Chili is a wonderful and filling easy meal that can be made ahead and tastes great reheated. It is also a meal that can easily be made grain free, bean free, etc. and served to guests who aren’t used to “health food” without anyone even noticing.
5 Ingredient Crock Pot Chili Recipe
This chili recipe is one of my favorites for its simplicity. It has only five ingredients (if you keep homemade chili seasoning on hand) and comes together quickly.
This chili recipe is most easily made in a slow cooker, but it can also be made on the stove more quickly.
We serve crock pot chili with coconut flour biscuits. I add some grated cheese, diced green onions, and garlic to the biscuits to make them savory.
Re-heated, this chili is also good in omelets or on top of eggs. A big pot at the beginning of the week also makes enough for plenty of healthy lunches during the week.
5 Ingredient Crock-Pot Chili Recipe [Bean Free]
Ingredients
- 3-4 lbs ground beef (or venison, sausage, bison, ground turkey, or a mix)
- 2 onions (finely diced)
- 3-4 cans diced tomatoes
- 15 oz tomato sauce
- ¼ cup homemade chili seasoning (or chili powder, black pepper, salt, garlic powder, and cilantro to taste)
Instructions
- Dump raw meat and all other ingredients in Crock-Pot.
- Cook on low 5-6 hours or high 2-3 hours until meat is done and flavors are blended, or make in 30 minutes on stove.
- Enjoy 🙂
Notes
Nutrition
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How do you make chili? Add any unusual flavorings? My husband’s favorite is Cincinnati style. What’s yours?
Thanks for this! I plan on making this tomorrow because I love simple meals. I read that this can be made in a pot in 30 minutes, is that correct? I just want to make sure. Thanks…
Hi wellness Mama.
When you add raw meat to your crockpot, does it make the Chili greasy? I would love to just throw my meat raw for Chili in the crockpot, but it makes me a little nervous not draining the meat. Does the Chili come out thick and does it taste greasy??
It is thick, but not greasy. I use grass fed meat though, which naturally has less fat in it…
I truly enjoy using your site for many of my kitchen needs, but this recipe is NOT one I will be making any time soon.
For starters, I definitely do not consider chorizo a health food! It is very high in saturated fat and is typically full of all kinds of ‘extras’ from pork processing that would be otherwise unpalatable.
Secondly, please advocate the use of locally produced, organic meats in your introduction and explain why this is so important. I’m sure you do this in other areas of your site, but for someone doing a simple search who hasn’t been informed of the dangers of non-organic, store-bought, processed meat would not know the importance of this issue. And for a blogger who is focused on wellness and proper nutrition, emphasizing buying certified organic meats (and/or sustainably raised) from local farmers is VITAL, in my opinion. If you’re not sure why this is so, please email me!
Third, an explanation of why you don’t eat many beans/legumes would be interesting, too. As a primarily veggie-based omnivore who loves beans and eats them often, I’d love to learn more about this. I honestly can’t imagine a chili without beans! But, that’s just me 😉
Thanks for considering my comments and hopefully taking action to amend this recipe!
So to your opinion, you rated this 1 star? You didn’t even try making this recipe, you’re just complaining.
How rude.
I thought this recipe came out really amazing. Kudos to Katie!
I agree. Don’t rate it if you didn’t even make it! It says says use any combo of meat you like….you don’t have to use chorizo. I used 3 different meats. Next time I will do a different combo to test out, but my family liked it.
Does the frozen meat not have to be cooked first? I’m going to try this tomorrow with 2lbs of frozen beef and 1lb of spicy sausage…but haven’t read and replies yet on if the meat needs to precooked or not. Do you think with my meat choices without precooking it will make my chili super fatty? Any idea on measurements on the spices? Even just a ballpark would help!
This recipe looks awesome! I will let you know how it turns out! Thanks for the help!
I’ve made it with frozen before and it was fine. I use a couple tablespoons of cumin, chili powder, etc and the rest to taste 🙂
Frozen meat being RAW frozen meat or PRECOOKED frozen meat? I’ve seen several people ask & the question still not answered. It makes a difference for us who haven’t attempted this before……
Katie,. You’re still not answering the question….raw or cooked frozen meat?
It’d be helpful to know.
Many thanks
I typically defrost first.
Use RAW meat in this recipe.
Why no beans? Just curious…
We don’t eat a lot of beans and legumes. Too much phytic acid.
In our case we just are not fans of BEANS
I know you said you’ve done frozen meat, but do you mean precooked or raw?
This is a reassuring recipe because I dumped all the ingredients in my crockpot this morning and forgot to fry the meat and drain the grease first! By the look of your recipe that isn’t necessary so I hope mine will come out OK!
It wasn’t bad but you have to use very lean meat if you aren’t frying the fat out first, else the finished chili will be a bit fatty.
This recipe sounds great! Do you use ground beef or whole pieces of meat?
ground
I remember making this a year ago before my little guy was born and being drawn to it because it was so easy — dumping frozen meat in the crockpot? Win! I am making this again today, hoping the frozen meat cooks in time. I am using beef sausage, pork sausage and grass-fed beef. I eyeballed the spices, but last year I don’t remember if I measured them and regardless, it turned out fine! I froze the extras and saved it for after the baby was born and it helped serve some of my family who visited. Thanks for this easy and gas-free chili idea! (We all know about beans as the magical fruit!) 🙂
I did a search for “easy Paleo crockpot chili”, and this came up, so I went with it. My wife, who is very picky about food, said, “This is so good, I’m getting full, but I don’t want to stop eating it!” Made your coconut biscuits with it. They also went over VERY well with both mom and 3 year old daughter. Have bookmarked your site for future reference!