Crock Pot Chicken Taco Chili
I found this recipe and it does sound very good, but also very processed, the original ingredients involved 6 cans of items, 1 frozen product, and one store bought spice packet, overly processed, overly salty. This is my rewrite version to reflect whole foods and reduced to 2 cans. This is actually prepared over two days. This is a must try for me and I will be taking step by step photos as well.
Ingredients
Day 1 - Prepare the Beans
- 2-3 cups dry black beans, cooked, see Beans Step 1
- 2-3 cups dry red kidney beans, cooked, see Beans Step 1
Day 2 - Prepare the Chili
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 can tomato paste, this is the small can, see Chili Step 1
- 1 ear sweet corn, see Chili Step 2
- 1 can whole tomatoes, dice the tomatoes, tomato juice is used as well
- 4-8 Bird's Eye Chilis, diced, seeds included
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
- 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt, OR 1/2 teaspoon table salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 3-4 chicken breasts, boneless and skinless, diced
Instructions
Beans
- Beans, this can be done several ways if you like a lot of beans on hand. Rule of thumb is 2/3 cup of dried beans will cook to 2 cups of beans. Now you can separately cook 2/3 cup of Black Beans, and 2/3 cup of Red Kidney Beans so you have the 4 cups of beans or you can cook a whole 500 grams of beans, and use the extra beans for another dish, totally up to you.
- You need sort, rinse, then soak the beans overnight in water in the fridge, this reduces the chances of them fermenting overnight.
- After the beans have soaked overnight, you need to rinse them, and using separate pots, cook the beans until tender, tender being if you put a bean in your mouth, you should be able to squish it it your tongue (sounds odd, but it is a good test for a tender bean). When the beans are done, rinse them again, then let cool and refrigerate until needed.
Chili
- Open the can of tomato paste and put into a large bowl, add 2 tomato paste cans of water, add some spices, such as oregano, thyme, rosemary, etc, season with salt and pepper, whisk, there, you just made tomato sauce. Pour this into the slow cooker (crock pot).
- Boil the cob of corn, if you like corn in the chili, boil two, then remove and cut the kernels from the cobs, and add this to the slow cooker.
- Open the can of tomatoes, and drain the juice into the slow cooker, then pour the tomatoes into a large bowl, using a knife and fork, dice them, add to the slow cooker.
- Add to the slow cooker, 2 cups of cooked black beans, 2 cups of red kidney beans, the chopped onion, the diced chilies, all the spices. (Adding the spices, you just made Taco Seasoning). Add the diced chicken breasts. Mix everything together.
- Cook on Low setting for 8-10 hours, or High setting for 4-6 hours. Serve topped with fresh chopped cilantro, sour cream, grated Cheddar cheese, up to you.
Notes
Chicken is the most costly part of this recipe, 4 chicken breast would be about 100 Baht, all other items are minimal, this is a less than $1 per person meal.
Adapted from an internet recipe, and heavily modified to remove the processed items.
