Category Archives: crock pot cooking

Crock Pot Mexican Meatloaf

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When I was a kid, the idea of meatloaf was just NOT remotely appetizing. Ew. Loaf. Really? Ew.

It wasn’t until I hooked up with dh that he made a meatloaf that I was willing to try. And then I realized something: I like meatloaf! (It was like that moment at the end of “Green Eggs and Ham”, when Sam-I-Am FINALLY gets through to his beleaguered foil.)

So, of course, my thought is: can we do this in a crock pot? OF COURSE WE CAN. We’ve made a recipe a few times, but it’s a PAIN to clean up. Even lifting the thing out of the crock can be a complete nightmare. In the prior cases, we devised a pair of criss-crossing long foil strips to make a partial basket to lift it out of the bottom of the crock. Of course, seeing as how the bottom of the meatloaf often has the least moisture, it inevitably sticks to the bottom of the crock (no matter how much non-stick spray you use), and even some of the foil stays with it! Cleaning the crock, afterwards, is then a nightmare…which means that this dish doesn’t get made nearly as often as I’d like to eat it.

Cue the entrance of the “where have you been all my (crockpotting) life?!” technology: the slow cooker liner. As I mentioned in a prior post, dh bought me a package of these for Christmukkah. I figured this was a perfect chance to try one out, and I was EVER SO RIGHT. The moisture content was completely unaffected, the quality of the dish was completely unaffected, but our quality of life from not having to scrub a crock for 20 minutes was VASTLY IMPROVED. Two very happy thumbs up from each of us!

And, of course, the meatloaf was tasty. Even better – it had more flavor with the mods I made (which are already included below), to the point where I didn’t add any ketchup to my plate. Double score!

Now, the one drawback remaining to this dish is the prep time. I won’t sugarcoat it for you – this is a good 30-35mins of prep. There are also a couple of ways to make the meatloaf extractable from the crock pot, and the steps noted below are a bit lengthier than usual, to accommodate the two methods we’ve used successfully.

So, as shown in the prior post where I talk about the liners, I did a multi-step prep over time. I made the meatloaf in one mixing bowl, then put the liner into a second (smaller) mixing bowl. (see below)

Mexican Meatloaf, pre-crock

Meatloaf in liner, in the smaller mixing bowl, ready to go into the fridge

I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and used a rubber band to keep it all in place, then it went into the fridge. I made the meatloaf the night before I was planning to put it into the crock pot because – let’s face it, there’s just not enough time in the morning to get US out the door with the kids, so adding 30 minutes of crock pot prep time to the morning would’ve been a disaster. My hope was that I could just lift the liner out of the bowl, place it in the crock, cover it and GO.

The answer was: YES. This worked out perfectly. In the morning, I removed the mixing bowl from the fridge, removed the plastic wrap and just lifted the liner from the bowl and placed it into the crock.

As you can see in the next picture, the liner had excess dangling outside the crock (this is what the manufacturer recommends you do), and then I was able to put the lid on it and just get the crock pot going.

Mexican Meatloaf ready to cook

Mexican Meatloaf, in the crock and ready to cook

The joy of being able to have a fuss-free morning (at least for the crock pot), was brilliant. Even better, clean-up was a breeze, since the only part of the crock pot that needed any cleaning was the lid, and that was mostly just affected by condensation. EASY. And, better still: TASTY.

Crock Pot Mexican Meatloaf

What's Spanish for NOM?

Prep time: 30-35 mins

Cooking time: 10-11hrs on LOW, plus 15 mins on HIGH

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

For the meatloaf:

2 lbs ground turkey

4-1/2 cups Fritos regular corn chips

6 oz shredded cheddar cheese

3/4 cup salsa

2 eggs

1/4 cup (1 pkg) low-sodium taco seasoning

For the glaze:

3/4 cup ketchup

3 Tb brown sugar

1/2 Tb dried mustard

Make it Happen

1. Crush the corn chips – you should have about 2 cups of corn chips once the crushing is done.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the turkey, corn chips, cheese, salsa and taco seasoning. Beat the eggs and add to the mixture; combine by hand until you have a fairly well packed mixture.

3. a) If putting in a liner, place the liner into a 4qt round crock and transfer the mixture to the crock pot base. (If making this the night before, place the liner into a smaller mixing bowl and transfer the mixture there, then cover it before placing it in the fridge. DO NOT put the crock into the fridge overnight; it could crack during heating! This is why I recommend using a mixing bowl if you want to do the prep the night before.)

b) If NOT using a liner, I recommend using foil strips to give yourself a way to get the meatloaf out. Liberally coat the inside of the crock with non-stick cooking spray. Get two long lengths of foil (about 2 ft apiece). Fold each lengthwise until you have two foil strips about 2 in wide x 2 ft long. Place them in the crock in an “X” pattern, so that they are perpendicular, with some excess hanging over the top of the crock. This will make a bed (with straps!) for the meatloaf. Then, place the meatloaf in the crock.

4. When the meatloaf is in the crock, cover and cook on LOW for 10-11 hrs.

5. When the cook time is over, add the glaze ingredients to a small bowl or measuring cup and stir to combine.

6. Pour the glaze on top of the meatloaf and then re-cover the crock. Cook on HIGH for 15 minutes.

7. When this 15 minutes is up, remove the meatloaf from the crock and place on a cutting board or platter.

NOTE IF USING A LINER: a small amount of grease may have accumulated in the liner and this will end up on your cutting board/platter. Use a bulb baster to siphon this out before starting to remove the meatloaf from the liner.

Slow cooker liners: to line or not to line?

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I think it was an impulse buy on dh’s part, when he was at Bed, Bath & Beyond prior to Christmas. He found a package of slow cooker liners and, knowing my luuuurrve of the crock pot, decided to buy me some. A few weeks later, now that the crock pot is up and humming a few times a week, I decided to bust one out and see how they work.

Many recipes don’t need a liner – you can clean up most crocks easily enough, especially if you sprayed them with Pam or some other non-stick cooking spray prior to loading them up. It’s the recipes where things cake or harden or crust on bottom or the sides where you feel like you’re going to give yourself a repetitive stress injury (RSI) trying to clean the crock after dinner. Inspired to make a Mexican Meatloaf, I thought this was a perfect time to try out the liner. After all, meatloaf in the crock pot is tasty, but it can be a complete PAIN to clean up. More than once, the crock has had to soak for quite a while before we can manage to get it clean.

Opening up the package, I was disturbed to find that the liner was wider than it was tall. While I know that these liners were designed to fit all crock pots – oval or round – this was a dish to go into our round 4qt crock pot, and I was worried that the liner wouldn’t reach all the way to the top. What then?

 

Meatloaf pre-crock

Mexican Meatloaf - in the liner but not yet moved to the crock

 

Turns out, my fears were unfounded – there was plenty of excess to slop over the top. Better still, moving the crock to the stove allowed me to move the entire liner to the cutting board in one quick trip. The amount of moisture in the liner was what I would’ve expected, and (as I’ll discuss when I post the recipe), there was ZERO departure from the usual moisture level by using the liner – meaning the liner had no impact on the quality of the outcome.

 

Meatloaf in crock

Mexican meatloaf, in liner, with plenty of excess liner to hang out of the 4qt round crock

 

And, the icing on this cake was finding that my crock was BONE DRY when I removed the bag. There was ZERO leakage. Of course, removing the meatloaf from the bag wasn’t a completely easy task; it’s not like you can flip over a meatloaf when there’s glaze on top and a small amount of grease in the bag. I siphoned the (really incredibly small) amount of grease that accumulated in the bag with a bulb baster and then trimmed the bag with kitchen shears. I was then able to use a thick pancake turner to remove the meatloaf. Sure, some of the meatloaf stayed with the bag – but no more so than we’d lose to the bottom of the crock pot during a non-lined cooking…and this time, there was no scrubbing involved!

 

Crock post-liner

The 4qt round crock, just after the liner was removed - DRY AS A BONE!

 

Now, I know that these things aren’t cheap. From what I’ve heard, it sounds like they typically run about $1 per liner. And, as I mentioned above, in many cases, they’re just not necessary. Still, if you have a hard-to-clean dish, there’s no reason NOT to use one unless you have an anti-plastic/environmental concern (at which point you could also argue about the extra water and detergent that are required to scrub off the inside of the crock…at least a break-even situation). I wouldn’t recommend them for everyday crock pot action, since I think that’s overkill, but if you have an RSI or if you have one of those tough dishes, no need to struggle now that technology has been invented to solve the problem for you.

As someone with tendonitis in both arms (from typing), washing dishes for ages and vigorous scrubbing can be really hard on my hands and arms. So, for the cases where I know these will come in handy, I’ll definitely use them. I highly recommend picking up even a small package and giving them a try – for the time-crunched, every little bit helps!

Crock Pot Sour Cream Salsa Chicken

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I wasn’t expecting this to be the week of “things that include salsa and taco seasoning”, but so be it. Sometimes, you just get lucky.

This particular dish is a favorite of ours because it’s stupid-easy to make and can be eaten in a variety of ways. You can shred the chicken – or not. You can eat it on a tortilla (or flatbread) with cheese and lettuce, on bok choi with cheese, on rice…so many ways to make it work. It’s also yummy any time of year – so it’s not something that you feel is a fall or winter-only dish. Versatile, easy & yummy…those are definitely perfect characteristics of a great crock pot dish, in my opinion. Note: even though I list the cooking time as 6-8 hours, this one can definitely go all day. We routinely let it go for 11 hours and it’s perfectly fine!

One other thing of note to parents of wee ones: we tend to serve the chicken and sauce separately, to keep the kiddos happy. It’s up to you how you want to serve it, but you may find that having them separate at the dinner table cuts down on some of the “I don’t want SAUCE!” complaints that we get from the little ones. In their defense, though, I would like to point out that it was dd’s suggestion to put it on bok choi this time out. Even though she didn’t eat all of her leaf tonight, the fact that she’d even suggest it means that the CSA experiment has already borne some seriously good fruit. Yeay!!

 

Crock Pot Sour Cream Salsa Chicken

Chicken, sauce, cheese & bok choi...OM NOM NOM

 

Prep Time: 5 mins

Cooking Time: 6-8hrs on LOW

Serves: 4

 

Ingredients

2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts (1-1/4 to 1-1/2lbs total)

16 oz jar salsa

1 pkg (1/4 cup) low-sodium taco seasoning

2 Tb cornstarch

3 Tb water

1/2 cup sour cream

Optional toppings: shredded cheese, shredded lettuce

 

Make it Happen

1. Coat the inside of a 4qt crock pot with non-stick spray.

2. In a bowl, stir to combine salsa and taco seasoning. Spread a small amount of the mixture on the bottom of the crock pot, to create a small liquid bed for the chicken.

3. Place the chicken breasts in the crock pot. Pour the remaining salsa/taco seasoning mixture on top of the chicken evenly, so that the breasts are fully covered.

4. Cover and cook on LOW for 6-8 hrs (or up to 11 hrs, really, based on my experience).

5. Just before serving, remove the chicken breasts from the crock pot. If you plan to shred them, now’s a good time. Otherwise, just place them on a plate or in a serving bowl.

6. Mix the cornstarch and water in a small bowl and add to the salsa mixture in the crock pot; stir to combine.

7. Add the sour cream to the crock pot; stir to combine.

8. Either spoon the sauce over the chicken or place it in some other serving dish (we use a gravy boat). Serve the chicken and sauce with your choice of toppings (such as shredded cheese and lettuce) on your choice of bed/delivery vehicle (bok choi, soft tortilla, flatbread, rice, etc.).