Kid-made Chilli

This year my big kids and I have been working on expanding their cooking repertoire. They are fabulous at helping me in the kitchen, and we are beginning to build up a list of recipes they can make pretty much on their own. We are slowly adding more and more dinner recipes to the list as eventually we’d like to have one night a week where the kids cook.

One of the dinner recipes my ten year old twins have recently mastered is a simple, kid-friendly, chilli.

We make up a BIG batch of ‘chilli’ around about once a month. It’s not a traditional chilli, more of a meat and veggie, kid-friendly, Mexican flavoured sauce that can be used to make lots of different meals.

It’s easy to cook, it freezes well, and it is the main ingredient in all our favourite Mexi style dinners.

Kid-made Chilli

Yield: 4-6

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

This simple chilli recipe is a great, healthy dinner recipe the kids can learn to cook.

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Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil.
• 200 gms minced beef (or replace with a tin of chick peas)
• 1 can of baked beans (425 gms) or home-made
• 1 can mixed beans (420 gms) or equivalent precooked dry beans
• 1 can tomatoes (400gms)
• 2 capsicums chopped (red and/or green)
• 1/2 can corn or 1 cup frozen corn
• 1 large carrots grated
• 2 tbsp home made taco seasoning or half a packet of taco mix
• Optional - other veggies such as grated zucchini, finely diced spinach, etc

Instructions

1. The quantities above make a single dinner's worth of chilli, double or triple the recipe to make a large batch to freeze.
2. Feel free to vary the quantities of ingredients and substitute for other ingredients as suits. Add some chilli powder if you like things spicy.
3. In a large saucepan heat the olive oil over a medium heat then add the minced beef. Cook the minced, breaking it up into small pieces until it is well browned.
4. Add the capsicum, corn, grated carrot and any other veggies and mix
5. Add the tomatoes, baked beans, and mixed beans and taco seasoning and stir well.
6. Cook over a low heat, with the mixture just bubbling slightly for approximately 45 minutes (or more, the longer the better) stirring occasionally.
7. Freeze in air tight containers or serve.

You can find our recipe for home-made taco seasoning here, and a great recipe for home-made baked beans here.

Once you have a big pot of chilli or a freezer stocked full or chilli sauce, here’s four ways to serve it for dinner…

Chilli And Chips.

Serve the chilli sauce over some steamed rice with cheese, sour cream and guacamole. As an added bonus, we put some corn chips in a heat proof tray, sprinkle with a little grated cheese and heat in the oven till the cheese has melted to make very basic nachos to dip into our chilli.

Mexi Bake.

My kids would eat this Planning With Kids recipe every week if I let them! We top ours with crushed up corn chips for some extra crunch!

Tacos.

Our kids LOVE tacos, mostly because everyone can make their own, so they can have them just how they like them. If you have chilli sauce in the freezer this is a super quick and easy meal that the kids can prepare with confidence.

Enchiladas.

We make our own cheats enchilada sauce by adding some taco seasoning to a jar of tomato passata or some of our home grown roasted tomato concentrate. Then just put a little sauce on the bottom of an oven proof dish, fill soft tortillas with your chilli sauce and a little grated cheese, roll them and place them in the dish. Top the rolled tortillas with some more enchilada sauce and some grated cheese and bake in the oven until the cheese is melted and bubbling!

Do your kids cook dinner? What is their favourite meal to cook?