When I say this recipe is our weekly staple I am not kidding — we make this recipe every week without fail! It’s simple, tasty, healthy, and inexpensive. Not to mention we usually get about three dinners out of it, so it makes our weekly meal plans pretty easy. Eventually I’m sure we’ll tire of our weekly chili, but right now we love it. I originally found this recipe in the cookbook Slim & Scrumptious but I’ve tweaked it a little by adding in more veggies and substituting a few things to Paleo-ize it if need be.

So here it is, a simple and yummy recipe for some yummy Buffalo Chicken Chili!

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Ingredients

  • 8 carrots
  • 8 stalks of celery
  • 6 cloves of garlic
  • 2 pounds of ground chicken (or turkey, and it’s ok if there’s a little more meat than 2 pounds)
  • 2 tablespoons chili powder
  • 2 tablespoons flour (Paleo-ize: substitute with almond or coconut flour)
  • 4 cups vegetable or tomato juice (Whole Foods has a yummy vegetable blend juice that’s exactly 4 cups)
  • 1/4 – 1/2 cup hot sauce (we like Cholula hot sauce)

Directions

  1. Set a pot on the stove and put the heat to medium-high.
  2. Peel carrots and cut them lengthwise, then slice them into little half-moons. Cut the celery too into small slices and mince the garlic.
  3. Drizzle a little olive oil into your pot, then toss in your carrots and celery to sauté. Stir occasionally and cook for about 10 minutes. Add a tablespoon of water occasionally if the veggies start to scorch (but don’t make it too watery, just enough to keep everything free and moving when you stir it)
  4. Add the garlic in and sauté for 1 minute.
  5. Add your ground chicken in with the veggies. Sauté while continuously breaking the chicken into smaller pieces and stirring it into the veggies. Cook for about 5 minutes or until you notice the chicken is no longer pink. Be sure to stir it well and not leave any little bits stuck to the sides or bottom.
  6. Sprinkle in your chili powder and flour and stir to evenly coat the chicken and veggies.
  7. Immediately add the vegetable juice and hot sauce.
  8. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer (partially covered) for at least 20 minutes.

And that’s it! You’re welcome to put some toppings on it, though we usually don’t since we still eat minimal diary. The book listed a blue cheese topping (1/4 cup nonfat sour cream and 1/4 cup blue cheese crumbles) that you can make, but we haven’t tried it. We usually like to pair the chili with some baked skillet bread (made out of almond flour) or some other baked veggies.

Typically we get about 6 servings out of this recipe, though we don’t have large bowls and usually eat something else on the side (so you may find it makes 4 large servings).

Hope you give this a try, it’s super easy and very yummy!

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What are your go-to favorite recipes? Please share!