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This is my favorite chili recipe, ever. While you can make chili on the stove, I think a slow cooker chili is the best way to make one, the flavours simmer all day long and meld together, culminating in a hot, delicious meal at the end of your busy day! This recipe has been updated from 2010 – and yes, we have been eating this chili for almost a decade now! It is my go-to chili recipe!
If you are in a hurry, make my Instant Pot chili, it’s fast, easy and delicious!
I LOVE a good chili and confession time : the chili that I love the most, is Tim Horton’s chili. For my American friends, Tim Horton’s is a mainly Canadian doughnut and coffee shop that is seriously a Canadian institution. Going ice fishing? Get a thermos of Timmy’s coffee beforehand. Hockey practice with the kids at 6 am? You have a Timmy’s in hand.
What I love at Timmy’s has always been their chili. I would really love to be able to perfect their chili, but the closest I have come is this chili recipe. I inspected the chili at Timmy’s one day, and saw chunks of every imaginable vegetable possible in there. And perhaps some objects that were not readily identifiable as well.
So I copied the concept and put in everything in this chili recipe but the kitchen sink.
How to Make Homemade Chili From Scratch
- Prep your veggies.
- Combine the can of crushed tomatoes, and the two cans of rinsed beans into the crock pot, mix in the brown sugar, chili powder and ketchup. Add in all of your veggies.
- Fry up the ground beef/turkey with the white onions until the beef is cooked and the onions are soft.
- Mix into the slow cooker.
- When the ingredients are nice and soft, take about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of the chili, and puree it. Add it back in, and continue to cook it for another 15 minutes or so.
- Serve with shredded cheese on top and enjoy!
Chef’s Tips & Tricks for Making the Best Homemade Chili
I am going to preface this section by telling you that I have judged more chili contests in my city than any other person I know. For years and years I would head downtown to the Edmonton Chili Cook Off and judge chili that the best chefs in Edmonton had submitted. I have eaten more taste-tests of chili than I can count – BUT I also got to see ALL of the chef’s secret ingredients! They had to submit a list of their chili ingredients to us and I did my research!
- Use ketchup in your chili. YES. Almost all of the winning chili’s had ketchup in their ingredients and yes, we are talking the finest chef’s in Edmonton used ketchup out of the Heinz bottle in their chili! That is because the sugar in the ketchup foils the acidity of not only the tomatoes but the chili powder, which is a fairly acidic spice to the palate. Every time we would rave about a chili from a chef, we would see ketchup on the ingredient list!
- Slow cooking the chili. The chefs would simmer their chili’s for hours on end and by the time it made it’s way to the judges table, the meat was velvet. And that leads me to the next chili tip:
- Ground Beef needs to be low and slow cooked. I keep reading a common misconception that slow cooking ground beef is ruining it. Ground beef benefits from slow cooking by being turned into a velvet, luxurious beef that it wasn’t 4 hours ago in your cooking process. Check out the ground beef in my Bolognese Sauce. VELVET. And that is the secret to the meat in a chili!
- You can use my Homemade Chili Seasoning in this recipe as well, just omit the chili powder and season to taste.
- Puree the ingredients slightly at the end. This makes the BEST sauce base for the rest of the chili and I am pretty sure that’s what TImmy’s does as well. By pureeing about a cup of the ingredients you are thickening the chili without flour or anything else.
Freeze the Leftovers!
This chili recipe freezes extremely well! Simply place in lidded, freezer safe containers and freeze for 3-4 months. If you want ,to make thus chili for school lunches, I freeze it in the appropriately sized containers then defrost them in the microwave and heat up for lunches.
Meat to Use in This Chili
For this chili recipe, you also have the option of going with either beef or turkey, it’s completely up to you. You can also make this chili completely vegetarian, just replace the meat amount with another can of beans and some more vegetables.
Also, while you are at it, print out my Pumpkin Chili to try another time. Just trust me. You and your family (kids included) will freak out about it. It’s a phenomenal recipe!
Happy cooking!
Love,
Karlynn
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Kitchen Sink Chili
- Prep Time
- 20 minutes
- Cook Time
- 3 hours
- Total Time
- 3 hours 20 minutes
- Course
- Main Course
- Cuisine
- American
- Servings
- 8
- Calories
- 514
- Author
- Karlynn Johnston
Ingredients
Ground Beef Mixture
- 1/2 white onion diced
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 2 pounds ground beef or turkey
Chili Ingredients
- 28 ounces can of crushed tomatoes
- 15 ounces can of black beans drained and rinsed
- 15 ounces can of kidney beans drained and rinsed
- 1/2 red pepper diced
- 1/2 yellow pepper diced
- 1/2 orange pepper diced
- 1/2 green pepper diced
- 1-2 cups of mushrooms
- 2 carrots diced
- 2 celery diced
- 4 tablespoons chili powder
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1/3 cup of ketchup
Instructions
- Fry the ground beef with the white onions until the beef is cooked and the onions are soft. Drain the grease then add in the minced garlic and saute for another 2 minutes until the garlic is browned and fragrant.
- Place the ground beef mixture into the slow cooker.
- Dice up all your veggies and place everything into the slow cooker.
- Combine the can of crushed tomatoes, and the two cans of rinsed beans into the crock pot, mix in the brown sugar, chili powder and ketchup.
- Cook on low for 8-9 hours or on high for 4-5 hours.
- When the vegetables are nice and soft, take about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of the chili, and puree it. This gives it a thicker, tastier base to it. Add it back in, and continue to cook it for another 30 minutes or so.
- Serve with shredded cheese on top and enjoy!
Recipe Notes
Nutrition Information
All calories and info are based on a third party calculator and are only an estimate. Actual nutritional info will vary with brands used, your measuring methods, portion sizes and more.
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John says
Haven’t made this recipe yet but I gave it a 4 star rating anyways.
It looks delicious; however, the Serving size in the Nutritional Information section is only 10 grams which is obviously in error.
The “Carbohydrates: 44g, Protein: 32g, Fat: 24g, Saturated Fat: 8g” alone add up to 108 grams.
I track these statistics in most of my cooking and would really like to know what the actual serving size was. Hope this page can be update. Thanks
Karlynn Johnston says
Hey John, the calculator is done by a third party (I mention this as a disclaimer in my recipe card always) and the information cannot be counted on to be accurate for those who track their nutritional needs. The best thing to do if you need to track your nutrition is to enter what you use in your personal cooking into an online calculator that you trust.
Erin Franco says
I’ve made this recipe at least five times now–it’s delicious. And I feel so good about serving this to my family of six because of all of those gorgeous vegetables:)
Sonia Olivier says
This was a hit with the family and I did freeze the leftovers. Thanks for the great chili recipe.
Hilda says
My fridge and pantry are completely empty right now but I’m gonna go with your whole kitchen sink theme here and just fill up the crock pot with what I can find and hope it comes out remotely chilli-ish. Totally trying the pureeing thing, sounds so good!
thekitchenmagpie says
@Hilda Hope it worked out for you!~
Aditya1707 says
This is delicious! I love cooking things in a crockpot. It’s really a magicpot! I used turkey too.
crissie says
Love the idea of pureeing. So great! Mine is always too runny.
thekitchenmagpie says
@crissie Pureeing is the single best thing I’ve ever discovered when it comes to soup and chilis. WHAT a fabulous difference it makes!
Em says
This looks so yummy! I can’t wait to try it myself.
thekitchenmagpie says
@Em It’s good, healthy and yummy! Hope you liked it!