Hey friends! You’re in for a treat today. This is one of my all time favorite cool-weather meals – it reheats really well (maybe even gets better after a day or two), freezes like a dream and satisfies that taste for fall. Everyone has a chili recipe – and I love them all but this is my go-to and we pretty much always have the ingredients on hand! If you’re more in the mood for a white chili, go here. I almost always make a big batch of this for leftover purposes and the below recipe is HUGE so you need your biggest pot, I’m not kidding. I usually only use one can of each veggie/bean but this is a doubler so we could freeze half. (Later this week I’m going to make a ton of freezer meals and baby food for when I go back to work full-time, so look out for that future blog post!)
What You Need
- 3 lbs beef (we used 80/20, but you could use whatever fat ratio you want. You could also use ground turkey or chicken!)
- 4 stalks of celery diced
- 1 small onion diced
- 1 tbsp garlic
- 2 jalapeños diced
- 2 cans of diced tomatoes
- 1 can of tomato sauce
- 2 cans of corn
- 2 cans of red kidney beans
- 2 cans of garbanzo beans
- 2 beef bullion cubes
- 7-8 cups of water (this will almost reach the top of your pot, but will cook down!)
- 1 tbsp chili powder
- 1/2 tbsp cumin
- 1/2 tbsp cayenne pepper
- 1/2 tbsp paprika
- S & P to taste
- Elbow Noodles (we usually make a whole box so we have leftovers)
For Toppings (All optional, but highly encouraged) 😉
- Cilantro
- Sour Cream
- Shredded Cheese
- Avocado
- Bread for dippin’!
You can do this all in the same pot – which is amazing and a time saver. Start by browning your meat, and if there is any liquid fat leftover, make sure to drain that out. I once left it in and my stomach was not pleased… trust me – drain it. Once you’ve sufficiently drained – add the chopped celery, onion, jalapeño and garlic and let the veggies soften a bit.
Next up, add the beans, corn, tomatoes & sauce, beef bouillon cubes, water and all your spices and let the chili simmer for a looonngggg time. Honestly, the longer the better. I try to give it at LEAST 2 hours but low and slow is the best way to develop the flavors. Stir every once in a while to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of your pot. Meanwhile, cook up some pasta – we use elbow noodles, but you could use anything you want. This chili is great on its own too, so noodles are definitely optional! We typically cook our noodles separately from the soup because they tend to blow up the longer they sit in the broth, plus then you can add however many you’d like.
What is chili without toppings? My personal favorites are cilantro, shredded cheese, sour cream and a squeeze of sriracha. I also LOVE avocado in this, but unfortunately they were not quite ripe at the time so we skipped them. Now I know that my chili has a lot of veggies – probably more than the traditional chili you have seen but honestly the crunch and freshness lightens this usually heavy meal right up. This gets better the longer it sits. Leftovers are delicious. Casey woke up excited about his chili cheese dogs for lunch – no joke. Okay, go buy all the ingredients and enjoy, it’s so worth it! ❤
Staying Martha 
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