T-minus 2 days until our vacation starts! We are heading back to BC and are trying to get everything prepped before we leave. That includes meal prep! M gets back midweek so we thought it would be good for him to have some meal prep lunches ready to go for the first few days that he’s back. We decided to cook up some chilli – mainly because it would use up most of the perishables in our fridge before we left. This chilli is super easy to throw together; it took me about 20 mins to get everything in the crockpot yesterday.
Ingredients (Makes 5 large servings)
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 tbsp crushed garlic
- Half a red onion, diced
- 1 can tomato paste
- 1 can diced tomatoes
- 1 can chickpeas
- 1 can kidney beans
- 2 cups diced celery
- 1 cup diced carrots
- 2-3 tbsp chilli powder
- Salt and pepper to taste
Process
To start, cook the ground beef thoroughly in a heated pan. Once meat is almost cooked, add the garlic and diced onions to the frying pan to help bring out their flavour before they go in the crock pot. Cook until meat is fully cooked.
While the meat is cooking, you can dice the veggies and start to fill up the crock pot. Add the tomato pasta and diced tomatoes first with the chilli powder then mix. Then, add the veggies, chickpeas, and beans. Be sure to drain any canned goods before adding them. NOTE: Check whether or not you need to cook the beans prior to using them in the crockpot. Follow can directions for this.
Once you have all your sauce, veggies, and beans in the crock pot, add the ground beef and stir. See? Easy as 1,2,3! Cook on HIGH for 6 hours.
Heads up – it will be incredibly hot when it is done thanks to the tomato base so be careful. Happy eating!
Kathleen Read 