Slow Cooker Freezer Meal: Kalua Pork

I'm all about freezer meals these days. Here's an easy recipe for Slow Cooker Freezer Friendly Kalua Pork! See the rest of our Freezer Meals series here.


Last week, Ralphs had a 4-day sale that included pork shoulder for just $0.99 per pound. I prefer to buy the Simple Truth brand at Ralphs or from the meat counter at Whole Foods, but I just couldn't pass up the price! I bought two roasts that were around four pounds each, and turned them into Kalua Pork freezer meals. (This Kalua Pork was one of the very first recipes published here at CFO, way back in 2005!)

Traditionally in Hawaii, Kalua Pork comes from a whole pig roasted in a pit on the beach. My version is a lot easier for the home cook, and extremely versatile.

Once the pork is cooked, you can shred it and mix in some Mexican seasonings to make carnitas. I like to cool and dice leftovers, and make a hash with it, riffing off this recipe.

Kalua Pork is salty, and I use Ono brand Hawaiian seasoned salt (pictured below), which is available at Amazon. You can substitute kosher salt, but use 2 tablespoons since the grains are smaller, and add a teaspoon each of granulated garlic and onion for some extra flavor. Also, you can add liquid smoke for that authentic smokiness, but I avoid it since it's carcinogenic and the pork comes out delicious without it.


Slower Cooker Freezer-Friendly Kalua Pork

4lb pork shoulder (butt) roast
3 tablespoons seasoned Hawaiian salt
non-stick cooking spray

To freeze:

1. Pour the salt into a ziptop freezer bag.

2. Score the top and bottom of the roast in a one-inch criss-cross pattern to allow the salt to absorb better. (Helpful picture here.)

3. Add the roast to the ziptop bag and rotate it, massaging the salt into the roast for a few seconds. Label and date the bag and freeze.

To cook the roast:

1. Defrost the roast overnight in the refrigerator.

2. Spray the inside of the slow cooker crock with non-stick cooking spray (for easier clean up) and set to low.

3. Transfer the roast to the crock, fat side down. If a lot of the salt is left behind in the bag, pour it onto the roast. Cook on low for 8 to 10 hours.

If you want a semi-traditional Hawaiian meal, shred the pork and serve it over steamed rice, preferably with macaroni salad. Easy and delicious! I like to sautee some thinly sliced cabbage in butter, toss it with the shredded pork, and serve it over rice, like so:


Remember, leftovers freeze well too!

Freezer Cooking Example: Ground Turkey

Back in January, Ralphs had their Simple Truth brand of ground turkey on sale for $2.99 per pound, so I picked up five one-pound packages. I brought them home and turned them into the following freezer meals:


Slow Cooker Turkey Chili

When I make a turkey chili freezer meal, I start with this New Leaf Wellness Turkey Black Bean Chili recipe. But I don't like black beans in chili, so I substitute cans of rinsed kidney and pinto beans. I also leave out the corn, because it's not my family's favorite.

To freeze the chili, I put the liquid ingredients (tomatoes and sauce) in the bottom of a freezer ziptop bag, then the beans and spices, and finally the ground turkey. I use two freezer bags, and label and date the outside bag. Prepping the meal in a bag makes freezing it really easy, because you just have to lay the bag flat in the freezer.

To cook the chili, I pull the bag out of the freezer and let it sit in the fridge overnight. The next day, I dump the contents of the bag into my slow cooker and set it for low all day.

Brown Sugar Turkey Meatloaf

This is another adaptation of a New Leaf Wellness recipe. I substitute turkey for the ground beef, and actually mix the sugar-ketchup sauce mixture into the meat mixture. It makes the meatloaf super moist, and it's delicious.

When freezing a meatloaf, I usually just use a glass loaf pan, and cover it with a layer of plastic wrap and a layer of foil (as depicted below). I use a Sharpie to write the contents and date directly on the foil. You could use a foil loaf pan if you don't want to tie up a glass loaf pan in the freezer.

To bake the meatloaf, I defrost it overnight, then bake it the next day. I put the cold pan into the oven when I turn the oven on, instead of preheating it, to avoid shocking the glass. No guarantees, but it's worked for me so far.

Teriyaki Turkey Burgers

I completely improvised this recipe, adding onion powder, grated ginger, brown sugar, mirin and soy sauce to the ground turkey. My family actually really liked these burgers, so I'll have to make them again and record measurements.

You could defrost and pan fry the burgers, but I opted for the easy route and cooked the burgers in the oven from frozen. I just put them on a Silpat and baked them until they were done.


Instant Pot Turkey Bolognese

I've adapted my favorite bolognese recipe for the Instant Pot, which I love because of the saute function. I skipped the carrots and celery, used the saute function to brown the ground turkey before adding rest of the ingredients and cooking it on the Stew function for a few hours.

Once the sauce was done, I ladled it into mason jars, then labeled the lids with masking tape and a Sharpie. I really like the straight sided mason jars for freezing liquids - even if the center is still frozen, I can slide it out. The core doesn't get stuck the way it sometimes does in the more traditionally shaped mason jars.

Turkey Pesto Meatballs

I mostly followed this New Leaf Wellness recipe, but skipped the tomato sauce because my boys don't like tomato sauce except in baked pasta. These were a hit with my oldest, who liked them way more than the chicken meatballs I made a couple of months earlier.

What are your favorite freezer meals? Plus see the rest of this freezer meal series here.



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Freezer Meal Recipe: Enchiladas

This recipe is part of our Freezer Meals series, in which I'm sharing how freezer cooking has helped me save time, money, and sanity.

One of the easiest and fastest freezer meals I know how to make is enchiladas. It's a fabulous way to use up leftover taco meat, a roast, or rotisserie chicken. Quantities listed are not precise - that's one of the beauties of this meal. You can use what you have on hand. If you don't have Mexican blend cheese, use shredded cheddar or mozzarella. No refried beans? Mash up some pinto or black beans, or skip them altogether. Just a little bit of meat? Use more beans.


As you can see, I made two smaller pans of enchiladas, but you could make one large pan instead. (I can sense that day coming here, as my older son now frequently eats more than his father at dinner.)

Here's my workspace:

Start by spreading the beans on a tortilla (I work on a cutting board because I can be messy):

Top with meat and cheese:

Roll up, put in the pan seam side down, and top with enchilada sauce and more cheese - I made one with red sauce and one with green sauce:

Cover with plastic wrap and foil, label, and freeze!

To eat the enchiladas, defrost overnight in the fridge, then bake at 350 degrees until bubbling at the edges - about 45 minutes to an hour. You can cover with foil while baking to speed the cooking process up, and remove it for the last 15 minutes to melt the cheese on top.

Freezer-Friendly Enchiladas

Makes two 4-serving pans.

Nonstick cooking spray
8 8-10 inch tortillas
1 cup of refried beans
1-2 cups of cooked ground or shredded meat
3-4 cups of shredded Mexican blend cheese
2 cups of enchilada sauce (we love Frontera brand)

1. Spray two 8x8 and/or 11x7 baking dishes with nonstick cooking spray. Spread 1/4 cup of enchilada sauce on the bottom of each dish.

2. On each tortilla, spread 2 tablespoons of refried beans. Top with 2-4 tablespoons of meat and 2-4 tablespoons of cheese. Roll each tortilla up and place seam-side down in baking dishes.

3. Spread remaining enchilada sauce over the tortillas (about 3/4 cup per dish; use more if you like your enchiladas on the saucy/soupy side). Top with remaining cheese (about 1/2 cup per dish).

4. Cover each dish with plastic wrap, then again with aluminum foil. Label and date the dish (I write directly on the foil with a Sharpie). Freeze for up to 3 months.

5. To cook, defrost the pan in the fridge overnight. Leave out for an hour so pan is not too cold when you put it in the preheated oven. Remove foil and plastic wrap. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes, or until bubbling. Serve with guacamole and sour cream, if desired.

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What Meals Freeze Well?

One of the best things about freezer meals is that you don't need to learn any new recipes - many of your family favorites will freeze well. This means you'll be able to eat them more often, and with less time spent in the kitchen!


In general, casseroles, soup, stews, and meat freeze well. This includes meals like lasagna or any baked pasta - one of the first freezer meals I learned to make was these Cooking Light stuffed shells. Pasta sauce also freezes well, like my favorite bolognese recipe.

A super easy way to make a freezer meal is to put a roast in a zip-top bag (don't forget to label it!), top with your usual seasonings (salt, pepper, garlic, chopped onion or onion powder, etc.), and then freeze. When you want to cook the roast, defrost the contents, dump them into a slow cooker, add your favorite cooking liquid, and cook until tender. For example, I've done this with my Soy Onion Shredded Beef recipe - I put everything but the water in a gallon-size zip-top bag and freeze until I'm ready to cook it. Add a salad or roasted vegetable for a complete meal.

I know it's not a revelation, but uncooked meat freezes very well. You can just toss the meat into the freezer for later, but you'll definitely thank yourself if you turn that ground beef into meatloaf or burgers first. For freezer meal purposes, it's best to do something to the meat speed up your cooking process, whether it's dicing chicken thighs for soup or cutting chicken breast into nuggets. Getting that one step done before freezing the meat can be the difference between "That's too much work so I don't feel like cooking tonight" and "All right, that won't take very long." (Why yes, that is the voice of experience.)

Many frugal cooks like to brown their ground meat and freeze it in one-pound portions so it's ready to go for tacos, etc. but I personally prefer not to do this because I don't like the texture of the defrosted cooked meat unless I have a specific purpose for it, where the texture isn't going to bother me, like in enchiladas. So I do keep one or two pounds of packaged ground beef in the freezer.

As mentioned already, soups and stews freeze well, but if you're freezing the prepped ingredients rather than a cooked soup or stew, I recommend leaving out the liquid (chicken stock, water, etc.) just to save space in the freezer. For example, if you're prepping Crockpot Taco Soup, leave out the beef broth when freezing and add it to the slow cooker on cooking day.

Meals that are mostly dairy don't freeze well because the dairy can separate and change the texture of the meal. But if you have a meal that has dairy added at the end, freeze everything else, and then add the dairy before you serve it.

Casseroles usually freeze great, although I usually throw them together on the day I'm serving them, using whatever I cobble together from the freezer. That's the beauty of freezer cooking - it's infinitely adaptable to how you like to do things, but as long as you use what's in the freezer, you'll save money and usually time too.

What are your favorite meals to freeze?

Getting Started with Freezer Cooking

You don't need a lot to get started with freezer cooking. In this latest installment in our new freezer meals series, I'll share some ways to quickly build up your stash of freezer meals, as well as supplies that you might find handy. (Note: This post contains some affiliate links that help support this site at no additional cost to you. Thank you for using them! You can read CFO's full disclosure here.)

How to Build a Stockpile of Freezer Meals

The easiest, fastest way to put some meals away in the freezer is to double or triple what you're already making. For example, I find assembling lasagna time-consuming and laborious, so I never make one at a time. I always make at least two, and if I have enough ingredients and pans, I'll make three. I'll bake one to eat right away, and freeze the other(s).

Another easy way to add to your freezer stash is to turn leftovers into a new meal, such as enchiladas. I always have some meat leftover when I make beef or chicken tacos, so I pull out some frozen tortillas, a can of refried beans, a pouch of enchilada sauce (this brand is our favorite), and some shredded cheese - all ingredients I almost always have on hand - and make a pan of enchiladas that I freeze for a future meal. I've heard some people have a "catch-all" container for leftovers in their freezer and when it's full, they make a pot of soup with the contents.

One way of acquiring meals that requires a little more work and planning, but also can be lots of fun, is to do a meal swap with friends. Everyone makes enough meals for everyone else to take home, so if there are five of you, you each get four meals plus the one you made yourself. I have been wanting to do this for a while now, and this series has inspired me to finally corral my friends into it!

Finally, the way I most often stockpile meals is a freezer meal prep session that lasts anywhere from a half hour to three hours, depending on what I'm making. This usually happens when I've bought a lot of meat at once, either from Costco or discounted at Ralphs or Target. For instance, I recently picked up four pounds of ground turkey at a great price, and made a meatloaf, bolognese sauce, turkey burgers, and chili, all of which went into the freezer. It's a little more time-consuming than the other ways discussed, but still faster than making each meal separately, since I'm chopping, cooking, and so on, all in one go.

Supplies to Help Make Freezer Meals

You don't need anything fancy to make freezer meals, but you do need some basic supplies so you can freeze the meals. Here are some things that will make it easy:

• Baking pans - I have multiple ceramic and glass baking pans, but if that's too much of an investment for you, you could always go with foil pans. If you opt for foil, check out how Andrea Dekker stacks her pans in the freezer.


• Plastic wrap - Stretch-tite is apparently the premier brand, and I get the giant rolls at Costco, which last me many months, if not a year or two. Good plastic wrap is important to prevent freezer burn and properly preserve your meals.


• Aluminum foil - Foil is also important for properly storing your meals in the freezer. Heavy duty foil is nice (I order the large roll from Amazon), but not a requirement. FYI, I cover my pans with one layer of plastic wrap, then with a layer of foil.


• Zip top bags - I'm not picky about brands, although I would go with name-brand bags since they tend to be thicker and therefore less likely to tear. I've actually been really impressed with the quality of the bags from IKEA.


• Food storage bag holders - These are absolutely not a requirement but I have this Joakri set and love them. If you're freezing meals in zip top bags, the holders will definitely make your life easier.


• Mason jars - These are great if you're freezing liquids, like soup, pasta sauce, or milk that's about to go bad. I highly recommend straight-sided jars like these because the liquid will slide out more easily if it's still partially frozen.


• Sharpie - You need a good marker to write on the plastic bag, foil or container. Always list the contents and the date. You'd be surprised how hard it is to remember what something is after a month!


• Masking tape - I like to put a piece of masking tape on my containers to write on so I don't write directly on the container itself. Masking tape always comes right off, and lasts forever. I've been doing this since I started making baby food almost 13 years ago, and I'm only on roll #2!

What have I forgotten, and what tips do you have for easily adding to your freezer meal stash?

Why I LOVE Freezer Meals (New Series)

A couple of years ago, I really began to understand freezer cooking, and it's dramatically changed my life. Freezer meals help me save time, money, and most especially, stress. So I want to show you how to incorporate freezer meals into your life with a new series of posts that will run every other week. I'll share recipes, techniques, and tips for making freezer meals a natural part of your life.


To start the series, I wanted to give a little background, because it's not like freezer meals are a new concept. Unfortunately for me, it got tangled up with the concept of once-a-month cooking, which I'd learned about first and never really worked for me. I think that's why it took me so long to figure out why freezer cooking is so wonderful.

Here's the difference: The idea behind once-a-month cooking is that you cook just once a month, freeze a bunch of meals, and then all you have to do for the month is defrost, heat up, and eat. By contrast, the idea behind freezer meals (at least as I use the term) is to do the prep work ahead of time, but not necessarily the cooking.

I really wanted to love once-a-month cooking but it never felt like a good fit. The food often didn't taste great because the meals just weren't the same once they had been frozen, a lot of the recommended meals were ones my family and I didn't like, and it may have required cooking only once a month, but that was one session that required a huge amount of planning and a giant chunk of time (like all day).

It was Kelly at New Leaf Wellness and her method of freezing slow cooker meals before cooking them that transformed my relationship with freezer meals.

For a while, I froze meals according to Kelly's recipes, but after a while, I got the hang of converting meals into freezer meals, and freezing parts of meals.

Now, I buy meat when there's a sale - I'm always looking for discount stickers at Target and Ralphs. Usually, the meat is discounted because it's the sell-by date. So later that day, I turn the meat into a freezer meal: ground meat becomes a meatloaf or chili, chicken thighs get cut up and marinated in a miso paste, chicken breasts get cut into bite size pieces to be breaded on the night I'm cooking them, etc.

Some meals are just assembled, ready to be baked. Some meals get dumped into a slow cooker and left alone all day. Some "meals" are just components that need to be assembled and cooked, requiring more work on my part - but much less work than if I had to do everything at once.

Because I'm cooking the food for the first time when it comes out of the freezer, it tastes fresh. I can make the meals when I have time and/or find a great sale and want to stock up on an ingredient like meat. Most of my family's favorite meals can be adapted to the freezer in some way, whether it's freezing the entire meal ahead of time or freezing components to speed things along.

Freezer meals also make meal planning super easy, because most of the meals are already made - I don't have to worry about what's on sale or whether I have to buy ingredients. Many of the meals can be made ahead of time so they work for my busy schedule. For example, I plan slow cooker meals for the nights the boys have practice, and the food needs to be ready the moment we walk in the door. Most nights, I cook enough for leftovers so my husband can brown bag a lunch the next day. Since he doesn't like taking messy foods like soup or pasta with tomato sauce, I save those meals for the weekends.

I hope I've converted you and made you as excited about freezer meals as I am! Stay tuned for more in this series, and let me know if you have any questions or if there's something specific you'd like to see addressed in an upcoming post.