I accidentally committed Once a Month Cooking over the weekend. I had no intention of doing it, but I found two really nice roasts, the kind with no fat or bones, marked down to $1.29 per pound so I borrowed a friend’s crock pot (you’ll recall that my crock pot exploded a while back) and cooked the roasts then shredded them. I wound up with seven meals worth of shredded beef to use in tacos, barbecue sandwiches and…?
I also found extra lean ground beef for $1.19 a pound. That’s even cheaper than the nasty budget-gristle-fatty kind. So I made Korean Barbecue burgers for dinner and figured if I was going to make enough for one meal, I might as well make enough for five meals. Hence I have 24 hamburger patties left in the freezer.
I cook enormous pots of beans whenever we run low, and currently I have 12 cups of cooked beans in the freezer. I also have seven meals worth of diced ham.
Last, I thawed and roasted the last of the marked down chicken breasts from my freezer, yielding six meals worth of diced and shredded chicken breasts.
So now I have a lot of prepped meat and beans on hand, but I’m feeling in a rut as far as meal planning goes. What would you make with shredded beef, beans, chicken breasts, ham, or a combination thereof? I’m serious, please give me suggestions!
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Here are a few ideas:
Chili
Enchiladas or Burritos
Soup
I like to use Allrecipes.com ingredient finder to come up with some recipes when I have ingredients on hand but no ideas!
I’m interested to see what you come up with!
taco salad
any pasta dish that calls for chicken or beef
Quiche
With the chicken or the ham (but it would probably be better with the chicken), you could make fried rice…. Just fry some cooked rice in butter or oil, add in onions, garlic, and other veggies (such as peas), and flavor with soy sauce and sesame oil.
You also could make homemade macaroni and cheese with ham in it. Using penne or other fancier noodles makes it seem a little more grown-up.
Forgot to mention that when I make fried rice, I scramble up a few eggs and add them in just before serving. They’re not really necessary protein-wise if you already have meat in there, but they’re cheap and a nice touch.
I have made a black bean chicken casserole several times. The original recipe came from a guest post on $5 dollar dinners. But of course I changed it to suit me and my pantry. Its one of my new favorites.
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/5Dinners/~3/hoxEaSs88UI/chicken-tortilla-chip-casserole-guest-post.html
That does look good! Thanks!
I have a black bean burrito recipe that I use, that I just posted on my blog! http://lifeontheroof.blogspot.com/
I like to keep prepared chicken on hand to throw into stir fry dishes. It saves you so much time since cooking the meat is usually the longest step. Here is a great Thai Noodle dish I came up with recently.
http://stayinghome-kim.blogspot.com/2010/04/recipe-roundup-416.html
Yum, I love Thai food!
Shredded meat makes me think, “Chalupa!”
Here’s a good recipe from “Fix It and Forget It” It calls for pork, but I think chicken or beef would be good. And since your meat and beans are already cooked, you’ll have to simmer them with the other ingredients to get the flavors to blend. Let me know if you try it!
Chalupa
(makes 12-16 servings)
3-lb pork roast
1lb dry pinto beans
2 garlic cloves, minced
1T ground cumin
1T dried oregano
2T chili powder
1T salt
4-oz can chopped green chilies
water
1. Cover beans with water and soak overnight in slow cooker
2. In the morning, remove beans (reserve soaking water), and put roast in bottom of cooker. Add remaining ingredients (including the beans and their soaking water) and more water if needed to cover all the ingredients.
3. Cook on hight 1 hour, and then on low for 6 hours. Remove meat and shred with two forks. Return meat to slow cooker.
4. Cook on high 1 more hour
5. Serve over a bed of lettuce. Top with grated cheese and chopped onions and tomatoes.
That sounds good and easy – I wouldn’t have thought of serving it over lettuce, but maybe that is what makes it a chalupa!
You could refry the beans to use with either the shredded beef or chicken in quesadillas, chalupas, or gorditas. You can also use the beans to make a really flavorful bean soup (with onion, tomato, cilantro, peppers … add the ham too). Laura at orgjunkie.com recently posted about her success with a cheesey ham and pasta bake. The chicken would also be good in a king ranch chicken casserole.
Yum, you guys are totally making me crave Mexican food! Good thing tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo and tacos are on the menu.
I’ll look up that recipe from orgjunkie, thanks!
What a lot of great finds! Great job on getting it all prepped and cooked – that will (hopefully!) make your meal prep that much easier.
With shredded chicken, we like to do BBQ chicken sandwiches, soft chicken tacos, or quesadillas (these are super easy for lunches). A little shredded chicken, some salsa or corn, a little shredded cheese – all between 2 tortillas, heated in a pan, and voila! Lunch.
As for the ham, I thought this looked good:
Or you could try a ham, broccoli and pasta bake (I know you like to cook extemporaneously 
). Most ham recipes seem to be for soup, so I’m drawing a blank. I do have a favorite recipe for ham and tomatoes with elbow macaroni (flavored with chili powder) that you can email me for if you’re interested. 
http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/food/recipes/jamie-olivers-italian-ham-and-spinach-tart/
I saved that recipe from a while back and still have to make it!
And of course, tacos or layered salads with the beans and/or beef or chicken.
Try http://www.supercook.com/
You can enter the ingredients you have on hand, and it will pull up some recipes for you. Pretty helpful site!
I have a couple of ideas that I did not already see mentioned.
homemade pizza
pizza casserole – with biscuit dough base (this is so yummy)
I am thinking about pizza because we are having it for dinner. We have homemade pizza every Tuesday night. The kids love it. Let me know if you need recipes.
Blessings
Honey
Honey, we do pizza every Friday night – it’s a big favorite here too! I have a puffy crust version and a flatter chewier crust version. I haven’t thought of doing a casserole version though, I may have to look that up!
We like to use shredded chicken for some hearty barley chicken soup. I just throw together a jar of salsa, chicken broth, water, black beans, corn, shredded, chicken, barley, chili powder and voila!