go. Let's move on to the next. Okay, our next freezer meal is French dip sandwiches. Now, this is the easiest meal that we are going to be making, the easiest freezer meal. So this recipe's been on our site forever and it used to call for two cans of beef consomme, which we have learned they don't carry anymore, especially since- Hard to find. Coronavirus. Exactly. So we don't know if they make that anymore, but we're gonna share with you a substitution. So instead of using two cans of beef consomme, you can use one can of beef broth and one can of condensed French onion soup. So all you have to do is put your rump roast in there, one huge rump roast. This is like, what, three pounds? This is yeah. Two to three pounds, depending on what your family needs. You can also use a chuck roast and then you just pour the cans right on top. Do you want me to do that one? You can do that one too. Awesome. And that's it. Super simple, super easy. Yep. Okay, you go, you go. No, no, no. I was just gonna say, this one you want to cook low and slow. So if you have a slow cooker, great. Throw it in there. We're talking eight to 10 hours. Like put this in right when you wake up in the morning to let it cook so all day. Plus your house will smell good. Right. And then when it's done, shred it up. There we go. I still love using the Instant Pot for this one because you can cook it for like 90 minutes and it's going to fall apart just like it would the low and slow. So depending on what you like or what you have, either one works. Yep. All right guys, done with this one. Let's move on to the next. All right, so the next freezer meal we're making is our hardy beef stew. Now my mom used to make this all the time and growing up, I didn't love it. I didn't love stew. No, but now it's one of my favorites. There's nothing better on a cold day. I agree. I agree. So, yes, hardy beef stew. Okay, so we had about a pound of stew meat. I love buying at the store that's already cut up, ready to go, so you can just dump it in. Then we just start adding our ingredients. So we have one onion all chopped up. There we go. Here we go next. Yeah, so this is red potatoes, I'd say like three to four depending on the size. This is going to fill up your bag very quickly. It's a very big freezer meal. So if you need a bigger bag, feel free to grab it. Exactly. We do get a lot of questions about potatoes. Do they go brown when you freeze them? They do a little bit, but guess what? Your stew is brown. So it doesn't really matter. It's gonna be brown anyways. And to prevent browning too, like the longer it sits in your freezer, obviously the more brown these potatoes are gonna turn. So I would recommend eating this one within 30 days. It'll probably be good for up to 60 days. After that, it starts to get freezer burned, but exactly, yeah. Okay, then we're gonna put the seasoning in. Now over the potatoes. I love it. So this is just one package of Lipton Onion Soup Mix, which is one of my favorites. Yeah. Do you want to do carrot snacks? Sure, I'll do carrots. Pack it in. The big things, yeah. Then it's about four carrots cut up, but I'm taking the lazy route and I love doing baby carrots and just throwing them in. It's gonna cook so long, it's okay if they're not chopped up. Exactly. All of them. What do you think? About four? That's perfect. Perfect. Okay. So we're gonna add a bag of frozen peas. I love the layers of this one. I know, huh? Isn't it funny? Right. Okay. Now our sauce. Yep. So it's so simple. All that it is is two cans of cream of mushroom soup and two small cans of tomato sauce or one big can. And a lot of people will be like, ah, I don't like cream of mushroom soup. There are so many recipes online to make your own, but for convenience sake, I just love using the canned stuff. Right. So we're keeping it super simple and this makes, you can't taste the mushrooms at all. It just makes such a creamy sauce for your stew. Kids love it. Okay. And then two, it's about 15 ounces in total of tomato sauce. Ooh. Like I said, it fills this bag up top. Yep. Okay. All right, so when you're cooking this, you can cook it in the Instant Pot. We would just suggest maybe doing the slow cooker. Slow cooker would work better for this because you're going to have to add a lot more liquid and it burns a lot more. So slow cooker's the way to go or you could add a cup of water first and then your stew or I guess beef broth or whatever you want to add. Yep. And then your stew on top to do an Instant Pot, but I just found. That is a hearty beef stew. Yes. You would like, I like it thick. So if you do Instant Pot, it's going to be a lot thinner. Yeah. So anyways. There you go. Instant Pot, about 30 minutes. And then slow cooker, I like low and slow, six or eight to 10 hours. This is another one you can put in in the morning before work. And when you get home from work, dinner is done. Serve it with some rolls or like some good crusty bread. Or if you're like me, a little ketchup on top. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And weird secrets from Kristin's wife. So good. All right guys, we're done with this one. Let's move on. Okay, our next meal is cilantro lime chicken. And I love serving this in tacos, but you can also put it on salad or nachos or burritos or whatever you want. Make it into enchiladas. So we started with frozen chicken breasts. We already put them in there. I mean, raw chicken breasts work great as well. You can usually just get frozen chicken breasts for so inexpensively. Right. And then you don't have to deal with raw chicken. You just dump it in. Throw it in. Perfect. Okay, so we got like a pound and a half, three to four chicken breasts, however many. Yep, yep. You need for your family. Okay, then I'm just going to do this one first. All right, cilantro lime chicken. Best part of it. So a whole bunch of cilantro just chopped up, so. Literal bunch. Yeah. Now there's some people who don't like cilantro and have asked, what's a great substitute for that? It's cilantro lime chicken. So without the cilantro, it doesn't quite taste the same. Lime chicken. So you can use it without, but it's going to cook down so small and all the other flavors just kind of accentuate. So just try it. You might like it. Okay, so the next thing we're going to add is a can of black beans. They're all rinsed and drained. Just throw those on top. Nice. I'll do my garlic. Yep. Two cloves of garlic or what? Teaspoon or so. Teaspoon. There we go. Yep. And then we got one red onion, just chopped up well about half, depending on the size of it. Depending on what you like to eat. Sometimes that's humongous. I found an onion the other day that was literally the size of my head and it's just not normal. It's been a nice, I know. You did it for lots of meals. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and dump in just a bag of corn. We love corn. That's a great way to get another vegetable. All right, then we just have one teaspoon of cumin that you want to have in there. Okay. And then we just need the juice from two fresh limes. Now if you don't have fresh limes lying around, which I usually don't, or if I do they're for something else, but you can just use about a quarter cup of lime juice. Nice. And then pour that on top. Perfect. And then we just add a little bit of salt and pepper. Kind of just for taste. You can also add more when it's all done cooking too. So yeah, we're just adding right now. Perfect. So if you are making this in the slow cooker, you don't need any other liquid because you're going to get liquid from the chicken and you're going to get it from these vegetables. And so just go ahead, throw that in your slow cooker. I would say five to six hours on low, three to four hours on high. However, in the instant pot, you're going to need a lot more liquid to make this happen. Yes. I would probably put in a cup of chicken broth. When you cook this, just because the chicken broth is going to really accentuate that flavor. If you don't have chicken broth, go ahead and use water. That's good. I highly recommend chicken broth for this one. Frozen, 25 minutes in the instant pot. Nice. Or thawed 20 minutes, so there you go. Done with this one. All right, the next recipe is honey sesame chicken. Now, I think it was you that introduced me to this recipe. I did. My favorites and my family favorite. Actually, little known fact. This was our very first recipe on Six Sisters to reach one million free pins on Pinterest. Really? Yup. One of the first ones that went viral and kind of exploded us into what we do. That's so, so there you go. I went through a phase. Well, there's a reason why it hit so many because it's good. Okay. All right, should we jump in? Let's do it. All right, so we started like what? Two to three pounds of chicken breast in here. We just use frozen because it's simple, easy, and you don't have to. You could also use chicken thighs if you do have those on hand. That's true. It works really good for the stress-picking. That's very true. Okay, first we're gonna add just a cup of honey. This isn't quite a cup, but it's close. But it's my local raw honey with the good stuff. It's the good stuff. So good. We're just gonna pour that right on top. Okay. And then we do have a half a cup of soy sauce. You can use light soy sauce if you're worried about salt, but either one will work great. Nice. Just the combination of those two smells so good. So good. Then we have like two cloves or about a teaspoon of garlic. Yep. The more garlic, the better in this recipe. I love it. Okay, and then we have one onion or just a half onion, depending how big your onion is. Yeah. About a cup or so. That's true. Okay. And then on my side, I'm gonna do just salt and pepper. Kind of to taste. I believe it's like a teaspoon of salt and a half teaspoon of pepper, but it really is just, you can add more when it's done too if you need more. Totally. You're gonna get a lot of salt from the soy sauce so it doesn't need that much, but the pepper is important. Speaking of pepper, we're gonna add some red pepper flakes. Now you can add as much or as little as you want. However, I do recommend adding some. It's not going to add very much heat, but it is going to add a really good flavor that you need for this. Yeah. Okay. And then we're gonna add two tablespoons of oil. I did not measure this out as well as I should have, so we're just gonna be guessing two tablespoons of oil. Then the last ingredient we're gonna add is just a half cup of ketchup. Just to kind of make it a little bit more of a sauce, add a little bit of sweetness. Yeah, there you go. Perfect. Okay. So this recipe, you can cook in the Instant Pot, you just need to add a little bit more liquid. Yeah. Whether water or chicken broth, I would say about a half a cup. Put this in the Instant Pot, pour in your half a cup. Or you can go get in the slow cooker, slow cooker. Yeah. What would you say? I would say low five to six hours or high three to four hours. With chicken breasts, they tend to dry out if you cook them much more than six hours on low. Gotcha. Even from frozen. So keep an eye on it, because you don't want them to be all dry. You want them to be perfectly moist. Chicken thighs actually work better in the slow cooker because they have a little bit more fat content to them, so they're going to be a little bit juicier, a little more moist, so that's an option. So when this is all done cooking, you're going to take four teaspoons of corn starch and then six tablespoons of water and kind of just mix it together in a little bowl. Yep. Then you're going to dump it into either the slow cooker or Instant Pot, let it just like simmer there for about 10 minutes or so, just to thicken it up a little bit. That will give you a really good sauce to drizzle over everything. And then I like to serve this over rice. Yeah. I would say rice is the best. Me too. And then it is sesame chicken, so just go ahead and add a little bit of sesame seeds on top. Now we have this recipe down below in the description for you, so if you're looking for those instructions at the very end, that's where they're at. All right. Okay, whoo. Down on this one. Okay, let's move on. Okay, our next one that we are making is salsa verde chicken. Basically just green salsa. So started with chicken breasts. We just used frozen chicken breasts, but like in other recipes, you could also use chicken thighs. And we're gonna start with a whole jar. So like 16 ounces, 14 to 16 ounces of salsa verde. Green salsa. Depending on what you like, I got mild. I like mild a little bit more. I like the hotter ones because it does add heat and flavor. So whatever your kids need. Yep. And then we have two teaspoons or about four cloves of garlic. Yeah, so a lot of garlic. A lot of garlic in this one. You want that for the flavor. And then we're gonna add in just like a whole onion, half cup or half onion, depending on the size of your onion. Nice. Then half teaspoon of cumin. Just give it a little flavor there. I feel like too. I sometimes double that cumin just to add a little bit more flavor. So depending on what you like. Okay, and then we have one can, like a 14, 15 ounce can of chicken broth. We have a big box. So we're just gonna kind of eyeball it till we get about two cups in there. Nice. Sometimes we guesstimate is what we call it. So some people get like, is it two cups or is it a can? And so, I mean, it really doesn't matter that much. They're close enough that it's okay. All right. And then just one can of diced green chilies. I'm gonna leave the juice in there too. Yep. And like we've said in other recipes, these are mild. If you do want the heat, go ahead and add jalapenos because that's gonna add a lot of flavor too. Okay. And then salt and pepper to taste. Oh. Now, you can go ahead and you can season it after it comes out as well. Yeah. Another yummy thing to add to this is some chili powder. Oh, that would be yummy. It does kind of turn it a little bit more red and this is green chicken. It's green. It's green. There you go. Okay, so when you cook this in your instant pot, it's gonna take 25 minutes. Do you think you need more liquid? I think you might have enough with your, with the salsa and the chicken broth. Yep, yep. And then in the slow cooker, anywhere from let's say five to six, maybe seven hours on low. Yep, just kind of watch it so that chicken doesn't dry out. Exactly. If you like to cook in our slow cooker, always low. Yeah. Like we never do high. I don't do high. It doesn't shred as easily. And then we just serve this on like soft tortillas like a flour tortilla, corn tortilla. Put some salt on there, some cilantro. Just any fresh, yummy ingredients, avocado, sour cream. That's perfect. Yep. Perfect. Okay, then with this one, we have one more to go. So our last recipe is Swedish meatballs. Now, we didn't really have this growing up, but as I got older and adults, I tried it and I loved it in my head. My husband loves it, so. Do your kids love it? Kids love it too much. They love meatballs so much. Anything meatball. Right. Starting with our trusty bag of frozen meatballs. I love frozen meatball too, if they're pre-cooked. Right. If you're feeling super domestic, you could make your own. You can. Next, we're just gonna add two cups of beef broth on top. Now, this is a container, so we kind of just kind of measure it. It's about half the container, so. Yeah. Perfect. Our next ingredient is a can of cream of mushroom soup. Now, like we said before, if you want to make your own, you can, but I just like the convenience of using condensed soup already made in the can. There you go. Creamy. That's Swedish meatball. Yeah. Perfect gravy. Right. We're gonna have two tablespoons of steak sauce. You can use A1. I'm gonna eyeball it here. Yeah. That's how we roll. Totally. Just to add a little bit of kick. Exactly. Okay, so the next thing we've got is a half teaspoon of garlic powder. Nice. You wanna add that too? Yeah. And then a half teaspoon of paprika. Yep. Is that how you say it? I am using paprika. This is smoked paprika. Which I love. Me too. Me too. And then it calls for fresh mushrooms, but sometimes you forget ingredients. And so we're just gonna use two cans of just mushroom. So you can have Swedish meatballs without mushroom. I guess you can, but I love mushrooms. And these cook up just fine in the instant pot. So quicker. Can't tell the difference. Exactly. Yeah. And then we're just gonna add one onion on top of it. Good? Yeah. Looks good. Add a little bit of salt and pepper if you want. Again, you can add seasoning at the end. After. And then when this is all done cooking, you're gonna stir in one cup of sour cream. So we don't add it right now because if you were to cook it with the sour cream, it probably will curdle in the instant pot and so quicker. So save this until the end and then you'll stir in the one cup of sour cream. It makes it all creamy, all thick and delicious. So good. Yeah. And then we like to serve this on top of like egg noodles or mashed potatoes. So. Delicious. Whatever you want, it'll be so good. All right. Cooking. Now in the instant pot, you can cook this. If it's thawed, I would suggest thawing it 24 hours in advance so you have that liquid so it won't burn. We just don't want the burn notice. But meatballs only take seven minutes to cook. So you can literally cook this in seven minutes and have an amazing meal. Yep. Okay, so and then slow cooker, you can cook like 68 hours on low or about three to four on high. I feel like you can do meatballs on high and it will taste okay. Yeah, and that will be fine. Exactly. All right. I'm gonna mix this in just a little bit. Yeah. We're gonna take out eight meals, 60 minutes or less and that includes all the prepping, the chopping, just everything from start to finish that should take you 60 minutes. All right guys, now if you want more freezer meals, you can check out our favorite freezer meals right over there and we will see you next week. Bye.