My grandmother (had 10 kids!) taught me that you can chop up onions and peppers and freeze them (great too instead of tossing out unused ones).
The peppers cannot be washed 1st though, just chop and freeze. Then wash when you go to use them. This has helped a lot on busy nights.

I will do a lot of prep before hand. I haven't had success with doing whole freezer meals but when I buy the big ground beef packages at Costco, I will brown it all at once and freeze into 1 lb ziplocs and then you can toss it all in. I do the same with onions.
My favorite crock pot soup right now is this, and it really is just tossing stuff in.
http://pearls-handcuffs-happyhour.blogspot.com/2011/03/outback-aint-got-nothin-on-me.html

Anonymous wrote:Put a meat (beef, chicken, pork, doesn't matter) ...even still frozen in the crockpot, cover with some sort of sauce (tomato, creamy soup, bbq, salsa, whatever. Then cook on low all day. .

Food safety experts do NOT recommend putting large pieces of frozen meat (roasts, whole chickens, etc.) in the slow cooker. The meat defrosts too slowly and at too high a temperature during the slow cook process, which can encourage bacterial growth in the meat. Either defrost in the fridge overnight or defrost in the microwave.

On another note, here's my favorites slow cooker cookbook. A lot of the recipes involve more prep, but they also have a bunch of easy prep recipes.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933615699?ie=UTF8&force-full-site=1

I second using it on the weekends or the night before you want to eat the meal. But, there are several meals that only take 10-15 minutes of prep time and then you just cook it. We do a lot of slow cooking in the dutch oven and most meals don't take more than 4 hours, so you can do it the night before or on the weekends.

A Year of Slow Cooking blog has been a good resource for me.

I am new to the crockpot, just bought one a couple weeks ago! We've used it to make chili twice since then - got everything ready the night before while we were cooking dinner anyway, put it in fridge, and then into the crockpot the next morning set on low all day. Last night, for example, we made pasta - so while the water was coming up to a boil and then pasta cooking, we got everything prepped and into the crockpot for tonight. Love it!

I agree that the chopping and the browning is worth it in terms of flavor. To save time, I do all the prep work the night before, throw it in a bowl in the fridge, and dump it in the crock pot on my way out the door in the morning. I see the crock pot both as a way to save cooking time, but also a way to shift active cooking time from right before dinner to the morning or the night before, when there's less pressure.

That said, there are a lot of "open and dump" recipes out there -- allrecipes.com is a good resource for those. But those tend to use a lot of highly-processed, high sodium food, like cream of mushroom soup, etc. Nothing wrong with that per se, but we don't really like the taste, so we stick with the other recipes.

I load the crock pot and put the crock in the fridge the night before. In the morning I pull it out of he fridge and put in the receptacle and turn it on.

To make it easier, you can buy already chopped onions and other veggies. You can even buy frozen ones. Then toss in some fresh herbs and BBQ sauce or some type of low sodium broth and you've got a meal. I do this often with pork chops or a whole chicken that's cut up. And then if I have time, when I get in, I may brown it in the oven and add some other seasonings, serve over rice or noodles.

Skip all pre-cooking steps, and do all cutting the night before.

You can always do those steps the night before and just put everything together in the crockpot in the morning. We've tried skipping browning the meats etc and our family noticed the difference and decided it was worth the extra steps. If you don't have time at night then I'll either get up a little earlier or do something ahead and freeze. Just defrost and and re-heat when you want to eat it.

Put a meat (beef, chicken, pork, doesn't matter) ...even still frozen in the crockpot, cover with some sort of sauce (tomato, creamy soup, bbq, salsa, whatever. Then cook on low all day. .

We actually make the crockpot recipes on the weekend and freeze or fridgerate for just that reason. Personally the food takes much better if you are chopping, saute etc. So I make something on Saturday and Sunday and then re-heat it in the oven when I get home. By the time its warm, I have the sides ready to go and dinners is on the table in 30 minutes. You do have to remember to de-frost if frozen but the recipes that just tossed in a can of this or that are higher in sodium and personally we didn't like as much.

I actually skip the whole browning the meat part, yes it's lazy of me but my family stil eats it so whatever.
I literally dump baby carrots (whole), 1 chopped onion, a can of whole peeled tomatoes, 4 teaspoons Worcestershire, and the meat in the crock pot and set it on low for the day. Quick pot roast
Or I dump 4-6 pork chops (bone in) and I jar BBQ sauce and 1/2 cup water, set it on low for the day
I'll post a few more today but allrecipes.com is good for quick crock pot meals, and I just make my own shortcuts. Whatever I make I just serve over egg noodles or trade joes has frozen rice packs that you microwave for 3 minutes

I always see people mentioning that they do easy weeknight dinners by just throwing something in the crockpot in the morning. I love my crockpot, but every recipe I use involves lots of chopping, browning meat, cooking onions, etc before I put it in the crockpot. Our mornings are usually a rush out the door and I wouldn't have time for this. Are there good recipes where you really just throw everything in the crockpot in the morning? Do you do the prep work the night before? Thanks for any ideas.