Cheap and Easy Chili 

by Deb
(Saugus, MA, USA)

Cheap and Easy Chili ingredients:

  • 2 garlic cloves (minced) or some garlic powder
  • 1 medium onion (chopped)
  • 1 lb ground meat (I use turkey, it's cheapest for me)
  • 1 large can of baked beans
  • 2 cans of kidney or pinto beans or 1/2 a bag cooked
  • 1 large can of crushed tomatoes or sause (I've even used spaghetti sauce when it was all I had)
  • 2 T chili powder

Brown the first three ingredients in a big pot. Add everything else! Cover and simmer as long as you'd like.

Comment

chilli - picture by fotoosvanrobin
picture by fotoosvanrobin on flickr.com

My partner loves chilli and so I make it for him every week with plain rice. We don’t eat meat so I use Quorn instead and lots of kidney beans. I would also recommend a splash of Worchester sauce to make it just a little spicier.

I the idea of using baked beans s they are much cheaper to buy than tinned kidney beans. Yes I know you can buy dried kidney beans but I always forget to soak them the night before and so never buy them. Anyway it wouldn’t be very frugal of me to buy dried beans and then just let them rot in the cupboard.

I like to make a big pot of chilli and eat it over the next couple of days for my lunch. Its great with a  jacket potato or just on toast with a little cheese sprinkled on top.

I find the longer I keep it the better the flavour gets. On the second or third day it really is top notch. I wouldn’t keep it for longer than three days though unless you were going to freeze it. As it can get a little slimy, I think it is the beans which make it like that.
This chilli mix would be great at BBQ’s too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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