$1.25 Crock Pot Turmeric Shredded Chicken
Looking for a way to make strides towards your health and financial goals at the same time? Work week meal prepping is a great place to start! Combine this healthy turmeric shredded chicken recipe with frozen vegetables and olive oil and in 30 minutes you’ll have all your lunches for the next 2 work weeks covered. Free your mind to think about more important problems than what you’re going to eat for lunch today!
Crock Pot Turmeric Shredded Chicken Recipe
$1.25 Crock Pot Turmeric Shredded Chicken
Equipment
- 6 quart crock pot
- Two forks
- 5-10 containers for meal prep lunches
Ingredients
- ~3 lbs preservative-free boneless chicken breast
- 1 cup chicken broth (Better than Bouillon Organic Roasted Chicken base works great!)
- 2 tbsp turmeric
- 3 tsp salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tbsp your choice of spice such as sweet paprika, chili powder, or sage (optional)
Instructions
- Remove chicken breast from package and place into crock pot.
- Add turmeric, salt, pepper and any other spices you want.
- Add the cup of chicken broth and enough water to cover about 2/3 of the chicken.
- Set crock pot to “low” and cook for 8 hours. If you’re in a hurry, set crock pot on “high” and cook for 5 hours.
- Shred with two forks, scoop into your reusable lunch containers and enjoy all week!
Notes
Tips:
Ingredient: You don’t have to make this recipe with turmeric, I just like that spice a lot. Use any combination of spices that sounds good to you. Roughly, 3 TBSPs in total should do the trick!
Step 2 – There has been plenty of talk lately about turmeric being a miraculous “superfood.” Many of these benefits are claimed but not proven – sort of like the hype around apple cider vinegar. However, I have yet to see any articles about the negative effects of turmeric and apple cider vinegar, so to error on the side of caution and the acquisition of superhuman abilities, I eat and drink plenty of both!
The important compound in turmeric is called curcumin (feel free to do your homework on its plethora of potential health benefits!). In order to prevent your body from breaking down curcumin, it is recommended you eat it with piperine, a compound found in black pepper. Curcumin is also fat soluble, meaning that your body will digest more of it when eaten with a meal that contains fat or oil. To solve this problem, I recommend adding a teaspoon or two of olive oil atop your meal-prepped lunch before closing the lid.
To sum up: Black pepper keeps the potentially great turmeric compounds available for your gut and olive oil helps your body absorb those compounds. Got it? Good!
Step 3 – Once you put the lid on, your crock pot is a closed system so you don’t have to worry about water evaporating. Roughly 2/3 coverage of the chicken is all you need.
This is an example of how the crock pot looks before I turn it on:
Step 4 – I recommend taking the 5 minutes to prep and turn on the crock pot after breakfast on Sunday morning so that it is finished and ready to be moved into reusable containers around dinnertime!
Cost:
- 3 lb of preservative-free boneless chicken breast ~ $15
- 1 cup of chicken broth ~ $0.25
- 2 TBSP of turmeric ~ $0.25
- 3 tsp salt ~ negligible
- 1 tsp black pepper ~ negligible
Total Cost per crock pot ~ $15.50
Cost per serving (~12 servings) ~ $1.25
Conclusion:
I could not be more excited to write the meal prepping section and this is the perfect recipe to headline it! Not only is it straightforward to make, it’s made with healthy ingredients at a cost that will help any budget. Paired with $1.50 worth of frozen, microwaveable vegetables and a little olive oil, this 5-minute fix-it-and-forget-it recipe leads to a less than $3 lunch that will help you reach your health goals while saving you money every day. Take the thought out of your weekday meals, save some extra money and spend more time doing the activities you care about (like building a website…)
If you’re looking to keep building up your meal prep game, check out these posts:
As always, make informed food decisions. Know your ingredients, know your costs!
