Chili is one of my favorite comfort foods of all time. In this Slow-Cooker Beef Chili With Quinoa Recipe, you just need to put everything in the slow cooker, let it cook for a while, and after coming home from work or study, your home will smell like Mexico!
Skip the beef for making it a vegetarian dish: add a few more cans of beans to it (black or kidney), and you have made yourself a protein power diet dish. For the lean athletes, substitute the beef for turkey mince. There are numerous variations on how to cook chili, what ingredients to use, etc., and it is almost impossible to be original. Usually, I either use quinoa or brown rice as my primary carb source. The different textures make it more of a stew, in my opinion. But I love it!
This Slow-Cooker Beef Chili With Quinoa recipe is packed with protein and carbs, which leaves you satisfied for a while. Don’t rush the cooking process. Let the spices do the trick because, in the end, it is worth the wait! Enjoy some chili happiness!
Heartwarming Slow-Cooker Beef Chili With Quinoa
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon ground black pepper - ground
- 750 grams ground beef (minced beef)
- 2 large yellow onion - chopped
- 5 cloves garlic - chopped
- 1 large red pepper flakes - chopped and seeded
- 400 grams red pepper (red capsicum) - chopped
- 400 grams celery - chopped
- 300 grams sweet potato - chopped
- 250 grams black beans - canned
- 285 grams corn - canned
- 1 tablespoon cumin - ground
- 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper - ground
- 1 teaspoon chili powder (chilli powder in British English) - ground
- 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon - ground
- 400 grams tomato - canned
- 250 milliliters beef stock (beef broth or beef bouillon)
- 200 grams quinoa - uncooked
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large frying pan and add the beef mince, onions, garlic and chili pepper. Cook until the beef is no longer pink. Transfer the mixture to the slow cooker.
- Chop the celery, bell peppers, and sweet potato, rinse the beans and sweetcorn and add to the slow cooker. Season with cumin, cinnamon, chili pepper, cayenne pepper and cocoa powder and stir gently. Finally, add the chopped tomatoes and the beef stock to the slow cooker and let it cook for 6 hours on a low setting.
- Add the quinoa after 6 hours and stir gently. Let it cook for an additional 1-1 1/2 hours on low until the quinoa has opened up and soaked the stock and liquid released from the vegetables. Enjoy!
Notes
- Use the chili as a filling for a burrito or taco salad. Add more protein by garnishing it with shredded cheese or serve it with sour cream and homemade guacamole.
- My portions are probably bigger than for the average person (sorry but not sorry) so count for 0.75 times. This means more meals for you!