Trick's Chili
2/2/2025 5:47 pm | Share to: 
With the weather looking like this:
I turn to my favorite cold weather meal prep for the week: chili.
This recipe is something I've been making for probably two decades, and it is an evolution / mixture of ones I've found online and just settled on over the years. I like my chili to be more chewy than soup. In general, I hate drinking calories. My smoothies are thick, and I avoid soup unless it has plenty to chew in it.
All that said, my recipe is dirt simple and almost entirely done in the slow cooker. It's just about knowing the ingredients and throwing them in the pot together, and stirring from time to time.
First, I saute 1 lb. of Italian sausage filling and 1 lb. of ground beef. Do them separately as they brown at different temperatures. I tend to go with the fattier mix of ground beef, but I've also made the chili with ground turkey, so anything works. I will pour in the grease and fat from the sausage, but I drain the fat from the beef before adding to the slow cooker.
In the slow cooker, along with the meat, I add:
- Chili seasoning (usually I use a packet mix for the base, and then I add more heat with other spices I have)
- Liberal hot sauce pouring
- 2x Diced Bell Peppers
- 1x Diced Poblano Pepper
- 1x Diced Onion
- 2-3x Celery Stalkes sliced into half moons
- 2x cans of chili beans (or red/kidney beans)
- 1x can of Rotel diced tomatoes with peppers
- 1x can tomato paste
- 12 oz. can cheap beer
I crank the slow cooker on high and let it do its thing for 4ish hours, then I turn it to low and let it go for another few hours. I'll stir the pot any time I pass through the kitchen, but it's a very forgiving recipe.
