Add Flavor to Your Dinnertime With This Simple Crock Pot Chili Recipe (2024)
Cooking in a crock pot is an easy way to prepare food with fantastic flavors while having your hands free to create other dishes or simply to get on with your day. Chilis are a classic slow-cooked meal, but most recipes are hearty, high in calories, and filled with fats from bacon, oils, or added dairy products used as toppings like cheese or cream. While those are delicious and filling, they can be problematic if you are keeping an eye on your caloric intake or simply want a hearty dish that won't weigh you down. Our recipe for chili makes around six 300-calorie bowls and can be cooked either on high or low, depending on your time frame and needs.
After just a few minutes of easy preparation, cover, and let simmer. Perfect for family and budget-friendly meals, this chili can be made with canned beans. You can also customize it and use either ground turkey or chicken for a different flavor profile, or skip the meat for a vegetarian alternative. Use low-sodium and unseasoned beans so you can adjust the seasoning to your palate.
Serve this dish with a slice of soft cornbread or a few corn tortillas, and a crisp green salad for a well-rounded meal.
In a nonstick skillet on medium heat, place the beef, garlic, onion, and bell pepper and brown until the beef is no longer pink. Drain any excess fat that cooks off of the ground beef and discard the extra drippings.
Add into the crock pot the kidney beans, red beans, diced tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, chili powder, and cumin. Gently stir together with a spoon until all of the ingredients are well combined. Set the slow cooker to cook on low for 5 hours, or 3 hours on high. Check the chili on occasion and give it a stir.
Once the cooking time has passed, taste for seasoning and add salt to taste, if needed. Carefully ladle the chili into several bowls. Top with green onions, if using.
Other Versions of Our Low-Cal Chili
Beef doesn't necessarily have to be what makes a hearty chili. Here are other options for you to choose from:
Mushroom Chili: Mushrooms have a meaty quality and flavor, and are great substitutes for meat, as they add volume to stews and chilis but also a lot of flavor and nutrition. Brown 16 to 20 ounces of mixed mushrooms with the garlic, onions, and peppers as you'd brown the beef. Just add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the pan beforehand to avoid sticking. Proceed with the rest of the recipe as instructed but lower your cooking times to 2 hours on high or 4 hours on low.
Vegan Chili: Skip the beef and add 1 can of drained garbanzo beans. Simply mix all of the ingredients in the slow cooker and cook as instructed. To this vegan chili, you could add 1 block of pressed cubed extra-firm tofu, 16 ounces of crumbled tempeh, or 16 ounces of seitan. Add any of these plant-based proteins to the crock pot 20 minutes before the cooking time is up.
All-Veggie Chili: This dish is a great way to sneak in extra vegetables, and our recipe has room for other vegetables like carrots, kale, spinach, peas, or zucchini, although any other vegetable will complement the flavors without issues. For a heartier option, but still on the low-calorie side, add 1 cup of cubed sweet or white potatoes.
Do You Have to Brown Meat for Chili?
Browning the meat before putting it in the crock pot is beneficial to your chili recipes. Not only will it keep the meat from clumping together and keep that extra grease out of your chili, but it will also help provide more flavor to the meat.
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)
Cocoa powder, bacon, cinnamon, ground coffee and tomato paste will all add a rich sweet & salty flavors that are sure to surprise and delight. Warming spice blends, like Garam Masala, Ras el Hanout or Baharat are another simple and delicious way to add layered flavors to this simple one-pot meal.
The low and slow cooking process melds the flavors of the chili seasoning into every bite and the beef becomes so tender, juicy, and irresistible. You can slow cook on low for 6-8 hours or on high heat for 3-4 hours.
Insufficient seasoning, such as chili powder, cumin, paprika, and salt, can lead to bland chili. Chili relies on a combination of spices and seasonings for its distinctive flavor. Be sure to taste your chili during the cooking process and adjust the seasonings as needed.
Although canned chili will already have some seasonings, fresh herbs and spices will add bolder flavor. You can upgrade your chili using ingredients you likely already have on your spice rack, such as chili powder, ground cumin, onion powder, garlic powder, smoked paprika, and cayenne pepper.
Add a hit of soy sauce, Worcestershire, or tamari. These salty, savory powerhouses won't dominate or change the flavor of your chili so much as amplify what's there. Start with one tablespoon, stir, and taste before you add another.
If you want more of a smoky flavor, add cumin, Spanish paprika, ancho chili powder, or a combination. If you are looking for more heat, add cayenne, crushed red pepper, or Hungarian paprika. If it's too spicy add a little brown sugar and some sweet paprika.
Chili recipes need time for flavors to meld and come together, and collagen-rich meat (like chuck roast or ground beef) needs 90 minutes to two hours to fully break down and become tender. If you don't have time for a long simmer, try using a slow cooker or making it the day before.
What is the best meat for chili? The best meat for chili depends on the type you're making, but professionals generally use a combination of ground chuck, brisket, short ribs, or diced tri-tip sirloin mixed with bacon and sausage to layer multiple textures and flavors.
Beans and non-vegetable fillers such as rice and pasta are not allowed." If that sounds a bit uptight, the ICS's Homestyle Chili competition defines chili as: "any kind of meat, or combination of meats, and/or vegetables cooked with beans, chili peppers, various spices, and other ingredients.
You can also add a blend of good peppers and some hot onions. Take your chilli pot, or a bowl full at a time in a skillet, cook the onions down with some good paprika and other peppers as required, then add you bland chilli and heat through out for a while to mix the flavors.
If you take an extra 10 minutes to sauté the aromatics before scraping them into the slow-cooker, the finished dish will have deeper flavor and better texture. (And some new slow-cookers allow you to sauté right in the insert, so you don't have to wash a separate skillet.)
Sometimes after a long simmer, your chili will taste wonderful be maybe missing one little thing you can't figure out. Try a tad bit of vinegar or a squeeze of lime! The acidity in vinegar & limes bring a good roundness to the pot and binds all the flavors together.
Now for the piece de resistance: 1-2 heaping Tablespoons brown sugar. The chili tastes completely different without the brown sugar so if you like a subtle sweetness in your chili then you've just got to go for it! Trust me, it will not make your chili taste like candy.
Chili cooks low and slow, so you need enough liquid to tenderize the meat and keep everything from drying out. That liquid should also add flavor to the chili, so use chicken, beef, or vegetable stock, or beer.
To enhance the flavor of your chili, brown the meat before adding it to the pot. This step not only caramelizes the meat, but gives your chili more texture, adding a depth that cannot be achieved by simply simmering it in the chili.
Chili cooks low and slow, so you need enough liquid to tenderize the meat and keep everything from drying out. That liquid should also add flavor to the chili, so use chicken, beef, or vegetable stock, or beer.
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