Cooking: Slow Cooked BBQ Chicken Chili

Looking ahead to the next month, I realized I am going to be super busy with work, weekend/vacation! travel, and marathon training. In order to avoid having to eat out/eat unhealthy, I spent last weekend stocking my freezer with delicious meals in case I don't have a chance to cook. I think I ended up making 24 servings of three of my favorite meals (all blog posts to come). When thinking about what to make, I immediately thought of my go to meal - BBQ Chicken Chili:

It is super easy (a theme to a lot of my weeknight cooking). I usually make it for the winter, but with how cold my office is these days it constantly feels like winter. If you don't have a slow cooker, get one! I spent 15 minutes putting this together Monday morning (10 minutes worth of can opening - or at least it felt like that) and when I came home after a long day of work I had a delicious, hearty meal prepared and a house that smelled like BBQ. Win! 

I can't even count the number of times I have made this over the years - I discovered it in high school when I joined Weight Watchers and began my love affair with cooking. They have some awesome cookbooks! I have always gotten rave reviews of this one and people would never think the recipe came from them. As a note, I have discovered I definitely prefer my chili with ground chicken versus beef thanks to this and another recipe I make, but you could easily substitute ground beef

Let's get cooking!

Ingredients (see original recipe):

1 pound ground chicken

1 onion, diced

1 green bell pepper, diced

3 garlic cloves, minced (I have a jar of minced garlic I use when I don't feel like dicing)

1 (14oz) can diced tomatoes

2 (15 1/2oz) cans kidney beans, drained

1 (15 1/2 oz) can pinto or great northern beans, drained

12 oz chili sauce (right next to the ketchup in the grocery store, usually in a glass bottle)

1 (4 1/2oz) can diced green chilies (usually by the mexican ingredients like taco shells, taco seasoning)

2 tbsp worcestershire sauce (usually with the condiments)   

2 tbsp chili powder (or more if you like it hot!)

1 tbsp cumin

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp molasses (baking aisle)

Directions:

(not pictured due to ugliness) Place the uncooked chicken in the slow cooker and use a spatula or meat-breaker-upper to well, break up the meat. Make sure to do this well otherwise you will get huge chunks! You don't need to pre-cook (brown) the chicken for this recipe.

Dice the bell pepper and the onion. A simple trick to dicing the onion is to cut off the root end (keeping the end that holds the onion together as pictured above) and then cut the onion in half. Peel the outer layer off. Cut strips in the onion perpendicular to the stub, and then turn and cut across (parallel to the stub). Because an onion is layered, this will result in nice diced pieces (after you use your fingers or a spatula to break them apart).

Add to the slow cooker with the chicken and garlic.

Then add the remaining ingredients (most of them pictured) to the slow cooker in whatever order your heart desires. (It might be best to train for this recipe by opening 2-4 cans a day for 5 days.)

Stir well to combine. Cook on high for 4-5 hours or low for 8-10.

Enjoy!