Crock Pot Dump Meals Chilli con Carne

This is a no prep, simple, crock pot dump chilli con carne that anybody can make as it’s a one pot meal at its finest! When it comes to crock pot dump meals chilli con carne is the dish I make most often.

I didn’t buy my slow cooker to prep food.  I bought it so I could open the lid, throw things in, turn it on, then wander back 5-6 hours later for some tasty food 🙂

What I’ll typically do is have long-life, store cupboard, items ready, awaiting just one fresh ingredient.  Yesterday I went into Lidl to get myself 500g of beef mince, which is currently £1.69/500grams, to make a quick chilli.

This morning, at about 6.30am as I was up and about, I suddenly was motivated to make the chilli.  I wanted to keep it simple and basic, and I had some items to use up, so into the pot went:

• 500 grams beef mince
• One ~400 gram tin tomatoes
• One ~400 gram tin of baked beans (I prefer these to kidney beans in my chilli these days). I added these after I’d taken the photo of my ingredients, I do that a lot 🙂
• One packet of Chilli Con Carne mix + half the water the packet asked for
• 1/2 a red pepper, I’d sliced/frozen a pepper last week from the Lidl Pick of the Week deal

I didn’t brown the mince.  I really couldn’t face chopping an onion (I really should chop/freeze some at some point) so there’s no onion in there.  I do “top” the tomatoes, removing the little bit where the stalk joins the tomato.  I simply put the ingredients in: tomatoes on the bottom, half the hot water that the chilli con carne mix required, mince on top, the chilli con carne mix, baked beans on top.  I only added half the water the pack asked for as I already had the tomato juice and the baked bean juice in the pot – slow cookers don’t lose moisture through evaporation, so you don’t need as much liquid to start with compared to cooking in a saucepan.

I didn’t add the red pepper, that was sliced/frozen last week, so I just took it out of the freezer and it’s sitting alongside the slow cooker; I’ll pop that in about an hour before the chilli’s cooked, so it retains its colour and some crispness.

I’ve used the Sainsbury’s Chilli Con Carne Recipe Mix as it’s something I randomly picked up while shopping one day – I’ve no idea why I bought it.  I think we’ve all got these bizarre purchases lurking in the cupboards – you see something and it looks like a good idea and before you know it you’ve bought it and it sits, unused, in the cupboard forever!  Well, I was determined to get rid of this sachet the next time I made a chilli.

With the lid on, I turned the slow cooker to High for an hour, until it was bubbling, then I gave it a cheeky little stir (I can’t help it, I have to fiddle!) then turned it down to Low for a minimum of 4 hours, although I left it longer as I usually whip it out ASAP to scoff it, this time I tried to leave it longer to see if it tasted better.  Crock pot dump meals + chilli con carne = Win!

That’ll make a hot and tasty tea later with microwaved basmati rice made in my microwave steamer!

The total cost of the above is approximately £2.70 and it’ll make 4-6 good sized portions of chilli!

Review:  This was very tasty, the Sainsbury’s Chili Con Carne recipe packet mix is definitely hotter than the jar of Lidl Hot Chilli Con Carne sauce I bought the other week.  The current price of the packet is £0.40, versus the Lidl jar’s £0.69, but it’s just a dry mix, so you do need to add other ingredients/liquid to it.  I added a tin of tomatoes and baked beans, at an additional cost of about £0.60.  So, the Lidl jar of Chilli Con Carne sauce works out cheaper, but isn’t so hot; adding in the tomatoes and baked beans to the Sainsbury’s Chilli Con Carne recipe packet meant I had more volume though, so the overall dish made more meals.  I’d still consider both of them, depending on how I felt that day / which shop I happen to be in when I randomly think “Ah, I’ll make a chilli”.  Choosing, without thought for cost, I’d choose the Chilli Con Carne Recipe Mix and add my own extras.  I have tried the Lidl Chilli Con Carne packet mix in the past and, from memory, I don’t recall it being as hot as the Sainsbury’s version, although it does cost less at £0.25.

That’s the trouble with food – too much choice, too many decisions – at least crock pot dump meals mean there’s not too much effort or time spent getting to the part where you eat!

#chilliconcarne #chilli #onepotmeals #dumpmeal

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