Easy Chilli Con Carne Recipe

An easy chilli con carne recipe, perfect for the whole family. This slow cooked beef steak dish is also a great freezer filler.

Chilli con Carne (or Chili con Carne as the American’s spell it) is one of those family favourite dishes. A great winter warmer, but also perfect for these British summer days where the weather tends to let us down a bit. Eating this outside with a side of tortilla chips (and a margharita?!) makes me feel like perhaps we could actually still be on the way to summer, despite grey skies outside.

This is my tried and tested family version of chilli con carne. I have no idea how authentic it is (perhaps not at all) but we love it. It freezes well and it’s mild enough for the children, but easy to add heat too if you fancy it.

Marigold got in touch with me recently and asked if I’d like to try their new, extra safe, disposable kitchen gloves from home cooks. Apparently Queen Nigella uses disposable gloves for chopping pungent ingredients. I always love a Nigella tip, so I tested it out and used the gloves for chopping the onions, garlic and chilli in this recipe. I was super impressed. No scrubbing my hands or avoiding touching my eyes afterwards.

They are powder free, so no food contamination and they are available from supermarkets at £4.99 for a box of 40. They are also latex free so a great alternative to other disposable gloves if you have an allergy.

I’ll definitely be whipping out a pair of these every time I make this recipe.

On to the ingredients, I always use chunks of beef rather than mince to make this easy chilli con carne, I saw it once many moons ago on a programme about cowboy cooking, true story, and I’ve never looked back. I think the texture is so much better than with mince and it feels like a real treat.

If you’re on a health kick for summer like I am, it’s also Slimming World friendly – hurrah!

Have I sold it to you yet?!

Here’s  some top tips if you plan on making this Easy Chili Con Carne:

• Buy your meat from the butcher if possible, they will also chop it into the small chunks you need if you ask nicely.
• Pat the meat dry with kitchen towel before frying it.
• Don’t push it around the pan too much, just let it sit and fry off, getting really caramelised.
• Really let the onions cook down slowly, this adds a lovely depth of flavour I think.
• If you want to add more heat to the adult portions when you serve it, just add more chopped raw fresh chilli or some Tabasco sauce.
• If you’re following Slimming World, replace oil with FryLight, and count the syns for the sugar (which will be negligible across the 8 portions), serve with yoghurt and boiled rice.

Easy Chilli Con Carne Recipe:

Easy Chilli Con Carne Recipe

 

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Cook time

1 hour 45 mins

Total time

1 hour 45 mins

 

Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 2 tsp Olive oil
• 1 kg Braising steak (or chuck steak), chopped into 2cm cubes
• 1 large Onion, sliced
• 3 cloves Garlic, peeled and crushed
• 1 tbsp Ground cumin
• 1 tsp Paprika
• 1 Red chilli (finely chopped) (or more if you'd like more spice - 1 leaves this mild for children)
• 1 tbsp Dark brown sugar
• 2 tins Good quality tinned tomatoes (I use Cirio)
• 500ml Beef stock (from a good quality stock cube is fine)
• 2 x 400g tins of Kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 3 Peppers, chopped into big chunks (red or green work best)
• Coriander, rice, sour cream and tortilla chips to serve

Instructions

1. Heat half of the olive oil in a large, deep, oven proof, pan. Pat the braising steak dry with kitchen paper and fry in batches until well browned.
2. Preheat the oven to 160C.
3. With all of the browned steak out of the pan, add the rest of the olive oil, the onion, garlic, cumin, paprika, chilli and sugar. Cook gently over a very low heat for about 15 minutes, until the onions are meltingly soft and everything is sticky and fragrant.
4. Add the meat back into the pan, along with the tomatoes and beef stock, stir. Pop the lid on the pan and put into the oven.
5. After an hour and a half, give everything a good stir. The meat should be quite soft now. If it isn't, put back in for another 30 minutes.
6. Add the kidney beans and peppers and pop back into the oven for a final 15 minutes.
7. Stir well and serve. If freezing, allow to cool completely and pack in to individual portions and label.

3.5.3208

What’s your go to family favourite recipe?

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Disclosure: This recipe was commissioned by Marigold gloves and I was sent samples to try. As always, all opinions are truthful and I wouldn’t endorse a product I didn’t genuinely find useful.

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