A slow cooker is an incredibly valuable tool throughout the year. But it really shines in the winter, when there are few things nicer than coming home after a cold day to find a warm meal already made for you and the house filled with the aromas of freshly made food. There are few meals that are easier to make in the slow cooker than soups. Most slow cooker soups simply involve dumping ingredients in the slow cooker, adding water and turning it on low for several hours. That’s something you can do right before you leave for work, so that you come home to a delicious soup or stew.
Eating at home instead of dining out is also a financially savvy move. Even if you cook meals with fairly expensive ingredients, you’ll spend less than you would ordering a similar dish from a restaurant. If you cook something with inexpensive ingredients, you’ll spend far less than a dollar per meal per person.
[See: 20 Tips for Saving Money at the Grocery Store.]
Here are four great slow cooker soup recipes. All of them have the simplest of instructions: Put the listed ingredients in the slow cooker in the morning before you leave for work, turn it to “low” and come home to a great meal after work. If you’re gone from the house for more than 10 hours during that stretch, consider using a timer, which is built into many slow cookers, so that the slow cooker automatically turns on and cooks the soup on low for the last eight hours before you arrive home.
White chicken chili tastes great and is simple to make. Put 1 1/2 pounds of boneless skinless chicken straight into the slow cooker (it will cook during the day), then add two cans of great northern beans, one can of white corn, a packet of taco seasoning, a can of chopped green chiles and three cups of vegetable stock on top of the meat. Leave it on low all day. When you get home, use forks to shred the meat and add half a cup of heavy cream for the last half hour of cooking. Serve with your favorite chili toppings (tortilla chips are recommended).
Corn chowder is about as simple as can be — it just involves adding ingredients to the slow cooker in the morning. Add three cups of milk, three cans of corn (or three and a half cups of frozen corn), two cans of chopped green chiles, two cups of shredded potatoes or hash browns (any frozen kind will do), two cups of cubed cooked ham (optional), one cup of chopped onion (frozen will do), two tablespoons of butter and a dash of hot sauce to the slow cooker. Turn it on low. That’s all you need to do to make an amazing corn chowder.
[See: 10 Money Leaks to Shut Down Now.]
Texas-style chili is a delicious, spicy staple that will fill you up right. Just take 2 1/2 pounds of beef chuck, cut into cubes, and brown them in a skillet over medium-high heat for five minutes, tossing them regularly. You can do this the night before and put it in the fridge. Before you wash that skillet, take a chopped onion (you can buy chopped onions in the freezer section of the store) and put it into that same skillet over medium heat for five minutes, stirring regularly (you can also put this in the fridge if you want to cook it the night before). Add about one-half cup of water to the skillet when you remove the onions to get the delicious stuff out of the skillet. Add that to the onions you removed. Put the cooked beef chuck, the onion, two tablespoons of brown sugar, half a tablespoon of salt, four cloves of garlic (or the equivalent amount of garlic powder), a tablespoon of ground cumin, a can (14 ounces) of diced tomatoes, two small cans of chopped green chiles, two-thirds cup of chili powder and a cup of beef stock or water in the slow cooker. Stir it all together and turn it on low for eight hours. The recipe requires just 10 minutes of prep work the night before, then you can just dump everything in the slow cooker in the morning.
[See: How to Live on $13,000 a Year.]
Beef stew is amazingly fragrant and delicious. Few things smell better than a simmering pot of beef stew. It just requires you to cook two pounds of stew meat in a skillet the night before over high heat for two or three minutes until it’s browned. In the morning, add the stew meat, a pound of baby red potatoes chopped into quarters, three carrots chopped into discs, a diced onion (frozen diced onion is great here), three cloves of garlic (or the equivalent garlic powder), three cups of beef stock or beef broth, three tablespoons of tomato paste, 1 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce (optional) and a teaspoon each of dried thyme, dried rosemary and paprika. Stir it all together and cook it on low all day for a delicious meal.
These recipes will cost you little at the grocery store, then magically fill your kitchen with a wonderful aroma when arrive home after a day of work. You can’t get a better frugal bargain than that.
More from U.S. News
10 Ways to Cut Your Costs This Week
10 Foolproof Ways to Reach Your Money Goals
8 Purchases That Can Save You Hundreds or Thousands of Dollars
4 Cheap and Tasty Slow Cooker Soups for Winter originally appeared on usnews.com
