Lazy Keto Meal Prep: Slow-Cooker Pork Chops for Under $6

2019-01-12

In this video

"Cooking with KetoDick," live from my kitchen in January 2019, with the dog investigating. The point was to show that meal prep takes minutes. It doesn't take a skill set.

[0:00] A basic, inexpensive slow cooker. I said I cook "like normal people" (from the video).
[0:30] 2.8 lb of pork chops, bought on sale for about $5.57.
[1:00] A dash of apple cider vinegar and hot sauce. Failure to plan is planning to fail.
[1:30] A whole stick of butter, because the chops are lean.
[2:30] Salt, plus a salt-free seasoning blend. Dry seasonings are close to free calories, and they replace sugary sauces.
[4:00] Serving ideas: shred them over cauliflower rice or into a low-carb tortilla.
[5:00] Do chicken and beef the same way and keep a protein tray in the fridge, because grazing is what gets most people.
[6:00] Homework: three to five go-to meals for the year, side dishes and macros included, with at least one for maintenance.
[7:00] Weight-loss-phase examples: chicken and broccoli, sirloin and eggs, white fish and kale.
[7:30] The joke about my cooking channel getting cancelled for skipping almond flour, MCT oil and anything "bulletproof".
[10:00] Macros: basically pork and butter. The seasonings barely count.
[10:30] I was doing a reboot myself after a carb-heavy holiday, and I'd just gone back to boxing.
[16:00] Next up, vegetables that aren't sad and wet out of a steamer bag. Then the usual: not a doctor, just a guy who works in a kitchen now.
[18:00] Total: under $6 for many meals, with ordinary supermarket butter, not grass-fed.

The last minutes also include a 2019 coaching announcement. This post doesn't repeat it.

Watching this in 2026

This is the least polished video on the channel. It may also be the most useful one for a beginner. Nothing in it takes skill. I forgot to plug the crock pot in, and the pork still got made.

The line that holds up is about grazing: keep cooked protein in the fridge, because grazing is what gets most people (video hHFu6L-yedE). The fix I offered was steak cubes and chicken cubes in containers, so a hungry moment ends with a bite of lean protein instead of whatever's in the cupboard (video hHFu6L-yedE). Nothing about that needs a recipe.

I'd also own that I was struggling when I recorded it. I said the holiday had been rough, that I'd eaten a lot of carbs over the break and was pushing through cravings again (video hHFu6L-yedE). The person teaching meal prep was restarting too. That's worth saying out loud if you're in the same spot.

The claim worth unpacking: does protein on hand actually help?

I didn't cite anything for "lean protein when you're hungry." The protein evidence page has trials that test something close.

In Weigle et al., 2005, raising protein from 15% to 30% of energy, with carbohydrate held constant, cut what 19 adults chose to eat by 441 kcal a day. Weight fell 4.9 kg over 12 weeks.
A review by Leidy et al., 2015 linked about 1.2–1.6 g of protein per kg a day, with roughly 25–30 g per meal, to better appetite control and weight management.
Across 24 trials and 1,063 people, energy-restricted high-protein diets gave modestly more fat loss and less loss of fat-free mass (Wycherley et al., 2012).

None of these tested a "protein tray." They do support the idea under it: protein you'll actually eat helps keep total intake down without a fight. How to set your own number is in how much protein and protein per meal.

Then vs now: the butter

The stick of butter tells you where my thinking on fat had got to by 2019. In the video I said the chops are lean and the butter is mainly a cooking sauce. Pull the meat out of the sauce and you have a high-protein, low-fat plate for the weight-loss phase. Thicken the sauce for maintenance (video hHFu6L-yedE).

That isn't what I said in July 2017, when the advice was to push fat where you can (video DoSUgIr2rNo). By late August 2017 it had become "stop pushing the fats," with fat rising and falling by phase (video NUJNFG6lLWw). By 2018, fat was "variable," the macro you raise and lower (video UygKGoP_BtA). The pork chop video is that idea with a pot on the counter. Same food, two plates: one for losing, one for maintaining. More on this in how much fat and eat less fat to lose weight.

Key points

Meal prep can take five minutes: meat, salt, dry seasoning, a little acid, a slow cooker.
Dry seasonings add flavour for almost no calories and replace sugary sauces.
Keep cooked protein ready in the fridge. Grazing is the common leak.
In trials, higher-protein diets cut how much people chose to eat and protected lean mass (Weigle 2005, Wycherley 2012).
Treat the butter sauce as the dial: leave most of it in the pot while losing, use more in maintenance.
Cheap works. Supermarket butter and sale pork are fine.
If you have kidney disease, check your protein target with your doctor before raising it. Reviews on the protein evidence page flag pre-existing kidney disease as the exception (Pesta & Samuel, 2014).