Lean Beef Chili is one of my favorite things to have on hand when I prepare food for the week because it’s warm and hearty, so you can always look forward to it for lunch or dinner, and it’s probably the easiest way to get a heaping serving of lean ground beef meat.
There’s not too many ingredients to this lean beef chili, so you can make sure it’s lean to hit your macros, and it’s versatile to go along with rice, a baked potato, egg noodles, pasta or your veggies of choice. Also, you really just kind of put it all together and then let it simmer for a while, so you don’t have to babysit it the whole time.

Warm Up With This Extraordinary Lean Beef Chili
Ingredients
1 pound ground beef (minced beef) - at least 93% fat-free
1 large yellow onion - chopped
2 cloves garlic - crushed
1 can tomato - 16 ounces
2-3 tablespoons chili powder (chilli powder in British English) - depending on your preference
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 can red kidney beans - 15 ounces drained,
Instructions
- Cook and stir ground beef, onion and garlic in a large saucepan until beef is light brown. This whole recipe gets cooked in one pot, so make sure you have enough room! For a finer ground meat texture, add a little water gradually to your ground meat as you continuously break apart the meat. I’ll fill a small cup of water and pour a little at a time as needed. Sometimes I just like the meat finer, and it also helps you to be sure you can see it is all cooked through. Since the remaining moisture is mostly water, I don’t drain it so that it will help boil the pasta later on. Stir in tomatoes (don’t drain), chili powder, salt and sauces. Heat to boiling, reduce heat. Cover and simmer for about an hour.
- Heat again to boiling and stir in pasta. Return to simmer until pasta is cooked thru. Add beans since they are cooked the least amount of time to avoid breaking.