Crock Pot Turkey Chili

My husband loves chili. He even eats the canned kind that, I have to admit, kind of scares me. I've never been a fan, with the exception of a white bean chicken chili a friend's parent made when I was in high school. A few weeks ago, I made a chicken tacos crockpot recipe and really liked it. In the past I have made pinto beans with tacos, but never tried them in a dish. The recipe I adapted mine from was found in a Rival crockpot cookbook my mother lent me, and calls for ground beef instead of turkey.
I've included the recipe at bottom of my post.

I started out by browning the ground turkey.  I decided to use the new induction cooker that my husband and I got for Christmas. I am new to the technology, so I've been excited to try it out. I just got a compatible pan for it after trying to use a converter disc really prevented it from working well. It heated up the moment I turned it on and cooked perfectly. I noticed that when I lowered the heat, I could see a change in the temperature the food was cooking at immediately. I'm used to a pretty old oven with a standard coil cooktop, which takes a few moments to warm up. I was pretty impressed. I probably sound like I work for the manufacturer, but seriously, this is just new to me and I was amazed!

I opted to use less meat and since I didn't have cumin on hand and just ran out of minced garlic, I added garlic powder and used more chili powder as according to some reading that is the substitute for cumin. I also included salsa to add some veggies and extra spices to the mix.

Then I mixed the ground turkey, beans, and seasonings together in the crock pot and set it on high.

After 4 hours, we stole a taste and the cooking was definitely going well!

After cooking overnight, the chili was well done.

My husband and I tried the chili after 4 hours in the crockpot (considering the turkey was fully cooked, I figured it was safe) and wow, It was sooo delicious and quite spicy!  I let it cook 7 more hours to see how it would come out,and there's where I went wrong.  After so much cooking, the sides burned a bit and the beans were too overcooked for our tastes. Next time I will use fresh garlic and will try to cook it for 8 hours at most. I have to say, this turned out to be a great dish and a fun learning experience! I officially like chili.



Crock Pot Turkey Chili Recipe

Ingredients:

1 pound ground turkey, browned
1/4 cup taco seasoning
1/2 cup water
1 15.5 ounce can pinto beans
1 can diced tomatoes (I used garlic seasoned)
1 cup salsa
4 tablespoons chili powder
3 tablespoons dried minced onion
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Instructions:

After browning turkey, stir in water and taco seasoning and cook on low for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add pinto beans, tomatoes, salsa, chili powder, minced onion, garlic powder, salt, and pepper and mix thoroughly. Pour into crock pot and cook on low 10-12 hours.


Original recipe: