Chili: Cook Once, Feast All Week

Alright, listen: I wanna tell y’all about my most recent discovery. Over winter break, I found an easy, delicious, cozy, and super convenient meal prep strategy that I want to share with y’all.

If you're like me, you are very hesitant to cook new meals for the first time during the semester. I worry that it won’t taste good and, after all, that meal feeds me for the week. Not only that, but I also don’t have a ton of time to cook once the semester starts. If you feel me for either of those, you’ll love the new hack I’m about to share with you. You wanna know what it is? Chili.

It’s so simple. So healthy. SO YUMMY. You cook the meat, you open all your cans, you throw everything in a big ole pot, you cook it, then you eat and have food for a whole week (AT LEAST). In this blog, I’ll teach you how to meal prep your chili while giving you some solid cooking pointers, so you have the confidence you need to start cooking for the week.

Where to Start

First, you need to find a good recipe. There are a TON of recipes you can use; I mean, there IS a reason that chili cook-offs are a thing. So, you can go search online for a good recipe, but what I recommend you do is to reach out to your inner circle of friends and family, tell them you’re looking for a good chili recipe you want to try, and I’m sure you’ll come back with something good. You’ll be surprised when you learn who in your family has a good chili recipe that they keep secretly in their back pocket for a rainy day. I got my recipe from my uncle!

Hopefully, you can find a recipe to really make your own. BUT, if you want a super easy starter chili recipe, I've got you.

Starter Chili Recipe.pdf

Download PDF • 72KB

Once you have your recipe, it’s time to go shopping. Go to the store and get everything that your recipe calls for. Your recipe will likely call for a variety of tomatoes, onions, meat like beef or chicken, and a whole lotta beans. I also want to note here that if your recipe calls for ground beef, you may consider using ground turkey instead. Turkey is way less saturated in fat and calories, and you can’t notice the difference in chili–– it tastes just as good, if not better! In addition to all your ingredients, you need to check and be sure that you have a big pot, and I mean BIG. This is essential because that is where EVERYTHING you just bought will be going. Once you have all the ingredients and a big pot, you’re ready to cook!

Some Cooking Tips

Believe it or not, this is the easy part! Here, I’m going to let you cook on your own because I trust that you are going to do a good job. But before you start cooking, I want to teach you some tricks that are going to help you, because these steps are required in almost every chili recipe.

Can-Opening

The first thing I did was use a handheld can-opener to open all the cans of beans and tomatoes I had.

Welcome to can-opener boot camp, where I will teach you how to use a can-opener (skip if you already have this skill down). You laugh, but you are going to need to be an expert at opening cans if you want to be a chili master. Start by holding the opener with your left hand. With the levers open, put the metal spinning disk on the lid towards the right edge of the can. Pull the handles together and keep a firm grip to pierce the can.

Now you’re live, and you don’t wanna lose it. With your right hand, twist the knob clockwise while keeping your left hand firm and level. The can will rotate and open as you turn. Finally, once you are right about to reach the end, stop and leave the lid barely attached. This way, the lid doesn’t fall into the can, and it’s easy to pull up and bend it back. Good, we know how to open cans now.

Next, I guarantee that whatever chili recipe you’re using will want you to dice some vegetables like onions or peppers, so now I will teach y’all how to properly dice both of these. But before I can do that…

Knife Safety:

If you don’t listen to me carefully, you are very likely to lose a finger, almost lose a finger, or even worse, embarrass yourself in front of whoever you’re cooking for.

1st Rule: Do not trust the knife. We are cutting slippery, imperfect, and curvy objects, so do not trust that the knife is going to do what you want it to.

2nd Rule: Never cut in the direction of any part of your body. This is the most common mistake. Amateurs apply more pressure on the knife because they want to cut through the hard part of the veggie, then once they finally cut through, the pressure they were just applying allows the knife to go easily through the rest of the veggie quickly and straight into their finger.

Third Rule: Go slow, take caution. You are not in Ratatouille. No one is testing you to see how fast you can cut a pepper. Just go slow, work on perfecting your technique, take caution, and keep all 10 fingers.

Alright, sorry about that. My lawyers advised me to put that in here, and they’re right!

Onion-Cutting

1. First, peel the dry top layer of onion off. You can throw that away.

2. Next, cut off the bottom root of the onion, which is usually the pointier side of the onion, with a flat and stubby knot.

3. Then, cut the onion in half, splitting through the stem. This cut is to give us good onion stabilization.

Perform steps 4-7 on each onion hemisphere…

4. Now, I want you to make several thin, longitudinal cuts from the bottom of the onion to the stem. Don’t cut all the way through on the stem side, as this helps keep all the pieces together until we’re done cutting.

5. Optional: I like to make a big crosscut, with the knife cutting flat-side up, from the base to the stem (again, not going all the way through). This cuts through all those slices we just made, and though this cut is not totally necessary to give you a good dice, it’s an extra step that isn’t too much more work, especially with a sharp knife.

6. Lastly, here’s the fun part. Make latitudinal cuts to cross the slices we formed earlier. Make these cuts starting from the base to the stem. Your onion will then begin to dice!

7. Give an extra cut to the parts that didn’t quite get cut, throw away that stem, and you’re done!

I’m gonna give y’all one more tip you may need for cooking chili, and that’s how to cut a jalapeño (or green pepper). I didn’t know how to do this not that long ago. But when my recipe called for it, I called on my friend and roommate, Gabe, to teach me. Gabe comes from a Mexican household that uses a lot of peppers, so fear not, for I have learned from the expert.

Jalapeño-Cutting

1. First, cut off the stem. Not just the stem, but you want to remove it all, where that whole side of the pepper is still curving and not the full width of the pepper.

2. Now, with the pepper sitting like an arc, cut down the middle of the pepper long ways, to split the pepper into two long slices.

Perform steps 3-7 on each pepper half…

3. Next, use a spoon to remove the seeds and the white core. Start along the end that used to have the stem and use the spoon to scrape the seeds and core out. You can throw these away.

4. Make a few thin cuts long-ways. It’s gonna feel a little awkward because the pepper doesn’t resist your cuts very well, but just be firm and do your best to cut through the thick pepper skin.

5. Finally, make several thin cuts perpendicular to your previous cuts. These crosscuts will dice the pepper!

6. One last step: Wash your hands! Do not rub your eyes or nose until you’ve washed your hands, or you’ll be in a lot of pain!

Time to Eat

Once your chili is done cooking, congratulations, you now have dinner for a week! What I like to do is keep it in the pot I cooked it in, keep it in the fridge, and scoop some into a bowl whenever I’m craving some. Chili tastes just as good coming out of the microwave as it does freshly cooked. I usually microwave mine covered for 1 minute and 45 seconds, stir, then again for 1 minute and 30 seconds, and that typically does the trick.

Now, the last thing you need to do is to decide how you would like to eat your chili. I like to serve mine up with lightly salted Fritos, shredded cheddar cheese, and some sour cream. You can experiment with other things to throw in your chili, like cottage cheese or saltine crackers. Some days when I’m REALLY hungry, I like to make grilled cheeses and dip them in the chili, and it’s…MUAH. I hope y’all learned how to meal prep chili and picked up some good tips on how to properly cook it!

Be well, Auburn.