Here’s an easy crockpot meal plan including a tasty crockpot beef stroganoff recipe and an easy coconut cake recipe! This meal is especially good for families with kids!
Looking for a family-friendly dinner that’s ready with just 5 minutes of prep? This Crockpot Beef Stroganoff recipe is the perfect solution! With savory ground beef, tasty bacon, and creamy condensed mushroom soup, this recipe delivers rich, comforting flavors without the hassle. Simply brown the beef and bacon, toss them into your crockpot with cream of mushroom soup, a dollop of sour cream and a few other ingredients, and let it cook to perfection. Ideal for busy weeknights, this dish is sure to be a hit with the whole family!
And if you need an easy meal plan to go with this recipe, we’ve included one here!
Meal Plan:
Crockpot Beef Burger Stroganoff
Toasted Buns
Cantaloupe slices
Tomato slices
Easy Coconut Cake
Crockpot Beef Stroganoff Recipe – Beef Burger Stroganoff
Here’s an easy crockpot beef stroganoff recipe you can make with 5 minutes preparation time and then toss in the crockpot. It’s a super easy stroganoff your family will love!
- Yield: 6-8 servings
Ingredients
1 lb ground beef, cooked
3 slices bacon, diced
1 small onion, chopped
2 Tbsp. flour
Dash of Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. salt
1 can (10 3/4 oz.) condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 cup sour cream
1 pkg. egg noodles, cooked or 6 to 8 hamburger buns, toasted and buttered
Instructions
- In a large skillet, brown the beef and bacon until the red color disappears. Drain.
- In a crockpot, mix together the drained beef, bacon, onion, flour, Worcestershire sauce and salt.
- Stir in undiluted soup.
- Cover crockpot and cook on low 4 to 5 hours.
- Stir in sour cream.
- Spoon mixture over noodles or toasted buns.
Notes
This recipe is great with egg nooodles or served over rice. It is also delicious spread over toasted and buttered hamburger buns.
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Easy Coconut Cake Recipe
This easy coconut cake recipe starts with a white cake mix and makes a super delicious coconut layer cake with a lot less work than making it completely from scratch!
Ingredients
1 (18.25 oz.) package white cake mix
1 cup white sugar
1 (8 oz.) container sour cream
2 cups flaked coconut
1 1/2 cups whipped topping
Instructions
- Prepare the cake mix according to the package directions.
- Bake in two 9-inch round layers.
- When cool, split layers horizontally to make 4 layers.
- Blend together sugar, sour cream and coconut.
- Chill.
- Spread all but 1 cup of the coconut mixture between the layers.
- Blend the remaining cup of mixture with the whipped topping.
- Spread on the top and sides of the cake.
- Seal the cake in an airtight container and refrigerate.
Easy Frugal Living Tips To Save on Food!
- Use your restaurant leftovers the same way you use regular leftovers. For example:
- Boil the carcass of deli chicken for soup or noodles and dumplings.
- Use leftover rice from Chinese take out in casseroles, soups, rice pudding or if it is white rice, eat it for breakfast with cinnamon, sugar and milk.
- Cut up leftover French fries and fry in bacon grease like hash browns or cook with chopped meat and veggies for an easy homemade hash.
- Leftover salads or veggies can be liquified to make vegetable broth or veggies can be frozen and then added to soups and casseroles.
- Uneaten hamburgers or hot dogs can be cut into pieces, frozen and then added to chili, baked beans, spaghetti, soups etc.
- Sometimes I need a dollop of whipped cream and I don’t always have it thawed. Thaw your whipped topping and place dollops on a cookie sheet. Freeze them. Place in a plastic bag and keep it in the freezer. When you make cocoa for the grandkids or need a dollop of whipped topping to top an individual dish of pudding or dessert you can pull out just what you need.
- The next time you make stroganoff, try adding an envelope of ranch salad dressing to the sour cream for a little extra flavor. You can do this to homemade or store bought stroganoff.
These recipes sound so good. That cake is especially yummy sounding.
This says white sugar but is it not suppose to be Conf sugar?
No Linda because this is more like a filling than a frosting with the sour cream and all.
Well that cake looks lovely with a nice cup of tea /coffee well done 🌸🇬🇧
I so agree Jane. LOL I have discovered that our English friends are so wise – a cup of tea can soothe the soul and cure a lot of ails. : )
My mother’s go to for stretching meat meal.
hamburger brown it a bit.
put in an electric frying pan or an oven safe pan.
cut potatoes thin lay over the hamburger.
one can of consomme soup (undiluted)
one can of peas.
Cook until potatoes are cooked. About 1/2 an hour.
If you want to use frozen peas dilute the soup with half a can of water.
We called it hash and it was a quick meal to get ready and if you simmer it you can start it around lunch time and it is all ready for supper or speed it up by cooking at a higher temp.
Like I said it was a way to stretch the meat. Add lots of potatoes and peas and nobody really misses the meat because every bite you get some. It looks nice on the plate as well with the 3 layers.
Your stroganoff sounds tasty as well.
I really like the beef burger stroganoff recipe :) :) Yummy :) :) thanks for sharing it :) Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather :)
I often “stretch” the ground beef in recipes like stroganoff, spaghetti, tacos and meat loaf with cooked lentils (excellent source of protein). I cut the beef in the recipe by half, and sub that amount of cooked lentils. I add the lentils just as the beef finishes cooking (in stroganoff, spaghetti, tacos) or mix in with raw beef (in meatloaf, meatballs). Lentils cook up quickly, in about 30 minutes. I cook a large batch, and freeze 1 cup portions to use as needed. In our area, ground beef is about $2.50-2.75/lb., whereas dry lentils are about 75 cents/ lb , bought in bulk (they cook up to an even lower price per pound).
I love your recipe. I’ve never added bacon before. Yum!
I have added lentils to stretch ground beef for years. I usually cook mine up in a crock pot. I add one to two cups of lentils and 1/2-1 cup of brown rice or barley. I add in water salt and sometimes I add in carrots and celery and some onion. I add in water (depending on the amount of lentil and grain about 2-3 cups). I usually don’t measure but “eye it out”. This combination when cooked (it can scorch so you might need to add more water, oh and don’t forget salt)I then use a hand blender or you could use a regular blender (may need to add a little more liquid to thin it a bit)and puree it up. This makes a good extension to add to vegetable soup (homemade or canned) that add nutrients and flavor and is so cheap. it is also great in casseroles, Shepard’s pie, and all red meat soups or stews as it thickens and stretches whatever you are making. If I’m going to have a Mexican night I don’t add the carrots and once it is cooked I add it to the beef and wow, it makes it go much farther. In this case I don’t puree it but just add it to the meat and add the Mexican seasoning. Really most people don’t know it is there and it is so healthy!!! I think that lentils (and if you want to add the grain) is a wonderful way to make a healthier and cheaper meal.
Great ideas! We enjoy pinto beans: but I like them soupy thick. :) I had read about taking a portion and blending, then adding them back in, and also to use this rather than buying refried beans, which I liked in so many dishes. Your ideas great too. :)
Grandma, That recipe sounds good!
We substitute a package of cream cheese for the sour cream since my family doesn’t care for the bitter taste after taste of sour cream in stroganoff. Much more successful.
How much cream cheese? Not a sour cream fan??
Susan I am not sure how good this would be without the sour cream in it. I suppose you could try about 4 oz of cream cheese, soften it and mix it with 3-4 Tbsp of milk and try that. You don’t really taste the sour cream in this recipe because of all of the seasonings but it is more the texture it gives to the dish but you could try the cream cheese
Over toasted buns??!! :) excellent idea! I hardly ever have the noodles on hand but left over bread is always around. You can use plain yogurt in place of the cream of mushroom soup and add a little onion powder to it or have veggie or beef boullion added to it.I never buy cream soups. Always have homemade yogurt on hand.
I just saw the little menu with cantaloup and tomato slices. Thank you! I hate trying to think of what to put with the main part of dinner. Makes life easier!
I’m the same way LD. I could figure out what to have for meat or main dish but not what to go with it but then I lived by my mother in law for awhile and she had to fix 2-3 meals everyday for a crowd and I noticed how even though her meals seemed large she did things like fresh sliced fruit or veggies, pickles, bread and jam and very simple easy things that didn’t involve a lot of cooking or work. Everything always tasted so good too.
Me again! lol @Lili- thanks for sharing how to stretch the beef. I was told a long time ago about doing it but never given instructions on how and quickly forgot about it. Our beef is $2.99 for the junk burger and for 80%fat$3.69lb at Wal Mart and the grass fed is $4 something lb. I have some lentils and love cooking with them. Will try it out tomorrow :)
More “add without cooking” ideas: Cranberry sauce (it’s not just for Thanksgiving), apple sauce, canned fruit, olives, cheese and crackers. Deviled eggs add protein and are not much work, especially if you boil up a batch of eggs once a week and store them in the frig. Eggs are a great, cheap protein.
Thanks for the hints for using leftover French fries. I’m reminded that my grandma used to chop them up and fold them into an omelet. They blend well with other ingredients and it’s a great way to use up that handful of fries that you couldn’t finish from your combo meal! Tasty topped with a dollop of salsa, too!
Hi Jill
Gotta love the coconut cake recipe! I live across the street from our water filtration plant and about 6 years ago they decided to do away with a bunch of small white cement balls,not sure what they were used for but they were giving them away to anyone who wanted them.Needless to say those small white cement balls look pretty in my flower garden!and around the flag pole. just goes to show what you can find when you least expect it Have a blessed weekend.
Love the coconut cake recipe!
Wondering if it’s a misprint that the instructions tell us to cook for 4or 5 hours as the beef is cooked already and bacon takes minutes.
Magdalen it is the same as cooking stews,soups – many times things are all cooked but you simmer or cook them for a long time so the flavors can blend, things can thicken etc. I wrote an article on this once how we are so use to instant and microwave cooking now a days that we have forgotten slow cooking and how much better it tastes because the flavors simmer and blend together.Even like on this recipe for beef stroganoff when I make it on the stove top even if it is all cooked I still let it simmer for about 20-25 mins. before I use it.
Just wanted to share a thrown-together dish I made in the crockpot yesterday. Had two chicken leg quarters that were not quite thawed but put them in the crockpot with 1/2 can of coconut milk. You can use canned milk here, too, but my coconut milk was nearing expiration date (so you know I had that can a long time :)), added about 1/2 cup brown sugar – just sprinkled it on the top, some ground ginger and a few tablespoons of low sodium soy sauce. Added about 1/2 cup water and turned it on low. When I came home at 7 pm, the whole house smelled wonderful. I meant to add a little pineapple juice but the chicken tasted so good without it that I didn’t bother. It took me all of 5 minutes to put this together in the morning. When I got home, setting the table, cutting up the watermelon and warming the green beans took another 15 minutes. Dinner in less than 30 min including the morning time is my kind of meal. Try the crockpot if you haven’t done so. It is a wonderful timesaver and the foods are so tender. My husband mentioned that he added some water to the crockpot during the day because he thought the food would burn. I don’t think he needed to do that but he was helping and I will NEVER discourage that. :)
That sounds really good Maggie and something different to do with chicken. Thanks
The beef strogonoff recipe was very well-recieved. I did add another can of soup, half a package of onion soup mix and omitted the salt. Serve this with freshly chopped herbs if possible.
Interesting recipes ,My coconut cake is very popular in the family and i think they deserve a change lol. This cake and its ingredients sounds and looks delicious :)
I purchased pillow shams, duvet, quilt, and bedskirt in dark and light blue small check with purple paisley. Makes my bedroom look nice and restful. I went back a few months later and found matching valances! Yay God!
I enjoyed reading your page of recipes and a way to stretch the dollar I was wondering about the coconut cake.What makes the cake look orange ,,, when every thing in it was white. I love the old fashion recipes ,that our mothers and Grand Mas use to cook up. I can remember moma adding a bit of water to her fried Potatoes to help save on the shortening. Daddy hated her doing this and I recall of him scolding her when she would do it.Granny use to make the most wonderful flakey pie crust . She used milk in it … ensted of water.
Part of it maybe the color on your computer. You can use a white or yellow cake mix on this and this picture happens to have used a yellow cake mix but I’m not seeing any orange on it. I do know sometimes the color on my computer screen is different then my daughter’s and that could be part of it.
Thank you so much for your accountability. It’s been a hundred years it seems since I have taken the time to sit down and really take a look at my emails from you guys. I am a busy mother of 3; one daughter is Autistic and another has a different Neurodevelopmental disorder….No excuses mind you. I have failed in so many ways to prepare meals for my family at home. It seems that the last few months have been ridiculous and we ate out at restaurants more often than we should have. There was no reason why I couldn’t throw the chicken and veggies in the crock pot before I left for work in the morning. Then dinner would have been ready when we walked in the door from our last appt of the day. I could kick myself when I think how much money I wasted. UGH!!
Also thank you for reminding me that side dishes don’t have to be cooked. I love the idea of sliced tomatoes and cantaloupe. I am originally from GA; but live in CO now and this was something my mother and grandmother used to do all the time. Truth be known; my 3 critters need more fruits and veggies in their diet.
Anyways; thank you for your site and getting my lazy bum back on track. You guys are a blessing in so many ways.
Don’t be too hard on yourself Stacey. : ) We have all headed in the wrong direction on a regular basis the main thing is you turned around and have headed back. That is when I worry about people is when they can’t see where they are going or they do see but refuse to change direction. So you are right on target. I am glad you mentioned the side dishes. I think we make cooking meals way to complicated now a day and that is why many of us don’t do it. I know my grandma would simple open a can of peaches, slice some cucumber and tomato,fix an easy sandwich and call it good for a hot summer day meal. Too many cooking shows have to come up with these very elaborate meals or meals that really don’t work for our life style or the area we live in and often we try to follow what they say.
They use all these lovely fruits and veggies made up in different ways. Most of these shows are filmed in California where fresh fruit is much more plentiful. Here in Kansas some of the fresh fruit we get I wouldn’t touch with a 10 ft. pole so I adapt and use frozen or canned. They have their ovens going with these lovely meats cooking but I live where the temps are in the 100’s with humidity so bad most people in CA couldn’t even imagine it so I adapt to meals which don’t use an oven and on days when I can’t afford using the air conditioner I was too hot and miserable to even use a crock pot.
Anyway keep it easy and simple. There is nothing wrong with serving your kids bread, butter, jam and some sliced veggies or fruits. Can’t wait to hear how it goes for you with cooking more at home. Holler if you need more ideas.
PS I don’t hate California at all. I was born there and lived there. I was just using them for an example.
Thank you so much Jill. You have a good way of making a mama feel less guilty. I made a dinner salad with some chicken for our dinner yesterday and later on I made a pasta salad and sliced cantaloupe for today’s dinner. So my 3 can eat before I take them back to their dad’s. Here in CO where we live our apt faces the West; so we get all of that hot afternoon sun. So no way am I heating up our apt by cooking with the oven..lol. One of the best tips I can give is to open the doors and windows during the early morning; then close all doors, windows and blinds at around 11:30AM. It will stay much cooler inside that way. Anyways; before I fill in a book again; I really do appreciate your website and your counsel. Us mommies/daddies don’t have life figured out; so it’s good to have a partner to walk with us through this. S
Stacey: I sometimes go through cycles of seeming to be “too busy” to do much cooking. Then I will read some great recipe/sites like Living on A Dime, and get back on track again. :) I often put my foods in the crockpot at night, and do the finish the next morning. That works the best for me, as I seem to be more energetic in the mornings. Yes, I also often open my windows to 10am, then close them and turn on the air, and very little oven cooking in the summertime. A precious older farm lady taught me to get my supper/meals cooked in the morning. Thank you, GOD for some that can teach the younger. We can all encourage each other.
On hot days I put the. Rock or hot pot out on the porch & cook. Just put what you need on a tray to put it in. I do the prep out there too. Putting my scraps potato peels etc in my mop bucket. I find it cooler especially if there’s a breeze at all. Once everything’s on the cooker. I empty the mop bucket, dumping wrappers from the meat directly into the outside trash & food scraps to the mulch pot. This reduces orders inside during the heat from the eat wrap. As well as the garbage pail. I use the garden hose to rinse the bucket & dump that water on the mulch pile to help it decompose.
Like the coconut recipes.
Like the coconut recipes they are so easy, just like my mom did when i was a kid. She would take all day on Saturday’s so we would have sweets for Sunday dinner. She would tell us you better stay away from them until tomorrow, your mouth would water just looking at them.
It’s so funny what kids remember. I remember my mom making chocolate chip cookies and seeing that huge to me (it was only a 6 oz. pkg), of chocolate chips and wanting to eat the whole bag so bad. My mom would always just give us a few in our hand and I remember thinking when I grow up I am going to eat a whole bag of chips. I still have eaten a whole bag yet yet but do admit to sneaking a handful once in awhile when I have a chocolate attack.
Thank you for letting me join your site, it will be very helpful, because I am disabled
Thanks for popping in Shelia and we are so glad to have you with us.
I am getting set to make the beef stroganoff today – Sunday – as I have all the ingredients. The hamburger I had previously cooked, taken a spoonful out then packaged in a baggie and frozen.
Looking forward to supper tonight! Thank you.
And thank you ladies for all the ‘stretch the meal’ ideas. Lentil cooking will be a new venture for me to look forward to.
Now for a cuppa… and thanks so much for letting us know you liked it.
As much as I love the beef stroganoff sitting down for a cuppa sounded like the the best part to me. LOL