Instant Pot Chili…look in your cabinets and freezer for what you have! 

It was a snowy day on Saturday in the burbs of Philly.  I was cleaning up my house and by cleaning I mean massively, including purging stuff I hadn’t looked at in years…you know like the cute little cards your kids made for Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day?  I kept them, but chucked a huge bag of trash and also created a giveaway bag for the Veterans! 

I have been on a mission to find recipes for my new Instant Pot.   I had one pound of ground beef in my freezer and one can of black beans, a few cans of crushed tomatoes.  I was hell bent on using my new Instant Pot to make something whilst I was busy cleaning!

I texted around to neighbors checking to see if anyone could add to my one can of black beans and googled Instant Pot Chili recipes.  I found a suitable one and went for it, hacking through the recipe my own way!

First I followed the directions on how to use frozen ground beef in an instant pot.  I broke out that little basket insert that came with the pot that my sister said I would probably never use.  I think that took 12 minutes.

From there I drained the liquid, took out the basket and hit saute.  I didn’t feel like dealing with chopping peppers and onions (this is the story of my life in the kitchen.  Anyone that knows me knows I do not enjoy cooking), so I used my frozen Trader Joe’s peppers and onions, about half a bag, and also dumped in a good teaspoon of Wegmans Minced Garlic. 

Once that was done, I added the spices below and hit pressure cook.  The whole process took maybe 45 minutes start to finish and that was in between cleaning.   The cool thing about this Instant Pot is you don’t need to figure out time or temperature.  Crazy, right?!

 The chili was a little soupy initially, but after chilling in the fridge, came out great!  I had about 6 meals out of this!  Pretty awesome, easy and quick.  I am all about easy and quick in the kitchen!

Spices:

• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1-2 tablespoons chili powder*
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika optional

Rest of Ingredients:

• 3 cans of 15oz each red kidney beans, drained & rinsed ( I only had two, one black and one Great northern)
• 1 1/3 cups beef broth or chicken broth low sodium
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce (I used Coconut Amino’s)
• 1 can of 28oz crushed tomatoes
• 3 bay leaves